title: Prevalence of women's violent and nonviolent offending behavior: a comparison of self-reports, victims' reports, and third-party reports.
abstract: This study assessed women's violent and nonviolent offending, using data from two online student samples (men and women: n = 344), reporting on either being a perpetrator and witness (women) or being a victim and witness (men). A comprehensive measure of general violence, intimate partner violence (IPV), and nonviolent offending was collected. From women's self-reports, 59.9% reported perpetrating general violent offenses, 58.1% reported perpetrating IPV offenses and 85.6% reported perpetrating nonviolent offenses. Correlations showed that women were involved in a variety of offenses and demonstrated the interrelatedness of general violence and IPV, and of violent and nonviolent offenses. Regression analysis confirmed the close association between partner and general violence, and found that drug offenses were also related to the former and criminal damage to the latter. Overall, the prevalence data demonstrated women's involvement in all types of offending, and a similar pattern of offending was supported across data sources. Limitations of the sampling method and measures are discussed.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK. ajthornton@uclan.ac.uk
authors.forename: Abigail J V
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Thornton
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Graham-Kevan
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Archer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003415:Crime / Q000145:classification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019548:Crime Victims; D057237:Criminals; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012044:Regression Analysis; D057566:Self Report; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology; D014754:Violence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055815:Young Adult