Offenders as victims of crime?: an investigation into the relationship between criminal behaviour and victimization

We consider the association between victimization and offending behaviour by using data from the Youth Lifestyles Survey. We consider the effect of violent and non-violent offending on the probability of being a victim of violent and non-violent crime and find a positive association between these by using univariate probit estimates. However, taking into account the endog- enous nature of offending and victimization via a bivariate probit model, we find that univariate estimates understate the association. We suggest that policy recommendations should only be informed by the bivariate analysis of the association between offending and victimization. Copyright 2004 Royal Statistical Society.