In a research study published in the July 2009 special issue of the journal Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice dealing with biosocial criminology, Kevin M. Beaver, of the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University, reveals that genetic factors may be the primary reason that some adolescents are more likely than others to be victimized by crime.

"Victimization can appear to be a purely environmental phenomenon, in which people are randomly victimized for reasons that have nothing to do with their genes," said Beaver. "However, because we know that genetically influenced traits such as low self control affect delinquent behavior, and delinquents, particularly violent ones, tend to associate with antisocial peers, I had reasons to suspect that genetic factors could influence the odds of someone becoming a victim of crime, and these formed the basis of our study."

Beaver and his team analyzed a sample of data from identical and same-sex fraternal twins previously interviewed for the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and discovered that genetic factors explained a surprisingly significant 40 to 45 percent of the variance in adolescent victimization among the twins. Non-shared environments explained the remaining variance. Even more surprising was the discovery that among adolescents who were victimized repeatedly, the effect of genetic factors accounted for a whopping 64 percent of the variance.

"It is possible that we detected this genetic effect on victimization because it is operating indirectly through behaviors," Beaver said. "The same genetic factors that promote antisocial behavior may also promote victimization, because adolescents who engage in acts of delinquency tend to have delinquent peers who are more likely to victimize them. In turn, these victims are more likely to be repeatedly victimized, and to victimize others."

Beaver and his colleagues concludes that "victims of crime are not always innocent bystanders targeted at random, but instead, sometimes actively participate in the construction of their victimization experiences".

"However, we're not suggesting that victimization occurs because a gene is saying 'Okay, go get victimized,' or solely because of genetic factors," Beaver said. "All traits and behaviors result from a combination of genes and both shared and non-shared environmental factors."

And environmental factors can make a difference, he noted. The social and family environment in an adolescent's life may either exacerbate or blunt genetic effects — a phenomenon known in the field of behavioral genetics as a "gene X environment interaction."

The study can be accessed online at the journal's website: http://yvj.sagepub.com/pap.dtl

Source: http://www.fsu.edu/news/2009/05/14/crime.victims/