Criminal History and Assault of Dating Partners: The Role of Type of Prior Crime, Age of Onset, and Gender

Assessing Dimensions of Parental Discipline

“…In the last 2 weeks 'Have you felt low in spirits or sad? '), (b) an anxiety scale, based on three selected items of the SCL-90 (R) with high factor loadings (Derogatis 2004;Derogatis and Cleary 1977) ('spells of terror or panic'; 'worrying too much'; 'nervousness or shakiness inside') rated on a 5-point Likert scale, (c) an antisocial behavior scale, based on five items selected because of their highest factor loadings in a preliminary sample ('I feel sorry when I hurt someone' (reverse coded); 'I often do things that other people think are dangerous'; 'I don't think about how what I do will affect other people'; 'I often lie to get what I want'; 'I have trouble following the rules at work or in school') from the Personal and Relationships Profile (PRP; ), (d) a criminal history scale, based on Straus and Ramirez (2004) with three items chosen because of their age appropriateness and their highest factor loadings in a preliminary sample ('Since age 15, I have physically attacked someone with the idea of seriously hurting them'; 'Since age 15, I hit or threatened to hit someone who is not a member of my family'; 'Since age 15, I have stolen money (from anyone, including family)'), and (e) an alcohol abuse scale, based on three selected items with high factor loadings from Hines and Straus (2007) ('When I am drinking I usually have five or more drinks at a time'; 'I worry that I have an alcohol problem'; and 'Sometimes I can't remember what happened the night before because of drinking'). Two factors explained 50.49% of the variance.…”

Development and Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Non‐Violent and Violent Offending Behavior Scale (NVOBS)

“…Straus and Ramirez (2004) investigated the violent and non-violent criminal history of male and female IPV perpetrators. They measured partner violence using the 12-item physical assault scale from the CTS2 (Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, & Sugarman, 1996).…”

“…Where previous research has involved the three offense types (violent, partner violent and non-violent crime) different measures, with different response formats have been used to assess each one, with some being very brief (e.g., Straus & Ramirez, 2004). The problem with using different measures with different response formats is that the results are not directly comparable as there will be different variance in the units of measurement for each variable, which introduces different elements of measurement error and bias.…”

“…Although students are generally thought to be relatively law-abiding, especially with regards to violent crime, there is one violent crime which has been found to be prevalent in student populations, and that is IPV (e.g., Fiebert & Gonzalez, 1997;Foo & Margolin, 1995;Nabors, 2010;Riggs & O'Leary, 1996;Straus, 2008;Straus & Ramirez, 2004;White & Koss, 1991). Therefore, using this population allows us to examine the overlap of self-reported offending in a non-selected sample.…”

“…Therefore, researchers using the NVOBS should report the internal consistency of the factors from their research samples. However, the university sample used in the current study has a reasonably wide demographic range and there is a great deal of research in this area that has used student samples (e.g., Fiebert & Gonzalez, 1997;Foo & Margolin, 1995;Nabors, 2010;Riggs & O'Leary, 1996;Straus, 2008;Straus & Ramirez, 2004;White & Koss, 1991), and therefore this scale will be of use in similar future research.…”