The Effects of Victimization and Fear of Crime on the Legal Socialization of Young Adolescents in São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

It is important to understand how young adolescents come to view authorities during formative years. Experiencing, witnessing, and fearing victimization have been linked to the process of legal socialization and subsequent attitudes and behavior. In addition, procedural justice may influence adolescent perceptions of fairness of the authorities. The present study tested whether procedural justice mediated and moderated the relationship between young adolescents’ direct and vicarious victimization and developing a sense of legitimacy in authority and cynicism towards authority. A longitudinal sample of 800 Brazilian students, age 11 to 12, living in São Paulo was used to fit structural equation models to examine these relationships. The findings revealed a partial link between victimization and legal socialization. The overall mediating model significantly predicted the direct and indirect relationships between victimization and fear of crime and the formation of legitimacy and cynicism. The moderating effect of procedural justice on direct victimization also significantly predicted the formation of legitimacy. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Exploring the Availability and Potential of International Data for Criminological Study

“…There are notable developments in using existing longitudinal cohort data or collecting new data to evaluate a variety of criminological topics. For example, Murray et al (2015) utilized the 1993 to examine the childhood predictors of violence in late adolescence, the São Paulo Legal Socialization Study was designed to measure and evaluate the development of attitudes towards the law and police among early adolescents (Medina & Rodrigues, 2019;Trinkner et al 2019), and the Evidence for Better Lives Study is a crosscultural birth cohort study that aims to examine the effects of prenatal exposure to violence on mothers and childhood development (Valdebenito et al, 2020).…”

Factors that Differentiate Preadolescents' Perception-Change of Parental Legitimacy

“…As evidenced by research (Boney-McCoy & Finkelhor, 1995;Chang et al, 2003;Hughes et al, 2015;Medina & Rodrigues, 2019;Shaffer & Ruback, 2002;Sharkey et al, 2012), there has been a historical focus on understanding the relationship between victimization, maltreatment, and child abuse with maladaptive behavior. With this background in mind, victimization in our study was examined in three areas: home, school, and neighborhood, and included a focus on a range of behaviors by the perpetrator that encompassed treating others cruelly and unfairly (see specific questions under "Measures" in the Method section below) and considered both direct and indirect impact.…”

“…It has been suggested that recognition of legitimacy or its lack informs the choices that children, adolescents, and adults make to comply or not with norms and rules Thomas et al, 2018;Trinkner et al, 2012). While there are documented and expected reasons for a decline in parental legitimacy (PL) in areas of personal domain such as choosing friends or what clothes to wear (Darling et al, 2008), there are individual factors that need to be further investigated, such as the role victimization plays in PL (Medina & Rodrigues, 2019).…”

Police Studies Program for Youth at Risk: The Role of Police Distributive Justice and Personal Morality in Explaining Police Legitimacy

“…Victimization has also been related to at-risk youths' evaluations of police effectiveness and personal morality: those victimized tend to feel that the police have failed to protect them, and that the police are ineffective and illegitimate and therefore do not deserve cooperation ) Sargeant & Kochel, 2018;Slocum et al, 2010;Wu et al, 2015). As well, victimized youth tend to morally justify deviant behavior ) Doering & Baier, 2016;Medina & Rodrigues, 2019(.…”