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Bullying at school and later criminality: Findings from three Swedish community samples of males
Author(s) -
Olweus Dan
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
criminal behaviour and mental health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.63
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1471-2857
pISSN - 0957-9664
DOI - 10.1002/cbm.806
Subject(s) - odds , injury prevention , human factors and ergonomics , suicide prevention , occupational safety and health , poison control , longitudinal study , psychology , violent crime , criminology , medicine , medical emergency , logistic regression , pathology
Aim To examine whether being a bully at school predicts later criminality. Method Longitudinal, prospective associations are reported between bullying and later criminality over the 8‐year period from age 16 to 24. Results Bullying in early adolescence strongly predicted later criminality. The former school bullies were heavily overrepresented in the crime registers. Some 55% of them had been convicted of one or more crimes and as much as 36% had been convicted of at least three crimes in the studied period. Effect sizes in the form of Odds Ratios were substantial for both general crimes and violent crimes, varying between 3.47 and 7.79. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.