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Providing Help to Victims: A Study of Psychological and Material Outcomes in New York City, 1984-1985

Metadata Updated: March 12, 2025

This data collection was designed to examine the effectiveness of a New York City agency's attempt to decrease the negative emotions that result from victimization. The data address the following questions: (1) To what extent do specific treatments mitigate the negative psychological impact of victimization? (2) Are individuals from a particular demographic group more prone to suffer from psychological adjustment problems following victimization? (3) When victimized, do individuals blame themselves or the situation? (4) Are some crimes more difficult to cope with than others? (5) Does previous victimization affect the likelihood that an individual will have difficulty coping with current as well as future victimization? Data were collected in two waves, with Wave 1 interviews completed within one month of the victimization incident and Wave 2 interviews completed three months after treatment. The effects of three treatments were measured. They included: traditional crisis counseling (which incorporates psychological aid and material assistance such as food, shelter, cash, etc.), cognitive restructuring (challenges to "irrational" beliefs about the world and one's self used in conjunction with crisis counseling), and material assistance only (no psychological aid provided). A fourth group of victims received no treatment or services. Three standardized psychometric scales were used in the study. In addition to these standardized scales, the initial assessment battery included an index of fear of crime as well as an index that measured behavior adjustment. Another set of measures assessed how victims perceived their experience of victimization and included items on self-blame, selective evaluation, and control. Also included were questions about the crime and precautions taken to guard against future victimization. The follow-up assessment battery was virtually identical to the initial battery, except that questions about services and social support received by the victim were added. The following demographic variables are included in the data: sex, age, marital status, education, income, and race. The unit of analysis was the individual.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: us-pd

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Dates

Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date March 12, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOJ JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date March 12, 2025
Publisher National Institute of Justice
Maintainer
Identifier 3600
Data First Published 1991-07-18T00:00:00
Language eng
Data Last Modified 2006-01-18T00:00:00
Public Access Level public
Aicategory Not AI-ready
Bureau Code 011:21
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://www.justice.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id d3dbfba6-71eb-44e8-b97c-bc9f8a82bcd8
Harvest Source Id 3290e90a-116f-42fc-86ac-e65521ef3b68
Harvest Source Title DOJ JSON
Internalcontactpoint {"@type": "vcard:Contact", "fn": "Jennifer Scherer", "hasEmail": "mailto:Jennifer.Scherer@usdoj.gov"}
Jcamsystem {"acronym": "OJP_EXT", "id": 8, "name": "External system not available in CSAM"}
License http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
Metadatamodified 9/2/2022 6:22:00 PM
Program Code 011:060
Publisher Hierarchy Office of Justice Programs > National Institute of Justice
Sourceidentifier https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09479
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 45f7acff26d4dbf35d9ae7a8ba290f421ff08080cc424fc41e0340c700784e59
Source Schema Version 1.1

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