Victimization immunity and lifestyle: A comparative study of over-dispersed burglary victimizations in South Korea and U.S.

Publication date: June 2016Source:International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, Volume 45
Author(s): Seong-min Park, Jongyeon Tark, Yeok-il Cho
Recently, it has been proposed that over-dispersed victimization distributions should be caused by more complex processes than predicted by previously supported arguments such as risk heterogeneity and event dependence. The current study aims to test this proposal by analyzing two national crime victimization surveys: the 2010 NCVS (U.S.) and the 2010 KCVS (South Korea). The comparative aspect of this study is also expected to promote comprehension of causal victimization mechanisms in diverse contexts. For the analysis, the zero-inflated negative binomial regression is employed, and its results are compared to those of the negative binomial model. In conclusion, this study finds several different causal aspects of victimizations between two countries and also different significant covariates between two statistical models, supporting the argument of immunity effect.