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Risk and Protective Factors

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Key points

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  • Many factors can increase or decrease the likelihood of someone experiencing or perpetrating violence.
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  • Risk factors can increase the risk of experiencing or perpetrating violence and protective factors can reduce the risk.
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  • Preventing youth violence requires understanding and addressing risk and protective factors.
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What are risk and protective factors?

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Youth violence is not often caused by a single factor. Instead, a combination of factors at the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels can increase or decrease the risk of violence.

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Risk factors are characteristics that may increase the likelihood of experiencing or perpetrating youth violence. However, they may or may not be direct causes.

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Protective factors are characteristics that may decrease the likelihood of experiencing or perpetrating youth violence.

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Understanding and addressing risk and protective factors can help identify various opportunities for prevention.

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Watch the Moving Forward video to learn more about how increasing what protects people from violence and reducing what puts people at risk for it benefits everyone.

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Risk factors for perpetration

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Individual risk factors

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  • History of violent victimization.1
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  • Attention deficits, hyperactivity, or learning disorders.12
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  • Involvement with drugs, alcohol, or tobacco.1
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  • Poor behavioral control.2
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  • Deficits in social cognitive or information-processing abilities.2
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  • High emotional distress.1
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  • History of treatment for emotional problems.1
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  • Antisocial beliefs and attitudes.2
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  • Exposure to violence and conflict in the family.2
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Relationship risk factors

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  • Authoritarian child rearing attitudes.2
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  • Harsh, lax, or inconsistent disciplinary practices.2
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  • Low parental education and income.2
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  • Parental substance abuse or criminality.2
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  • Poor family functioning.2
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  • Poor monitoring and supervision of children.2
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  • Association with delinquent peers.2
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  • Involvement in gangs.2
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  • Social rejection by peers.2
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  • Poor academic performance.2
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  • Low commitment to school and school failure.12
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Community risk factors

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  • Communities with high rates of violence and crime.12
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  • Communities with diminished economic opportunities.2
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  • Communities with high unemployment rates.2
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  • Communities with high concentrations of poor residents.2
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  • Communities with unstable housing and where residents move frequently.2
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  • Communities with few community activities for young people.23
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  • Low levels of community participation.2
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  • Socially disorganized neighborhoods.23
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Protective factors for perpetration

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Individual protective factors

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  • High IQ.4
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  • High grade point average (as an indicator of high academic achievement).14
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  • High educational aspirations.24
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  • Highly developed social skills/competencies.4
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  • Religious beliefs.1
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Relationship protective factors

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  • Connectedness to family or adults outside the family.14
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  • Ability to discuss problems with parents.1
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  • Perceived parental expectations about school performance are high.14
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  • Frequent shared activities with parents.1
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  • Consistent presence of parent during at least one of the following: when awakening, when arriving home from school, at evening mealtime, or when going to bed.1
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  • Possession of affective relationships with those at school that are strong, close, and prosocially oriented.1
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  • Exposure to school climates with intensive supervision, clear behavior rules, firm disciplinary methods, and engagement of parents and teachers.2
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\n Content Source: \n
\n National Center for Injury Prevention and Control \n
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  1. Resnick, M. D., Ireland, M., & Borowsky, I. (2004). Youth violence perpetration: What protects? What predicts? Findings from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Journal of Adolescent Health, 35(5), 424.e1-424.e10.
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  2. Dahlberg, L. L., & Simon, T. R. (2006). Predicting and preventing youth violence: Developmental pathways and risk. In J. R. Lutzker (Ed.), Preventing violence: Research and evidence-based intervention strategies (pp. 97-124). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
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  3. Sampson, R. J., Morenoff, J. D., & Gannon-Rowley, T. (2002). Assessing \"neighborhood effects\": Social processes and new directions in research. Annual Review of Sociology, 28, 443-478.
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  4. Ttofi, M. M., Farrington, D. P., Piquero, A. R., & DeLisi, M. (2016). Protective factors against offending and violence: Results from prospective longitudinal studies. Journal of Criminal Justice, 45, 1-3.
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Syndicated Content Details:
Source URL: http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/youthviolence/riskprotectivefactors.html
Source Agency: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Captured Date: 2016-05-23 22:19:46.0
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