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Abstract
Historically, major criminological works overlooked violence occurring between romantic partners. As a result, studies of intimate partner violence (IPV) developed relatively separately from the research on violent crime. Nonetheless, there is considerable overlap in the violent crime and IPV literatures. Namely, both bodies of work have found adolescent experiences with harsh parenting, neighborhood crime, friends’ delinquency, and racial discrimination to heighten the likelihood of later perpetrating violence. Yet, it is not well known whether these experiences lead to violent crime and IPV in similar or divergent ways. To that end, this dissertation examines how four different adolescent experiences (e.g., exposure to harsh parenting, neighborhood crime, friends’ delinquency, and racial discrimination) shape violent crime and IPV in young adulthood. Drawing from a range of criminological perspectives, I further investigate how one’s endorsement of violence, deviant values, low self-control, and anger explain pathways from adolescent exposure to violence to violent crime and IPV in young adulthood. Using a longitudinal study design and a sample of 512 Black young adults, I conduct ten different path analyses to better understand the processes leading to interpersonal violence. In simultaneously examining the four adolescent predictors, four potential mediators, and two kinds of interpersonal violence, results revealed a diversity of pathways to young adulthood violentcrime and IPV. Exposure to neighborhood crime predicted violent crime, but not IPV, for both genders. Harsh parenting also influenced women’s violent crime, while friends’ delinquency shaped men’s violent crime. IPV perpetration, in comparison, was predicted by harsh parenting and friends’ delinquency for women and racial discrimination among men. Examining the mechanisms connecting these experiences to violent crime and IPV, anger was the strongest mechanism leading to both kinds of interpersonal violence. Deviant values also contributed to women’s violent crime and men’s IPV. For women only, endorsing violence additionally impacted their IPV. Ultimately, findings suggest that interventions developed to reduce anger may be an effective strategy to interrupt the processes leading to interpersonal violence while also emphasizing the need for race- and gender-conscious policy solutions.