The Effect of Social Control on the Juveniles’ Online Victimization—A Model of Moderated Chain Mediation

Due to the prevalence of internet access and use in Chinese juveniles, their victimization in the virtual world is worthy of being examined. From the perspective of criminological theories, we examined the relationships between social control, low self control, online risky lifestyle, deviant association, and cyber victimization using the surveys from 3741 vocational school students. The results of the structural equation model indicate that low social control reduces the levels of self control, which improves the probability of sticking into online risky lifestyle, leading to higher levels of cyber victimization; In the total effects of “social control → cyber victimization”, “low self control → online victimization”, and “social control → cyber victimization”, the indirect effects accounted for 27.1%, 89.2%, and 58.9% respectively; The result of moderation analysis shows that deviant association significantly moderates the effects of five direct paths and two indirect paths significantly. The conclusions aim to provide systematic suggestions of preventing Chinese juveniles’ cyber victimization from the aspects of self-development, family education, school management, and social policy.