The victims of crime

Question 1

How do the UN define a victim?

Answer 1

• A victim is someone who has suffered harm (including mental, physical or emotional, economic loss or impairment of their basic rights)

Question 2

How does the definition from the UN differ from Christie’s?

Answer 2

• The word ‘victim’ is socially constructed
• The stereotype of the ‘ideal victim’ favoured by the media, public and criminal justice system is a weak, innocent and blameless individual who is the target of a stranger’s attack

Question 3

Positivist victimology

Answer 3

• Miers: 3 features of positivist victimology
  1. It aims to identify the factors that produce patterns in victimisation- especially those that make some individuals or groups more likely to be victims
  2. Focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence
  3. Aims to identify victims who have contributed to their own victimisation
• Victim proneness: studies sought to identify the social and psychological characteristics of victims that separated them from non-victims
• Von Hentig: the victims in some sense invite victimisation by being the kind of person that they are

Question 4

Evaluation of positivist victimology:

Answer 4

• In homicides, it’s a matter of chance which party becomes the victim
• This approach ignores wider structural factors influencing victimisation, such as poverty and patriarchy
• Easily tip over into victim blaming
• Ignores situations where victims are unaware of their victimisatoin

Question 5

Critical victimology

Answer 5

• Based on conflict theories such as Marxism and Feminism
• Focuses on 2 elements:
  1. Structural factors
  2. The state’s power to apply or deny the label of ‘victim’
• Tombs and Whyte: safety crimes where employers’ violations of the law lead to death/injury of workers are often explained away as the fault of ‘accident prone’ workers
• Tombs and Whyte: the ideological function of this ‘de-labelling’ is to hide the crimes of the powerful and denies the powerless victims any redress

Question 6

Evaluation of critical victimology:

Answer 6

• Disregards the role victims may play in bringing victimisation on themselves through their own choices/own offending

Question 7

Patterns of victimisation

Answer 7

1. Class
   - Newburn and Rock: marginalised groups are most likely to become victims: 12x more likely to have experienced violence than the general population
2. Age
   - Younger people are more at risk
   - The old are also at risk of abuse, but in general, victimisation risk declines with age
3. Ethnicity
   - Minorities are more at risk than whites
   - Ethnic minorities are more likely to feel under-protected yet over-controlled
4. Gender
   - Males are more at risk
   - About 70% of homicide victims are males
   - Women are more likely to suffer from domestic abuse, sexual violence…
5. Repeat victimisation
   - BCS: about 60% of the population have not been victims of any kind, whereas a mere 4% of the population are victims of 44% of all crimes in that period

Question 8

The impact of victimisation

Answer 8

• Effects such as disrupted sleep, feelings of helplessness…
• There are indirect victims aswell: friends, relatives, witnesses…
• Hate crimes against minorities may create ‘waves of harm’, which are message crimes aimed at intimidating whole communities
• Secondary victimisation: in addition to the impact of the crime itself, individuals may suffer further victimisation at the hands of the CJS
• Fear of victimisation: women are more afraid of going out for fear of attack, yet it is young men who are the main victims of violence from strangers