Topic 8c: Victimisation Flashcards
Left realism: victimisation of the inner-city poor - ICS
Left Realist sociologists suggest that official crime surveys have tended to neglect the concentration of crime in the inner city and on deprived council estates.
The Islington Crime Survey (ICS) carried out by the Left Realist sociologists Lea and Young used sympathetic unstructured interviewing techniques. The ICS found that in inner London crime shaped people’s lives to a considerable degree – a quarter of all people always avoided going out after dark because of fear of crime and 28% felt unsafe in their own homes.
Left realism: victimisation of the inner-city poor Merseyside - crime survey
Other realist surveys have found that fear of crime is highest among the poor which reflects the fact that they are most at risk from crime. The Merseyside Crime Survey, for example, carried out by Kinsey in 1984 found that in terms of quantity and impact of crime, the poor suffer more than the wealthy from the effects of crime.
Left realism: victimisation of the inner-city poor eval
- Local crime surveys often have small samples so are questioned over their representativeness of the area studied.
- The Corporate and white-collar crimes of the middle class do not appear in local victim surveys
- ‘Victimless’ crimes such as drug-taking do not appear in local victim surveys
- The problem of basing statistics on victims’ memories is that recollections are often faulty or biased.
- The categorisation of what crimes have been committed against them is left to the person filling in the questionnaire – this leads to considerable inaccuracy in the categories.
- Marxists: Victim surveys also omit a range of crimes such as fraud and corporate crime, and any crime where the victim is unaware of or unable to report a crime.
- CSEW does not cover the population living in care homes, halls of residence or the homeless
- Feminists: Despite being anonymous, people appear to under-report sexual offences and domestic violence.
- People may be influenced by the interviewer and modify or alter their answers as a result of wanting to please or impress
Feminism: the victimisation of women - walklate
Walklate’s victim surveys based on unstructured interviews found that many female victims of domestic violence are unable to leave their partners because of the gendered power relationships that shape and govern women’s lives, i.e. they are less likely to have economic resources and therefore potential independence, they have nowhere else to go, they often blame themselves and threats of further violence and losing their children undermines their confidence.
Feminism: the victimisation of women - Dobash and dobash
Dobash and Dobash found that 23% of women in their sample actually experienced violence before their marriage but believed it would cease once they were married. The first violent episode usually consisted of a single blow with little physical injury and normally followed by shock, shame and guilt, from both parties. The husband begged for forgiveness and promised it would not happen again, then it became ‘routine’ and ‘normal’. They found that men felt they had the right to punish or ‘discipline’ their wives who often attempted to understand the action in terms of her own behaviour – the idea that she had brought it upon herself.
Feminism: the victimisation of women - eval
- There may be interviewer bias present when feminist interviewers conduct research. They may encourage women to exaggerate their victimisation and adopt a wide definition of victimisation that other sociologists may not accept (dobash and Dobash).
- Feminist sociologists tend to ignore the victimisation of men or play down its significance.
- Some New Right sociologists see an element of conflict in relationships as an inevitable aspect of intimacy.
Victimisation of young people stats
According to the Crime and Justice Survey 2003:
• Over a third of young people aged 10 to 15 had experienced at least one personal crime in the previous 12 months. This was about the same level as for those aged 16 to 25 and 14% for those aged 26 to 65.
• The degree of repeat victimisation for violent offences was particularly high for young people with 19% of 10- to 15-year-olds experiencing five or more incidents in the previous 12 months.
Victimisation of young people explanations
- Children are quite powerless in society and can become victims of violence and abuse at home from members of the family.
- Young people are less likely to be security conscious than older people
- Young people arelikely to carry around valuable objects such as smartphones and tablets.
- Young people are more likely to be part of what Hobbs calls the ‘nocturnal economy of cities where heavy drinking may lead to violent encounters and disorderly behaviour.
- Young people are more likely to be involved in gangs and subcultures
Victimisation of young people eval
It may be that older people are the victims of more crimes but are not aware of them (e.g. fraud and deception) or do not report them.
Intro
The British Crime Survey (now known as the Crime Survey of England and Wales) in 2007/08 showed that the risk of being a victim of violent crime was 3.2 per cent, although there were differences between men and women. Young men, aged 16 to 24, were most at risk. For both sexes, the risk of being a victim of violent crime decreased with age.
Conclusion
Victim based studies are gathered by asking victims of crime for their recollection of the ethnic identity of the offender. According the British Crime Survey (1992) the majority of crime is intra-racial, with 88% of white victims stating that white offenders were involved, 3% claiming the offenders were ‘black’, 1% Asian and 5% ‘mixed’.
About 42% of crimes against ‘black’ victims were identified as being committed by ‘black’ offenders and 19% of crimes against Asians were by Asian offenders.
The figures for ‘white’ crimes against ethnic minorities are much higher - about 50%, though this figure needs to be seen against the backdrop of 90% of the population being classified as ‘white’
Feminist victimization explanations
Trangressive (introduced by smart)
Domestic violence
Dworkin
