Victimology

Question 1

What is a victim?

Answer 1

The UN defines victims as those who have suffered harm through acts or omissions that violate the laws of the state.

Harm can include:
> Mental, physical or emotional suffering
> Economic loss
> Impairment of basic rights

Question 2

Are victims social constructions?

Answer 2

Christie (1986) said that the concept of a “Victim” is a social construction.

The stereotype of the “ideal victim” favoured by the media, public and criminal justice system is weak, innocent and blames individuals, such as the elderly or a small child who is the target of a stranger’s attack.

Question 3

What are the chances of being a victim?

Answer 3

The average chance of an individual being a victim of crime in any one year is 1:4. However the risk is unevenly distributed between social groups.

Class – Those who are poorest (the proletariat) are more likely to be victimised, crime rates are typically highest in areas of high unemployment and deprivation.

Question 4

Age

Answer 4

Younger people are more at risk of victimisation. Those most likely to be murdered are victims under 1, although teenagers are more likely to be victims of assault, sexual harassment, theft or abuse at home.

Question 5

Ethnicity

Answer 5

Minority groups are at greater risk of being victims of crime in general as well as racially motivated crime. In relation to the police, minority, the young and the homeless report feeling under protected and over controlled.

Question 6

Gender

Answer 6

Men are more likely to be victims of violent attacks by strangers due to asserting toxic masculinity, whilst women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence, sexual violence, stalking and harassment.

Those who are trans, nonbinary or gender fluid are disproportionally victims of attacks.

Question 7

Repeat victimisation

Answer 7

This refers to the fact that if you have been a victim once you are more likely to be a victim again. According to the BCS, 4% of the population are victims of 44% of the crime committed in any given year.

Question 8

Positivist perspective

Answer 8

Miers – Positivists argue there are three key features in victimology:

Factors reproduce crime patterns - especially those that make some individuals or groups more likely to be victims. It focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence. It aims to identify victims who have contributed to their own victimisation.

Victim Proneness – early positivists really place a focus on those who are victim prone and started to consider why some people were victim prone.

They sought to identify the social and psychological characteristic of victims that make them different and more vulnerable than non-victims.

Question 9

Characteristics of victims

Answer 9

Hans von Hentig (1948) identified 13 characteristics of victims:

1 young
2 females
3 old
4 immigrants
5 depressed
6 mentally defective/deranged
7 the acquisitive Interested in getting things
8 dull normal - IQ between normal and mentally defective
9 minorities
10 wanton - sexually unrestrained
11 lonely and heartbroken
12 tormentor
13 the block, exempted and fighting

Question 10

Simplification of von Hentig

Answer 10

The implication being that the victim somehow invites victimisation by being the kind of person that they are. This can also include lifestyle factors such as victims of theft of ostentatiously display their wealth, or rape victims who wear provocative clothing.

Question 11

Wolfgang (1958)

Answer 11

Marvin Wolfgang (1958) conducted a study of 588 homicides in Philadelphia. He found that 26% of homicides involved Victim Precipitation – the victim triggered the events leading to the homicide.

Question 12

Critical victimology

Answer 12

Critical victimology is based on conflict theories such as Marxism and Feminism, and shares the same approach as a critical criminology. It focuses on two elements:

1) Structural Factors
2) States power

Question 13

Structural problems

Answer 13

Structures such as patriarchy and poverty, these place those powerless groups such as women and the Prole at a greater risk.

Mawby and Walklate termed this as structural powerlessness.

We see this when considering the recent protests in regard to Sarah Everards.

Question 14

The States power to label

Answer 14

Victim is a social construction in the same way that “Crime” and “Criminal”. Through the criminal justice system the state applies the label of victim to some but withholds it from others – for example when police decide not to press charges against a man for assaulting his wife, thus denying her the label of victim.

Question 15

Tombs and Whyte

Answer 15

Show that “safety crimes” where employers’ violations of the law are explained away as the fault of the employee because they are “Accident prone”. They note the ideological function of this “Failure to label”. By concealing the true extent of victimisation and its real causes, it hides the crimes of the powerful and denies the powerless victims redress. In the hierarchy of victimisation the powerless are most likely to be victimised, yet least likely to have this acknowledged by the state.

Question 16

The impact

Answer 16

Crime may have serious physical and emotional impacts on its victims. For example, research has found a variety of effects (depending on the crime), including disrupted sleep, feelings of helplessness, increased security- consciousness and difficulties in social functioning.

Question 17

Indirect victims

Answer 17

Crime may also create ‘indirect’ victims, such as friends, relatives, witnesses to the crime. For example, Pynoos et al (1987) found child witnesses of sniper attacks continued to have grief-related dreams and altered behaviour years after the event.

Similarly, hate crimes against minorities may create ‘waves of harm’ that radiate out to affect others. These are ‘message crimes’ aimed at intimidating whole communities not just the primary victims. Even more widely, such crimes also challenge the value system of the whole society.

Question 18

Secondary victimisation

Answer 18

This is the idea that in addition to the impact of the crime itself, individuals may suffer further victimisation from the criminal justice system. Feminists argue that rape victims are often so poorly treated by the police and courts that it amounts to a second violation.

Question 19

Fear of victimisation

Answer 19

Crime may create a fear of becoming a victim. Some sociologists argue that surveys show this fear to often be irrational. For example women are more afraid of going out for fear of attack, yet it is young men who are more at risk of attack from a stranger. However Feminists have attacked the emphasis on fear of crime. They argue that it focuses on women’s passivity and their psychological state, when we should be focusing on their safety – i.e. on the structural patriarchal violence that they face.