VICTIMOLOGY

Question 1

Positivist Victimology

Answer 1

Mier’s (1989) defines Positivist victimology as having three main features

Question 2

3 three features of victimology

Answer 2

• It aims to identify the factors that produce the above patterns in victimisation
• It focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence
• It aims to identify how victims have contributed to their own victimisation.

Question 3

postivist view

Answer 3

• Earlier Positivist studies focussed on the idea of ‘victim proneness’, seeking to identify the social and psychological characteristics of victims that make them different from and more vulnerable than non-victims

Question 4

Von Hentig (1948)

Answer 4

• identified 13 characteristics of victims, such as that they are more likely to females, elderly and ‘mentally subnormal’.
• The implication is that the victims in some sense ‘invite’ victimisation because of who they are.

Question 5

evaluation of victimology

Answer 5

It ignores wider structural factors such as poverty and powerlessness which make some people more likely to be victims than others.

Question 6

Critical Victimology

Answer 6

• Critical victimology is based on conflict theories such as Marxism and Feminism.
• From a critical point of view the powerless are most likely to be victimised and yet the least likely to have this acknowledged by the state (this is known as the ‘hierarchy of victimisation’).

Question 7

Critical Criminology focuses on two elements:

Answer 7

• the role of structural factors in explaining patterns of victimisation and power of the state to deny certain victims victim status.
• Structural factors are important in explaining why some people are more likely to be victims of crime than others.
• Factors such as poverty and patriarchy make some people more likely to victims of crime than others.

Question 8

‘Zemiology’

Answer 8

• (the study of harm) rather than the study of crime, to pick up on the true nature and extent of victimisation in the world today.

Question 9

evaluation of critical victimisation

Answer 9

• Realists argue that it isn’t the job of criminologists to criticise governments and the police, this isn’t the most effective way to reduce crime and thus help victims of ‘ordinary crimes’ such as street violence and burglary.