victimology Flashcards
define victimology
Victimology is the scientific study of victims
definition of victims of crime
people who have suffered harm (including mental, physical or motional suffering, economic loss and impairment of their basic rights) through acts or omissions that violate the laws of the state – UNITED NATIONS
AO3 defining victims
- no clear distinction between victims and offenders
- some crimes are victimless because both parties are committing a crime
- some people don’t realise they’re victims
who is likely to be a victim
class: w/c more likely to be victims
ethnicity: minorities are more likely to be victims
age: young people at risk of violent crime and theft
gender: men at risk of violent crimes, women at risk of sexual crime and DV
explain secondary victimisation
people are victims of justice system (feminists think rape victims are mistreated)
explain 3 features of positive victimology
Miers (1989):
- identify factors that create patterns of victimisation
- focuses on interpersonal victims of crime
- identifies how victims contribute to their own victimisation
explain victim proneness
identifying the social and psychological characteristics of victims that make them more vulnerable
eg: female, poor, elderly, ‘mentally subnormal’
some people invite victimisation
AO2 : Wolfgang’s (1958) study of homicide in Philadelphia
studied 588 homicides
in 26 percent of cases the victim triggered the events that lead to homicide (eg by being violent first)
this was often the case where the victim was male and the perpetrator female
AO3 positive victimology
-Brookman (2005) says Wolfgang highlights victim-offender relationship but ignores that most homicides are due to chance
- ignores crimes where victims are unaware of their victimisation (eg: when there are crimes against the environment)
- victim blaming > Amir’s (1971) claim that 1/5 rapes are precipitated is like saying they asked for it
-ignores influence of structural issues like poverty and patriarchy
two factors of critical victimology
- structural factors like patriarchy and poverty mean women and the poor are at risk
-states power to apply or change the label of victim > victim is a social construct
(eg: if police decide not to press charges against a man for assaulting his wife, thereby denying her victim status)
AO2 how victims are labelled
Tombs and Whyte (2007) show that ‘safety crimes’, where employers’ violations of the law lead to death or injury to workers, are often explained away as the fault of ‘accident prone’ workers.
w/c are most likely to be victims and least likely to be acknowledged by the state
AO3 critical victimology
- disregards the role victims may play in bringing victimisation on themselves through their own choices
- draws attention to the way that ‘victim’ status is constructed by power and how this benefits the powerful at the expense of the powerless
AO2 gender and victimisation
Homicide victims:
- 70% are male
- Female victims are more likely to know their killer, 60% of these cases were committed by an ex partner
- Males are most likely to be killed by a friend or acquaintance
AO2 victims of violence
Fewer women than men are victims of violence (2% versus 4%).
Women are most likely to be victimised by an acquaintance, men by a stranger
More women than men were victims of intimate violence (31% versus 18%)
Ten times more women reported having been sexually assaulted than men
Only 8% of females who had experienced serious sexual assault reported it to the police. A third of those who didn’t report it said they believed the police couldn’t do much to help.
Women are more likely to be sex trafficked
AO2 ethnicity and victimisation
-Ethnic minorities are also more likely to be victimised than other groups.
-The police recorded 103,379 racist incidents in England and Wales in 2018/19
However, most incidents go unreported.
