Victims Flashcards
How does the United Nations define ‘victims’
‘Those who have suffered from harm (e.g. physical or emotional suffering, economic loss) through acts that violate the laws of the state
Christie argues that the notion of ‘victim’ is actually a social construction
The stereotype of the ‘ideal victim’ held by the media, public and Criminal Justice System is a weak, blameless, individual who is the target of a stranger’s attack.
What are the two approaches to victimology:
Positivist victimology
Critical victimology
Positivist Victimology
Positivist victimology focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence. It seeks patterns in victimisation and aims to identify the characteristics of victims that contribute to their victimisation.
-Victim proneness: i.e. the characteristics that make victims different from and more vulnerable than non-victims, e.g. being less intelligent
Victim precipitation- e.g. Wolfgang’s study of 588 homicides found that 26% involved the victim triggering the events leading to murder, such as being the first to use violence.
Evaluation
- Ignores wider structural factors of victimisation, such as poverty and patriarchy
- It can easily tip over into victim blaming
Critical Victimology
Structural factors, e.g. patriarchy and poverty, place powerless groups such as women and the poor, at greater risk of victimisation.
Through the criminal justice process, the state applies the label of victim to some but withholds it from others; e.g. when police fail to press charges against a man for assaulting his wife, she is denied victim status.
Tombs and Whyte show that employers’ violations of the law leading to death or injury to workers are often explained away as the fault of ‘accidental prone’ workers
Evaluation
+ It is valuable in drawing attention to the way that victim status is constructed by power and how this benefits the powerful at the extent of the powerless.
- Critical criminology disregards the role victims may play in bringing victimisation on themselves through their own choices
Patterns of Victimisation
The average chance of an individual being the victim of a crime in any one year is about one in four. However, the risk is unevenly distributed between social groups including class, age, gender, ethnicity and repeat victimisation
Class
The poor are more likely to be victims, e.g. crime is highest in areas of high employment
Age
The young are more vulnerable to assault, sexual harassment, theft and abuse at home
Ethnicity
Minority groups are at greater risk than whites of being victims of crime in general and of racially motivated crime.
Gender
Males are at greater risk of violent attacks; females are more likely to be victims of domestic and sexual violence, stalking and harassment.
Repeat Victimisation
A mere 4% of the population are victims of 44% of all crimes. Less powerful groups are more likely to be repeat victims.
The Impact of Victimisation
Crime may have a serious physical or emotional impact on its victim, e.g. feelings of helplessness, increased security consciousness, difficulties in social functioning.
Indirect Victims
Crime may also create ‘indirect’ victims, such as friends, relatives and witnesses to the crime. For example, child witnesses of a sniper attack continued to have grief related dreams a year after the event
Hate Crimes
Hate crimes against minorities may create ‘waves of harm’ that radiate out to intimidate whole communities, not just the primary victim.
Secondary victimisation
In addition to the impact of the crime itself, individuals may suffer further victimisation in the Criminal Justice System, e.g. rape victims are often so poorly treated by the police and the courts, it amounts to a double violation
Fear of victimisation
Crime may create fear of becoming a victim even if such fears are irrational; e.g. women are more afraid of going out for fear of attack, yet young men are more likely to be victims of violence
Feminists attack the emphasis on ‘fear of crime’ for focussing on women’s passivity when we should focus on their safety- the structural threat of patriarchal violence that they face
