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Chapter 16 Victimology: Exploring the Experience of Victimization

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Title: Chapter 16 Victimology: Exploring the Experience of Victimization


1
Chapter 16 Victimology Exploring the Experience
of Victimization
2
Chapter Summary
  • Chapter Sixteen is an overview of victimolgy, or
    the study of victims of crime.
  • The chapter begins with a discussion of who is
    victimized.
  • This is followed with a discussion of the various
    theories regarding victimization.
  • The Chapter concludes with a discussion of the
    role of the criminal justice system in terms of
    catering to the victim.

3
Chapter Summary
  • After reading this chapter, students should be
    able to
  • Define victimology
  • Describe victims
  • Explain the theories of victimization
  • Describe the relationship between the criminal
    justice system and victims
  • Understand policies aimed at helping victims

4
The Emergence of Victimology
  • For every criminal act, there is at least one
    victim.
  • Victimology A subfield of criminology that
    specializes in studying the victims of crime.

5
Who Gets Victimized
  • Victimization is not a random process it is a
    process encompassing a host of systematic
    environmental, demographic, and personal
    characteristics.
  • Victim characteristics differ according to the
    type of crime.

6
Table 16.1 Victimization Rates of Combined
Violent and Personal Theft Crimes by Selected
Demographic Characteristics 2004
Gender Rate Household Income Rate
Male 25.0 Less than 7,500 38.4
Female 18.1 39.0
15,00024,999 24.4 7,50014,999
Race/Ethnicity 25,00034,999 22.1
White 21.0 35,00049,999 21.6
Black 26.0 50,00074,999 22.1
Hispanic 18.2 75,000 or more 17.0
Other 2.7
Two or more 51.6 Marital Status
Never married 39.4
Age Married 9.7
1215 49.7 Divorced/separate 33.0
1619 45.9 Widowed 4.0
2024 43.0
2534 23.7 Residence
3549 7.9 Urban 29.0
5064 11.0 Suburban 18.0
65 or older 2.1 Rural 19.9
7
Victimization in the Workplace and School
  • On average, over two million incidents take place
    in the workplace annually.
  • The three occupations most at risk are police
    officers, correction officers, and taxi drivers.
  • Schools are some of the safest places we can be.
  • Teachers get victimized by both theft and
    violence at school.

8
Table 16.2 Average Annual Number of Violent
Victimizations in the Workplace 1992-1996
Annual Average
Homicide 1,023 0.05
Rape/sexual assault 50,500 2.50
Robbery 83,700 4.20
Aggravated assault 395,500 19.70
Simple assault 1,480,000 73.60
2,010,723 100.00
  • Source Workplace violence, 1992-1996. Warchol
    (1998).

9
Figure 16.1 Number of Homicides and Suicides
of Youth Ages 15-19 at and Away from School
1999-2000
  • Source DeVoe et al., Indicators of school crime
    and safety 2003 (2003). U.S. Departments of
    Education and Justice.

10
Figure 16.2 Percentage of Students ages 12-18
who Reported being Bullied During Previous Six
Months, by Grade 1999 and 2001
  • Source DeVoe et al., Indicators of school crime
    and safety 2003 (2003). U.S. Departments of
    Education and Justice.

11
Child Molestation Who gets Victimized?
  • Child molestation is perhaps the most prevalent
    crime against the person in the United States.
  • Girls are more likely to be abused within the
    family, and boys are more likely to be victimized
    by acquaintances outside of the family and by
    strangers.
  • The strongest single predictor of victimization
    for girls is having a stepfather.
  • The strongest predictor for boys is growing up in
    a father-absent home.

12
Victimization Theories
  • Victimization can occur at any time, at any
    place, and totally without warning.
  • In the majority of cases of victimization,
    victims are now seen as individuals who in some
    way, knowingly or unknowingly, passively or
    actively, influenced their victimization.

13
Victim Precipitation Theory
  • Von Hentig (1941)by acting in certain
    provocative ways, some individuals initiate a
    chain of events that lead to their victimization.
  • Victim precipitation theory has been most
    contentious when it is applied to rape.

14
Figure 16.3 Male Victimization Rates by Number
of Risk Factors for Delinquency
Source Loeber, Kalb, Huizinga (2001).
Juvenile delinquency and serious injury
victimization.
15
Figure 16.4 Four Scenarios Illustrating the
Degree of Victim/Offender Responsibility
According to Victim Precipitation Theory
Degree of Criminal Intent of the
Perpetrator None ? Some ?
More ? Much
Victim Provocation A woman who has suffered years of abuse stabs and kills her husband in self-defense as he is beating her again. Equal Responsibility Victim using the services of a prostitute leaves his wallet on the bed stand and leaves. She decides to keep the money in his wallet. Victim Facilitation Victim leaves keys in his car while he runs into a store. A teenager impulsively steals the car and wrecks it. Victim Innocent A sex offender kidnaps a screaming young girl from a playground and molests her.
Much ? More ? Some
? None Degree of Victim Facilitation or
Provocation/Precipitation
16
Routine Activities/Lifestyle Theory
  • The basic idea of lifestyle theory is that there
    are certain lifestyles that disproportionately
    expose some people to high risk for
    victimization.
  • Lifestyles are the routine patterned activities
    that people engage in on a daily basis, both
    obligatory and optional.
  • Most of the research in routine
    activities/lifestyle theory has been done on rape
    victimization.

17
Is Victimology Blaming the Victim
  • Some victim advocates strongly reject victimology
    theories as victim blaming.
  • Victimologists do not blame, they simply remind
    us that complete innocence and full
    responsibility lie on a continuum.

18
The Consequences of Victimization
  • Overall, financial looses per crime do not appear
    overly large.
  • The worst consequences are psychological.
  • Rape trauma syndrome Re-experiencing the event
    via flashbacks, avoiding anything at all
    associated with the event, and a general numbness
    or affect.
  • Violent victimization helps to shape the life
    course trajectories of victims.

19
Victimization and the Criminal Justice System
  • Advocates for victims rights began agitating for
    some of the same kinds of due process rights for
    victims that are enjoyed by their victimizers in
    the late 1960s, but it was not until 1982 that a
    federal task force was set up to examine the
    treatment of victims by the criminal justice
    system.
  • The fair and decent treatment of victims by the
    system can help them to some extent to get over
    their victimization.

20
Figure 16.5 Percentage of Adolescent Victims
and Non-victims of Violence Expected to
Experience Adult Problem Outcomes
Source Menard (2002). Short-and long-term
consequences of adolescent victimization
21
Box 16.2 Focus on Victims Opinions Of the
Importance of Victims Rights
Source D. Kilpatrick, Beatty, Smith-Howley
(1998). The Rights of Crime Victims. National
Institute of Justice.
22
Victim Compensation and Restitution
  • Victims of crime are eligible for partial
    compensation from the states to cover medical and
    living expenses incurred as a result of their
    victimization.
  • Victim compensation in the form of direct
    payments from the offenders in the form of
    restitution is increasingly ordered by the courts.

23
Victim-Offender Reconciliation Programs (VORPs)
  • VORPs are an integral component of restorative
    justice philosophy.
  • Central to the VORP process is the bringing
    together of victim and offender in face-to-face
    meetings mediated by a person trained in
    mediation theory and practice.
  • VORPs are used most often in the juvenile system
    but rarely used for personal violent crimes in
    juvenile or adult systems.
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