Chapter 16 Victimology: Exploring the Experience of Victimization

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Chapter 16 Victimology Exploring the Experience
of Victimization
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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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
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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Figure 16.3 Male Victimization Rates by Number
of Risk Factors for Delinquency
Source Loeber, Kalb, Huizinga (2001).
Juvenile delinquency and serious injury
victimization.
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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
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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
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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.
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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.

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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.