Victim studies

• Left Realists use VS to uncover the impact of crime on a community

  • Jones et al's Islington Crime survey in 1986 and 1990 showed that 1 in 3 households had experienced serious crime. 25% avoided going out after dark, 28% didn't feel safe in their own home. Over half of women have a 'virtual curfew.'
  • Farrington & Painter used a VS to test whether improved street lighting reduced crime rates. Victimhood decreased by 43%.
• Feminists favour VS as it focuses on the victim

  • Dobash & Dobash did unstructured interviews with female victims of domestic abuse and found 77% only experienced it after marriage
  • Higher validity as it shows how crime impacts individuals
• VS disadvantages

  • Small samples reduce generalisability and representativeness
  • Marxists note that it ignores white collar crimes and the victim's memories may be unreliable due to trauma
  • Due to value consensus, functionalists argue that police statistics are more reliable as they have bigger samples.
  • New Right use OCS to target the underclass for crime reduction
  • Left Realists argue that VS are helpful in addition to OCS as they create solutions and give a fuller picture