The Victims of Crime

• Victims- Defined

  United Nations: defines victims as those who have suffered harm (including mental, physical or emotional suffering, economic loss and impairment of their basic rights) through acts which violate the laws of the state.
• Victims- Defined

  Christie: highlights the notion that 'victim' is socially constructed. The stereotype of the 'ideal victim' favoured by the media, public and CJS is a weak, innocent and blameless individual (like a small child or old women) who is the target of a stranger's attack.
• Positivist Victimology- Features

  Miers: it aims to identify factors which produce patterns in victimisation (especially those that make some individuals more likely to be victims); it focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence; and it aims to identify victims who have contributed to their own victimisation.
• Positivist Victimology-Victim Proneness

  They seek to identify the social and psychological characteristics of victims which make them different and more vulnerable than non-victims. Hans Von Hentig identifies 13 characteristics of victims such as female, elderly, and 'mentally subnormal'. Implicating that some victims invite victimisation by being themselves. They also include lifestyle factors such as victims who continually display their wealth.
• Positivist Victimology- Victim Precipitation

  How victims have been actively involved in the crime or brought the crime upon themselves. Wolfgang: study of 588 homicides in USA, finding that 28% involved victim precipitation. E.g. they were the first to use violence; this was often the case when the victim was male and the perpetrator was female.
• AO3: Positivist Victimology

  Brookman: notes Wolfgang shows the importance of victim-offender relationship and the fact that in many homicides, it is a matter of chance which party becomes the victim.
• AO3: Positivist Victimology

  This approach identifies certain patterns of interpersonal victimisation, but ignores wider structural factors influencing victimisation, such as poverty and patriarchy.

  It ignores situations where the victims are unaware of their victimisation, as with some crimes against the environment, and where harm is done but no laws are broken.
• AO3: Positivist Victimology

  It can easily be viewed as victim-blaming; Amir found that 1 in 5 rapes are said to be victim precipitated, which isn't very different from saying that the victims 'asked for it'.
• Critical Victimology (based on conflict theories)- 2 Elements

  Structural Factors: patriarchy/poverty which place powerless groups at greater risk of victimisation. Mawby and Walklate argue victimisation is a form of structural powerlessness.

  State's power to deny label of 'victim': it is a social construct, through the CJS the state applies the label to some, denying others, this then denies many victim status (e.g. police not pressing charges for a man assaulting his wife).
• Critical Victimology

  Tombs and Whyte: show 'safety crimes', where employers' violations of law leads to death/injury of workers are often explained away as the fault of 'accident prone' workers (Marxism). As with many rape cases, it denies the victim official 'victim status' and blames them for their fate (Feminism). By concealing the true extent of victimisation and its real causes, it hides the crimes of the powerful and denies powerless victims any redress.
• Critical Victimology

  Tombs and Whyte: note an ideological function of this 'failure to label' or 'de-labelling'. By concealing the true extent of victimisation and its real causes, it hides the crimes of the powerful and denies powerless victims any redress. In the hierarchy of victimisation, the powerless are the most likely to be victimised, yet the least likely to have this acknowledged by the state.
• AO3: Critical Victimology

  It disregards the role that victims may play in bringing victimisation on themselves through their own choices (like not making their house secure) or their own offending. Linking to Postmodernism, people construct their own lifestyles, so some may choose to live with risks; and links to Positivist Victimology.
• AO3: Critical Victimology

  It is valuable in drawing attention to the ways that 'victim' status is constructed by power, and how this benefits the powerful at the expense of the powerless.
• Patterns of Victimisation- Class

  The poorest groups are more likely to be victimised; e.g. crime rates are typically highest in areas of high unemployment and deprivation. Marginalised groups are more likely to be victims; Newburn and Rock surveyed 300 homeless people and found that they were 12 times more likely to have experienced violence than the general population.
• Patterns of Victimisation- Age

  Younger people are more at risk of victimisation. Most at risk of murder are infants under one, teenagers are more vulnerable to assault, sexual harassment, theft and abuse at the home. The old are at risk of abuse in care homes were victimisation is less visible. Generally, risk of victimisation declines with age.
• Patterns of Victimisation- Ethnicity

  Minority ethnic groups are at greater risk than White people of being victims of crime, as well as racially motivated crimes. In relation to the police, minority ethnic groups, the young, and the homeless are more likely to report feeling under-protected yet over-controlled. The Home Office estimates 106,000 hate crimes per year, 300 per day.
• Patterns of Victimisation- Gender

  Males are at greater risk than females of becoming victims of violent attacks, especially by strangers. About 70% of homicide victims are male. However, women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence, sexual violence, stalking, harassment, people trafficking, and rape.
• Patterns of Victimisation- Repeat Victimisation

  According to the British Crime Survey, about 60% of the population have not been victims of a crime within a given year, whereas 4% are victims of 44% of all crimes within that period.
• Impacts of Victimisation- Hoyle

  Identifies 12 reactions to being a victim of crime. Victims may feel some or all of these emotions which can have a negative effect on their lives. Reactions include: sleeplessness, fear of revictimisation, PTSD, shock, anxiety, poor health.
• Impacts of Victimisation- Walklate

  Speaks about double victimisation which can occur during trials. This is because the defence team will be looking at ways which discredit the victims, or ways to blame the victim for their own victimisation.
• Impacts of Victimisation- Critical Race Theory

  Hate crimes against minorities may create 'waves of harm' that radiate out to affect others. These are 'message' crimes aimed at intimidating whole communities, not just the primary victim. Even more widely, these crimes challenge the value system of the whole society.
• Impacts of Victimisation- Secondary Victimisation

  In addition to the impact of the crime itself, individuals may suffer further victimisation at the hands of the CJS. Feminists argue that rape victims are often so poorly treated by police and courts, it amounts to a double violation.
• Impacts of Victimisation- Fear of Victimisation

  Sociologists argue that surveys show that these fears are often irrational. E.g. women are more afraid of going out for fear of attack, yet young men are the main victims of violence from strangers. However, feminists have attacked the emphasis of a 'fear of crime' as they argue it focuses on women's passivity and their psychological state, rather than their safety (they face a continual structural threat of patriarchal violence).