The victims of crime

• Christie:

  • highlights the notion that 'victim' is socially constructed
  • stereotype of the 'ideal victim' favoured by the media, public and CJS is a weak, innocent and blameless individual who is the target of a stranger's attack
• Positivist victimology - Miers:

  3 features:

  1. aims to identify the factors that produce patterns in victimisation - especially those who make groups or individuals more likely to be victims
  2. focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence
  3. aims to identify victims who have contributed to their own victimisation.
• Positivist victimology - Hentig:

  • 13 characteristics of victims, such as they are likely to be females, elderly, or 'mentally subnormal'
  • implication is that victims 'invite' victimisation by being the kind of person they are.
• Positivist victimology - Wolfgang:

  • study of 588 homicides in Philadelphia.
  • 26% involved in victim precipitation - the victim triggered the events leading to the homicide e.g. by being the first to use violence.
• Positivist victimology - A03 - Brookman:

  • wolfgang shows the importance of the victim-offender relationship and the fact that in many homicides, it is a matter of chance which party becomes the victim.
• Positivist victimology - A03 - Amir:

  • claim that 1 in 5 rape victims precipitated is not very different from saying that victims 'asked for it'
• Critical victimology - Mawby and Walklate:

  • Structural factors - victimsation is a form of structural powerlessness.
• Critical victimology - Tombs and Whye:

  • 'safety crimes', where employer's violation of the law lead to death or injury to workers, are often explained away as the fault of the 'accident prone' workers.
  • Rape cases, denies the victim official 'victim status' and blames them for their fate.
  • 'Failure to label' or 'de-labelling'
• The impact of victimisation - Pynoos:

  • child witnesses of a sniper attack continued to have grief-related dreams and altered the behaviour a year after the event.