Victimology

• Christie (1986)


  The term 'victim' is socially constructed

  Label depends on time, place and severity
• Positivists


  Focuses on the victims' proneness to crime.

  Victims invite victimisation
• Wolfgang study


  Shows importance of victim-offender relationship

  If you carry a knife, you will more likely get stabbed with your own weapon
• Critical victimology


  Emphasises structural factors such as poverty and the power of the state to apply or deny the label of victim
• Stephen Lawrence


  Racial attack by 5 white gang members that led to the murder of black male, Stephen Lawrence, in London