victimology

• Mier - identified 3 features of positivist victimology:

  • physical characteristics making the individual susceptible to being a victim ( age, gender, ethnicity, wealth)
  • relationship between the offender and victim - especially for violent and sexual crimes
  • ways the victim may have contributed to being a victim of crime
  • media reporting of crimes lays some blame on the victims by referencing alcohol level
  • walklate: in rape trials the victim is often on trial than the offender
  • Ao3 - victim blaming - ignores the role of the criminal and suggests the victims are at fault
• Spencer and Walklate - identified 3 features of critical victimology:

  • state defines who is a victim -defined in terms of their social and physical characteristics - men and w/c aren't typically regarded as victims
  • broader scale of victims
  • critiques victim blaming - positivist victimology denies Stephen Lawrence victim status despite being murdered by 5 white males, failures in the police = institutional racism, assumptions that Lawrence's death was gang related and therefore Lawrence was at fault
  • Ao3 - limited impact due to its position in opposing the media and government narratives