Victimology

Theoretical perspectives of victimology:

What is victimology? Victimology = study of the impact of crime on victims, victims' interests and pattern of victimisation

• Not easy to research – there is a 'dark figure' of hidden victims who never come to the attention of the police or the CJS.
• Victim surveys have tried to deal with this problem. The government has tried to give greater importance to victims – this trust is key to dealing with crime. Is it a social construct? Some sociologists argue that victimhood is a social construction: an identity or label that is created and can become a master status, in the same way that "deviant" can.

• Similarly, society can fail to see someone as a victim because they do not conform to an idealised image of a victim.
• Christie (1986): Victim is a concept like crime that is socially constructed, who is and isn't a victim changes depending on the context.

Effects of victimisation:

• Physical, financial and mental harm
• A whole industry has developed around the fear of crime
• Restrictions over movement – women may fear to go out at night or avoid certain areas
• An ongoing sense of fear – ¾ of incidents of domestic violence are experienced by those who have been victimised before
• Can also lead to hate crimes if people are worried about being a victim
• Walklate (2004): CJS contribute to secondary victimisation (occurs as a result of the original victimisation) – female victims have their reputation and respectability scrutinised.

Patterns of Victimisation:

Gender and victimisation:

• The CSEW: women are more likely to worry about being victims of burglary and violent crime
• Young men have twice the risk of young women being the victim of violent crime
• 1 in 4 women will suffer some form of domestic violence, compared to 1 in 6 men
• Each year, 150 people are killed by a current or former partner. 80% are women
• Many female victims of domestic violence suffer repeat victimisation – yet many do not leave their partner
• Hasn't always been taken seriously by the police + courts – family is a private sphere
• About 90% rape victims are women, and only about 1 in 10 rape victims report the offence to the police
• Low conviction rate – about 6% of all reported rapes lead to a prosecution and conviction

Age and victimisation:

• Lifestyles of the young expose them to a greater risk of being victims
• The risk decreases with age
• Young people are more likely to be victims of violent crime
• 16-24 yr olds are 3x more likely

Social class and victimisation:

• The poorest sections of the working class are most likely to be victims. The highest rates of victimisation are found:
• Among the 'hard pressed': the unemployed, the long-term sick, low-income families
• In areas of high physical disorder – with widespread vandalism, graffiti, homes in poor conditions
• In areas with high levels of deprivation
• The 2014/15 CSEW – those in the 20% of poorest areas faced much higher risk of being victims of household crime and of all CSEW crimes than those 20% who lived in the most affluent areas

Ethnicity and victimisation:

• Minority ethnic groups more likely to be a victim of personal crime – live in areas of social deprivation, their social class and the younger age profile.
• Even excluding these differences, all minority ethnic groups report higher levels of worry about crime than do the white population
• Victims from minority ethnic groups made up 23% of homicides in 2007-2010 = more than twice the risk facing the white population
• From 2012-2015, there were around 106,000 racially motivated hate crimes per year

Positivist victimology:

Miers (1989) says that positivist victimology has three parts:

1. It aims to identify factors that produce patterns in victimisation and factors which make people more prone to be victims

2. Focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence

3. It aims to identify victims who have contributed to their own victimisation

A02 (studies and examples): Hentig (1948) focused on victim proneness meaning finding social and psychological characteristics that made them more vulnerable than non-victims e.g. female, elderly and lower intelligence. The implication is that in some way they 'invite' victimisation Victim precipitation is the idea that the victim contributes to them becoming a victim. Wolfgang's study of homicides found that in 26% of cases, the victim triggered the events leading to murder e.g. by using violence first.

A03 - Evaluation:

• Wolfgang shows the importance of the victim-offender relationship (in many homicides matter of chance which party becomes the victim)

• Ignores wider structural factors influencing victimisation e.g. poverty, patriarchy + unemployment

• They are victim blaming - it's almost saying it's the victim's own fault for being a victim. Amir's (1971) claim that 1/5 rapes are victim-precipitated is not very different from saying that the victims asked for it.

• Ignore situations where victims are unaware of victimisation e.g. environmental or where harm is done but no law is broken. Examples: 'Police accused of victim blaming as MPs condemn decision to reveal Nicola Bulley's alcohol struggles.

• How the Hillsborough families were failed by the justice system.

Radical/critical victimology:

Direct counter to Positivist Criminology. Based on conflict theories such as Marxism and Feminism. It focuses on 2 elements:

1. Structural factors = patriarchy and poverty, which place powerless groups such as women and the poor at great risk of victimisation. The victims like women and the poor are victims because of wider structural factors like patriarchy and poverty.

2. The state's power to apply or deny the label of victim = victim is a social construct, the same as 'crime' and 'criminal'. The CJS (criminal justice system) applies labels of victim to some and not others. For example, if police fail to press charges on a man accused of domestic abuse then the woman is no longer a victim even if she is.

A02: Tombs and Whyte (2007)

shows that when employers violate the law and it to death, the victim is called 'accident prone' rather than a victim.

• Tombs and White note that there is 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 the victims any justice. E.g. Hillsborough disaster
• The hierarchy of victimisation shows that the powerless tend to be victimised, but the state does nothing.

A03 evaluation:

It is valuable in drawing attention to the way the 'victim' status is constructed by power and how this benefits the powerful at the expense of the powerless

• Disregards the role victims may play in bringing victimisation on themselves e.g. not making their homes secure, or drug users who get into a fight with their drug dealer.