1. Chapter 16 Victimology: Exploring the Experience of Victimization

2. Chapter Summary
Chapter Sixteen is an overview of victimolgy, or the study of victims of crime.
The chapter begins with a discussion of who is victimized.
This is followed with a discussion of the various theories regarding victimization.
The Chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of the criminal justice system in terms of catering to the victim.

3. Chapter Summary
After reading this chapter, students should be able to:
Define victimology
Describe victims
Explain the theories of victimization
Describe the relationship between the criminal justice system and victims
Understand policies aimed at helping victims

4. The Emergence of Victimology
For every criminal act, there is at least one victim.
Victimology: A subfield of criminology that specializes in studying the victims of crime.

5. Who Gets Victimized
Victimization is not a random process; it is a process encompassing a host of systematic environmental, demographic, and personal characteristics.
Victim characteristics differ according to the type of crime.

6. Table Victimization Rates of Combined Violent and Personal Theft Crimes by Selected Demographic Characteristics –2004
Gender
Rate
Household Income
Male
25.0
Less than $7,500
38.4
Female
18.1
39.0
$15,000–$24,999
24.4
$7,500–$14,999
Race/Ethnicity
$25,000–$34,999
22.1
White
21.0
$35,000–$49,999
21.6
Black
26.0
$50,000–$74,999
Hispanic
18.2
$75,000 or more
17.0
Other
2.7
Two or more
51.6
Marital Status
Never married
39.4
Age
Married
9.7
12–15
49.7
Divorced/separate
33.0
16–19
45.9
Widowed
4.0
20–24
43.0
25–34
23.7
Residence
35–49
7.9
Urban
29.0
50–64
11.0
Suburban
18.0
65 or older
2.1
Rural
19.9

7. Victimization in the Workplace and School
On average, over two million incidents take place in the workplace annually.
The three occupations most at risk are: police officers, correction officers, and taxi drivers.
Schools are some of the safest places we can be.
Teachers get victimized by both theft and violence at school.

8. Table 16.2 Average Annual Number of Violent Victimizations in the Workplace 1992-1996
Annual Average %
Homicide
1,023
0.05
Rape/sexual assault
50,500
2.50
Robbery
83,700
4.20
Aggravated assault
395,500
19.70
Simple assault
1,480,000
73.60
2,010,723
100.00
Source: Workplace violence, Warchol (1998).

9. Figure 16.1 Number of Homicides and Suicides of Youth Ages 15-19 at and Away from School: 1999-2000
Source: DeVoe et al., Indicators of school crime and safety: 2003 (2003). U.S. Departments of Education and Justice.

10. Figure Percentage of Students ages who Reported being Bullied During Previous Six Months, by Grade: 1999 and 2001
Source: DeVoe et al., Indicators of school crime and safety: 2003 (2003). U.S. Departments of Education and Justice.

11. Child Molestation: Who gets Victimized?
Child molestation is perhaps the most prevalent crime against the person in the United States.
Girls are more likely to be abused within the family, and boys are more likely to be victimized by acquaintances outside of the family and by strangers.
The strongest single predictor of victimization for girls is having a stepfather.
The strongest predictor for boys is growing up in a father-absent home.

12. Victimization Theories
Victimization can occur at any time, at any place, and totally without warning.
In the majority of cases of victimization, victims are now seen as individuals who in some way, knowingly or unknowingly, passively or actively, influenced their victimization.

13. Victim Precipitation Theory
Von Hentig (1941)—by acting in certain provocative ways, some individuals initiate a chain of events that lead to their victimization.
Victim precipitation theory has been most contentious when it is applied to rape.

14. Male Victimization Rates by Number of Risk Factors for Delinquency
Figure 16.3
Male Victimization Rates by Number of Risk Factors for Delinquency
Source: Loeber, Kalb, & Huizinga (2001). Juvenile delinquency and serious injury victimization.

15. Figure Four Scenarios Illustrating the Degree of Victim/Offender Responsibility According to Victim Precipitation Theory
Degree of Criminal Intent of the Perpetrator
None  Some  More  Much
Victim Provocation
A woman who has suffered years of abuse stabs and kills her husband in self-defense as he is beating her again.
Equal Responsibility Victim using the services of a prostitute leaves his wallet on the bed stand and leaves. She decides to keep the money in his wallet.
Victim Facilitation
Victim leaves keys in his car while he runs into a store. A teenager impulsively steals the car and wrecks it.
Victim Innocent
A sex offender kidnaps a screaming young girl from a playground and molests her.
Much  More  Some  None
Degree of Victim Facilitation or Provocation/Precipitation

16. Routine Activities/Lifestyle Theory
The basic idea of lifestyle theory is that there are certain lifestyles that disproportionately expose some people to high risk for victimization.
Lifestyles are the routine patterned activities that people engage in on a daily basis, both obligatory and optional.
Most of the research in routine activities/lifestyle theory has been done on rape victimization.

17. Is Victimology Blaming the Victim
Some victim advocates strongly reject victimology theories as victim blaming.
Victimologists do not blame, they simply remind us that complete innocence and full responsibility lie on a continuum.

18. The Consequences of Victimization
Overall, financial looses per crime do not appear overly large.
The worst consequences are psychological.
Rape trauma syndrome: Re-experiencing the event via flashbacks, avoiding anything at all associated with the event, and a general numbness or affect.
Violent victimization helps to shape the life course trajectories of victims.

19. Victimization and the Criminal Justice System
Advocates for victims’ rights began agitating for some of the same kinds of due process rights for victims that are enjoyed by their victimizers in the late 1960s, but it was not until 1982 that a federal task force was set up to examine the treatment of victims by the criminal justice system.
The fair and decent treatment of victims by the system can help them to some extent to get over their victimization.

20. Figure 16.5
Percentage of Adolescent Victims and Non-victims of Violence Expected to Experience Adult Problem Outcomes
Source: Menard (2002). Short-and long-term consequences of adolescent victimization

21. Focus on Victim’s Opinions Of the Importance of Victims’ Rights
Box 16.2
Focus on Victim’s Opinions Of the Importance of Victims’ Rights
Source: D. Kilpatrick, Beatty, & Smith-Howley (1998). The Rights of Crime Victims. National Institute of Justice.

22. Victim Compensation and Restitution
Victims of crime are eligible for partial compensation from the states to cover medical and living expenses incurred as a result of their victimization.
Victim compensation in the form of direct payments from the offenders in the form of restitution is increasingly ordered by the courts.

23. Victim-Offender Reconciliation Programs (VORPs)
VORPs are an integral component of restorative justice philosophy.
Central to the VORP process is the bringing together of victim and offender in face-to-face meetings mediated by a person trained in mediation theory and practice.
VORPs are used most often in the juvenile system but rarely used for personal violent crimes in juvenile or adult systems.