Victimology

Victimology is the scientific study of victimization, including the relationships between victims and offenders, the interactions between victims and the criminal justice system — that is, the police and courts, and corrections officials — and the connections between victims and other social groups and institutions, such as the media, businesses, and social movements. Victimology is however not restricted to the study of victims of crime alone but may include other forms of human rights violations.

Victim of a crime

In criminology and criminal law, a victim of a crime is an identifiable person who has been harmed individually and directly by the perpetrator, rather than by society as a whole. However, this may not always be the case, as with victims of white collar crime, who may not be clearly identifiable or directly linked to crime against a particular individual. Victims of white collar crime are often denied their status as victims by the social construction of the concept (Croall, 2001). Not all criminologists accept the concept of victimization or victimology. The concept also remains a controversial topic within women's studies.

The Supreme Court of the United States first recognized the rights of crime victims to make a victim impact statement during the sentencing phase of a criminal trial in the case of Payne v. Tennessee 501 U.S. 808 (1991).

A victim impact panel is a form of community-based or restorative justice in which the crime victims (or relatives and friends of deceased crime victims) meet with the defendant after conviction to tell the convict about how the criminal activity affected them, in the hope of rehabilitation or deterrence.

 Consequences of crimes

Emotional distress as the result of crime is a recurring theme for all victims of crime. The most common problem, affecting three quarters of victims, were psychological problems, including: fear, anxiety, nervousness, self-blame, anger, shame, and difficulty sleeping. These problems often result in the development of chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Post crime distress is also linked to pre-existing emotional problems and sociodemographic variables. This has been known to become a leading case of the elderly to be more adversely affected.(Ferraro, 1995)

Victims may experience the following psychological reactions:

• Increase in the belief of personal vulnerability.
• The perception of the world as meaningless and incomprehensible.
• The view of themselves in a negative light.

The experience of victimization may result in an increasing fear of the victim of the crime, and the spread of fear in the community.

 Victim proneness

One of the most controversial sub-topics within the broader topic is victim proneness. The concept of victim proneness is a "highly moralistic way of assigning guilt" to the victim of a crime, also known as victim blaming. One theory, the environmental theory, posits that the location and context of the crime bring the victim of the crime and its perpetrator together.

There have been some studies recently to quantify the real existence of victim-proneness. Contrary to the popular belief that more women are repeat victims, and thus more victim-prone than men, actually men in their prime (24 to 34 year old males) are more likely to be victims of repeated crimes. While each study used different methodology, their results must be taken seriously and further studies are warranted.

The study of victimology may also include the "culture of victimhood," wherein the victim of a crime revels in his or her status, proclaiming that self-created victimhood throughout a community by winning the sympathy of professionals and peers.

In the case of juvenile offenders, the study results also show that people are more likely to be victimized as a result of a serious offense by someone they know; the most frequent crimes committed by adolescents towards someone they know were sexual assault, common assault, and homicide. Adolescents victimizing people they did not know generally committed common assault, forcible confinement, armed robbery, and robbery.

Sex workers are, anecdotally, thought to have an abnormally high incidence of violent crime, and such crimes go frequently unresolved, but there are few victimological studies of the matter.

Fundamental attribution error

In social psychology, the fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect) describes the tendency to over-value dispositional or personality-based explanations for the observed behaviors of others while under-valuing situational explanations for those behaviors. The term was coined by Lee Ross some years after a now-classic experiment by Edward E. Jones and Victor Harris (1967).

The fundamental attribution error is most visible when people explain the behavior of others. It does not explain interpretations of one's own behavior—where situational factors are often taken into consideration. This discrepancy is called the actor–observer bias. As a simple example, if Alice saw Bob trip over a rock and fall, Alice might consider Bob to be clumsy or careless (dispositional). If Alice later tripped over the same rock herself, she would be more likely to blame the placement of the rock (situational). Victim proneness or victim blaming can be a form of fundamental attribution error, and more specifically, the just-world phenomenon.

The Just-world phenomenon is the belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, which was first theorized by Melvin Lerner (1977). Attributing failures to dispositional causes rather than situational causes, which are unchangeable and uncontrollable, satisfies our need to believe that the world is fair and we have control over our life. We are motivated to see a just world because this reduces our perceived threats, gives us a sense of security, helps us find meaning in difficult and unsettling circumstances, and benefits us psychologically. Unfortunately, the just-world hypothesis also results in a tendency for people to blame and disparage victims of a tragedy or an accident, such as victims of rape and domestic abuse to reassure themselves of their insusceptibility to such events. People may even go to such extremes as the victim's faults in "past life" to pursue justification for their bad outcome.

Victim facilitation

Victim facilitation, another controversial sub-topic, but a more accepted theory than victim blaming, finds its roots in the writings of criminologists such as Marvin Wolfgang. The choice to use victim facilitation as opposed to “victim blaming” or some other term is that victim facilitation is not blaming the victim, but rather the interactions of the victim that make him/her vulnerable to a crime.

While victim facilitation relates to “victim blaming” the idea behind victim facilitation is to study the elements that make a victim more accessible or vulnerable to an attack. In an article that summarizes the major movements in victimology internationally, Schneider expresses victim facilitation as a model that ultimately describes only the misinterpretation of victim behavior of the offender. It is based upon the theory of a symbolic interaction and does not alleviate the offender of his/her exclusive responsibility.

In Eric Hickey’s Serial Murderers and their Victims, a major analysis of 329 serial killers in America is conducted. As part of Hickey’s analysis, he categorized victims as high, low, or mixed regarding the victim’s facilitation of the murder. Categorization was based upon lifestyle risk (example, amount of time spent interacting with strangers), type of employment, and their location at the time of the killing (example, bar, home or place of business). Hickey found that 13-15% of victims had high facilitation, 60-64% of victims had low facilitation and 23-25% of victims had a combination of high and low facilitation. Hickey also noted that among serial killer victims after 1975, one in five victims placed themselves at risk either by hitchhiking, working as a prostitute or involving themselves in situations in which they often came into contact with strangers.

There is importance in studying and understanding victim facilitation as well as continuing to research it as a sub-topic of victimization. For instance, a study of victim facilitation increases public awareness, leads to more research on victim-offender relationship, and advances theoretical etiologies of violent crime. One of the ultimate purposes of this type of knowledge is to inform the public and increase awareness so fewer people become victims. Another goal of studying victim facilitation, as stated by Maurice Godwin, is to aid in investigations. Godwin discusses the theory of victim social networks as a concept in which one looks at the areas of highest risk for victimization from a serial killer. This can be connected to victim facilitation because the victim social networks are the locations in which the victim is most vulnerable to the serial killer. Using this process, investigators can create a profile of places where the serial killer and victim both frequent.