Transcript Victimology - Southeast Missouri State University

Victimology
and Anthropology and Race
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Victimology
• Until recently, victims were not studied
• Passive recipients of criminal’s greed,
anger, etc., “wrong place at the wrong time”
• Victimology the study of victims
• $8 billion per year in stolen property
• Victims not treated well by CJS
• Loss of wages, physical & psychological
complications
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Social ecology of victimization
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When: 6 p.m.. to 6 am
Personal larceny during day
More serious at night
Where: Open, public area, only rape and
simple assault in homes
• Central city
• Western urban highest, Northeast rural
lowest
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Victimization
• NCS indicates that 25% of U.S. households
contain at least one individual who was
victimized in some way during the past year
• 99% will experience personal theft, 87%
will be a theft victim 3 or more times
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Victim characteristics
• Men are twice as likely as women to be
victims of robbery and assault.
• The violent victimization rate for females
has been stable, but there has been a 20%
increase for males in last 15 years
• Victim risk diminishes rapidly after age 25.
Contrary to belief, grandparents are safer
than their grandchildren.
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Characteristics (continued)
• The poor are more likely to be victims of
violent crime, while the middle class are
more likely to be victims of property crime
• Unmarried/never married more likely to be
victims than married/widows
• African Americans are victimized at highest
rates
• Young, black, urban, poor, male
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Characteristics (continued)
• 60% of violent crimes committed by a
stranger. However, females usually know
their assailants (625,000 victims of intimate
violence)
• Crime tends to be intraracial
• 54% of offenders report being under the
influence of alcohol and/or other drugs
when they committed the offense resulting
in incarceration.
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Violence in the home
• About 1 1/2 million children are physically
abused. Average number of assaults per
year for these children: 10.5, rarely a onetime act
• 16% couples report incident of spouse
abuse
• 1% sexually abused
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Theories of victimization
• Victim precipitation theory: There are
victims who may have actually initiated the
confrontation that led to their injury/death
• Life-style theory: life-style increases
exposure to criminal offenses
• Increased risk: staying single, associating
with young men, urban, going to public
places late at night
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Theories of victimization (cont)
• Reduced risk: staying home at night, rural,
staying out of public places, earning more
money, getting married
• Thus, probabilities of crime depends on the
activities of the victim. Crime occurs when
victims place themselves in jeopardy
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Theories (cont.)
• Routine activities theory
• The volume and distribution of predatory
crimes depends on
• availability of suitable targets
• absence of capable guardians
• presence of motivated offenders
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Theories (cont)
• Increase in crime since 1960
• less caretakers, women entering workforce
• decline of the traditional neighborhood,
flight to the suburbs
• volume of easily transportable wealth has
increased
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Theories cont.
• Equivalent group hypothesis: victims and
criminals share similar characteristics
because they are not really separate groups
• Crime victims as a group report a high
amount of criminal activity
• Proximity hypothesis: crime less a function
of life-style, but rather is based on close
proximity.
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Theories (cont)
• Victims and criminals live in the same areas
• Probability of being victimized is more a
function of where one lives than one’s
lifestyle
• High crime: poor, densely populated,
highly transient neighborhoods
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Victim services
• Studies of the victim have led to new
programs
• Victim compensation programs
• Court services
• Public education
• Crisis intervention (such as rape)
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Protecting victims
• Victim’s rights: debate about what they
should be. Megan’s law, allowing victims
to speak at hearings, etc.
• Self-protection: target hardening, block
watch, neighborhood patrols
• Gun ownership higher among crime
victims: debate
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Race and Crime
• One in every four African American males
between the ages of 20 and 29 are under
some form of correctional supervision in the
U.S. This was not always the case: The
proportion has doubled since W.W.II
• 1/8 of the population, but 1/2 of those
arrested for violent crimes, 1/3 for property
crimes, 1/2 of those in prison.
• Also victimized at higher rates
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Race and crime: explanations
• Economic deprivation and conflict theory
• Racial isolation, barriers to employment,
education, etc.
• Relative deprivation: growing disparity
between poor and middle class (Middle
class African Americans have rapidly
increased income and educational levels,
those in inner cities are worse off
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Explanations (cont)
• Biological factors
• Genetic factors among differing ethnic
groups seems an unlikely explanation (for
example, it could not account for the sudden
increase)
• Poor prenatal care and poor nutrition among
the poor result in being at risk for LD,
neurological problems, ADHD, LBW, etc.
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Explanations
• In general, children in poor female based
households are more at risk, because of the
greater difficulties in providing resources
and supervision..
• 1/2 of African American children live below
the poverty line
• Moynihan report
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Explanations
• Legacy of slavery? (why the rise 100 years
later?)
• Expression of anger? Note that crime tends
to be intraracial.
• Ecological research: Migration from rural
South in the 1920s and 1930s into
transitional area. A rise in crime would be
predicted. It would be expected to last
longer because of segregation.
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