Victimology
Victimology is the study of victimization, including the psychological effects on victims, the relationship 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.
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.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.
A victim impact panel, which usually follows the victim impact statement, is a form of community-based or restorative justice in which the 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.
Theories
has argued "the victim" is a social construct because in order for a person to be labeled a victim, some societal agreement needs to exist. Societal power dynamics affect collective perceptions of victimization. Nils Christie classifies "ideal victims" as those most likely to obtain “the complete and legitimate status of being a victim” when harmed. Christie writes that this is most likely to occur when the victim is perceived as weak, was participating in a reputable activity, not seen as accountable for playing a part in their victimization, and the offender is large and evil and not known to the victim.Consequences of crimes
as the result of crime is a recurring theme for all victims of crime. The most common problems, 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. 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 being more adversely affected.Victims may experience the following psychological reactions:
- Increase in the realization of personal vulnerability.
- The perception of the world as meaningless and incomprehensible.
- They view themselves in a negative light.
Victim proneness
Environmental theory
The environmental theory posits that the location and context of the crime bring the victim of the crime and its perpetrator together. Research published between 2010 and 2025 gives some credence to this theory.Studies in the early 2010s showed that crimes are negatively correlated to trees in urban environments; more trees in an area are congruent with lower victimization rates or violent crime rates. This relationship was established by studies in 2010 in Portland, Oregon and in 2012 in Baltimore, Maryland. Geoffrey Donovan of the United States Forest Service, one of the researchers, said, "trees, which provide a range of other benefits, could improve quality of life in Portland by reducing crime..." because "We believe that large street trees can reduce crime by signaling to a potential criminal that a neighborhood is better cared for and, therefore, a criminal is more likely to be caught." Note that the presence of large street trees especially indicated a reduction in crime, as opposed to newer, smaller trees. In the 2012 Baltimore study, led by scientists from the University of Vermont and the United States Department of Agriculture, a "conservative spatially adjusted model indicated that a 10% increase in tree canopy was associated with a roughly 12% decrease in crime.... we found that the inverse relationship continued in both contexts, but the magnitude was 40% greater for public than for private lands."
A study in the 2020s showed a strong positive association between "routine maintenance and repair of urban public places with a reduction in community violence, proxied by violent crime incidents." Conversely, a study in the 2020s, showed a strong positive correlation between vacant, abandoned, or "cited" properties with family violence. Researchers at Tulane University found about child neglect and intimate partner violence that:
Quantification of victim-proneness
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 are more likely to be victims of repeated crimes.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, and armed or unarmed robbery.
Sex workers are, anecdotally, thought to have an abnormally high incidence of violent crime committed against them, and such crimes frequently go unresolved, but there are few victimological studies of the matter.
Fundamental attribution error
In social psychology, the fundamental attribution error 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.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. If Alice later tripped over the same rock herself, she would be more likely to blame the placement of the rock. Victim proneness or victim blaming can be a form of fundamental attribution error, and more specifically, the just-world phenomenon.
The just-world phenomenon or Just-world fallacy is the belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, which was first theorized by Melvin Lerner. 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 fallacy 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 blame the victim's faults in "past lives" to pursue justification for their bad outcome.
Victim facilitation
Victim facilitation, another controversial sub-topic, but a more accepted theory than victim proneness, finds its roots in the writings of criminologists such as Marvin Wolfgang. The choice to use victim facilitation as opposed to "victim proneness" or some other term is that victim facilitation is not blaming the victim, but rather the interactions of the victim that make them vulnerable to a crime.The theory of victim facilitation calls for study of the external 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 by the offender of victim behavior. It is based upon the theory of a symbolic interaction and does not alleviate the offender of their 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, type of employment, and their location at the time of the killing. 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 were at greater risk from 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.