Crime victims are persons harmed by criminal acts, as defined by law. Although most criminal violations have identifiable victims, some crimes are considered victimless crimes; these commonly comprise transactions conducted between willing participants who are interested in the exchange and do not consider themselves victims (e.g., gambling or prostitution in states that prohibit such activities). Victims include direct or primary victims who are persons directly harmed by the criminal act; secondary victims who are commonly family and friends of direct victims, and in some cases, first responders who attended to direct victims; and tertiary victims who are those exposed to the harm indirectly (e.g., as through media communications). Victimization includes physical, sexual, psychological, and financial harm, experienced in person, indirectly, or via the Internet. Since many victims have to go through the criminal justice process while their violator has his or her day in court, an important aspect of the victimization experience is related to victim participation in criminal justice proceedings and encounters with the system’s agents, including police, prosecution, judges, and parole staff in regard to an offender’s request for early release. This article addresses the history of the study of victims, types of victimization and their effects on victims, and the role of victims in the criminal justice system.
History of the Study of Crime Victims
Until the 1970s, victims in adversarial criminal justice systems in countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, or Australia have been invisible. Issues of victims and victimization were also ignored in research and scholarship until that time. The role of victims in crimes was first given attention in 1947, when Benjamin Mendelson coined the term victimology and classified victims according to their contribution to the law violation, from being totally innocent to totally responsible. Soon thereafter, Hans von Hentig authored The Criminal and His Victim (1948), and examined proneness for victimization, classifying persons according to their vulnerability for becoming victims (e.g., the young, immigrants, those with developmental disorders). In 1957, Marvin Wolfgang published Patterns in Criminal Homicide, in which he identified the phenomenon of victim-precipitated homicide. He demonstrated that in over one quarter of the homicide cases in Philadelphia, the victim initiated the use of violence or a weapon. Wolfgang concluded that in such circumstances who becomes a victim and who is an offender is a random event. Menachim Amir’s Patterns in Forcible Rape (1960) was a controversial study of rape that adopted Wolfgang’s framework; his suggestion that rape victims may precipitate their victimization was highly criticized. Other studies that featured this framework included André Normandeau’s 1968 work “Patterns in Robbery.”
The study of victims initially focused on the ways victims shape their offender or contribute to their victimization. In later years, with the impetus from the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (1967), issues such as reporting crime to authorities, victims’ motives to report victimization, and police responses to crime and victims were noted. The concept of dark figure crime (i.e., crime that remains unknown since victims do not report their victimization) began to be the subject of research. Victimization surveys (i.e., research that measures victimization by surveying the general population about their victimization and whether it was reported to the police) were offered to rectify the validity of official statistics and adjust the size of the crime phenomenon as it appeared in official statistics. In the 1970s, activities by the women’s movement called attention to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, leading to legislation that addressed violence against women, including new offenses such as stalking, family violence, and sexual harassment. With the emergence of the Crime Victims’ Rights Movement in the 1980s, attention was directed to the criminal justice system’s mistreatment of victims resulting in victim alienation and dissatisfaction with justice proceedings. The movement’s activities led to reforms which resulted in various victims’ rights, including notification and right to be present in proceedings, compensation and restitution, safety from intimidation, speedy trial, and rights to participate in proceedings and provide decision-making input.
Today victimology is considered an area that complements criminology (i.e., the study of crime and criminals), addressing questions pertaining to victims, victimization, and the role of victims in justice proceedings. The field is interdisciplinary, incorporating insights from the various social sciences, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, economics, political sciences, socio-legal studies, as well as public health, psychiatry, and medicine.
Types of Victimization and Their Effects on Victims
Victimization takes many forms; regardless of the type of violation, there are commonalities in the ways victims experience and respond to victimization. There are also unique victims’ responses, dependent on the offense type and circumstances, victim personal attributes, and history of victimization. Research has also addressed patterns of reporting behavior and motives to report victimization. Common reasons for which victims do not report include: victim belief that the victimization is not important enough to report, that the police cannot do anything about it; fear of retaliation by the offender; the victim has dealt with it in another manner; and combinations of these reasons; the frequency of each reason may differ according to offense type. This section discusses the most common types of victimization, according to official statistics and national victimization surveys. With the advancement of technology, victimization now occurs in virtual spaces, new types of victimizations have emerged, and traditional offenses that were once only perpetrated in person now take place in cyberspace (e.g., stalking, harassment, threats, fraud).
Sexual Violence
Victims of all ages experience sexual violations that range from molestation (i.e., sexual contact), harassment, stalking (i.e., repeated pattern of unwanted attention) to sexual assaults or rapes— the latter being the most serious form of sexual violence. Both females and males can be the victims of sexual assault, although the majority of rape victims are females, between the ages of 16 and 35 years. Rape myths about women (e.g., when women say no they do not mean it; if women drink alcohol, dress, or behave in a certain way, they are asking for sexual contact) have contributed to their victimization. Underage persons (i.e., younger than 18 years) are often sexually assaulted by persons familiar to them—relatives, family friends, neighbors, and parents. Children, often as young as 8 years of age, are being trafficked for pornography and commercial sex, to meet the demand that some people and pedophiles have for young partners. Sexual assaults result in severe mental trauma for victims, particularly children. Short- and long-term effects include nightmares, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, distrust of others, difficulties in having normal sexual relations as adults, and in some cases, suicide. Rape in marriage is a common form of domestic violence, which is currently criminalized in all states in the United States.
Victims and Survivors of Homicide
Persons of all ages are victims of homicide. Killing can be planned (i.e., murder) or unintentional (i.e., manslaughter), accidental, or occur in the process of committing other crimes. Women are more often killed by intimate partners than by strangers. Men are often killed by other men; gang- and organized-crime-related homicide commonly involve men as victims, although missed hits or random shooting may take the lives of innocent bystanders of all gender categories and ages. Survivors of homicide victims, the family members, and friends of victims who were murdered or killed are considered the indirect victims of homicide; they go through a long, difficult grieving process. Research has shown that they experience post-traumatic stress disorder, the level of which depends on survivors’ degree of resilience, social network support, and events that follow the death (e.g., having to move, change schools). Research also suggests that survivors commonly claim that closure is never reached and constant reminders (e.g., empty chair at the table; birthdays of the murder victim) bring back memories and cause sadness, making it difficult to forget. Death due to homicide (compared to death resulting from illness or due to natural disaster) is also associated with the criminal justice proceedings of the perpetrator, which many include a defense attorney blaming the victim, tarnishing the victim’s reputation, or denying the perpetrator’s responsibility; media attention to the case; and disturbing broadcasting of the case details and proceedings. All of these have the potential to cause survivors additional stress and grief.
Domestic Violence and Related Offenses
Violence against family members (i.e., abuse or violence against present or past spouses, intimate partners, children, parents, in-laws) or those who share the same household (i.e., roommates) is defined as domestic violence. Child abuse and elder abuse include mistreatment of minors and the elderly that consists of physical, sexual, and/or emotional victimization, as well as neglect, often perpetrated by family members or other caretakers. Much of the research has been conducted on intimate partner (i.e., married, co-habituating, or ex-partner) violence. It includes physical, sexual, financial, or emotional abuse and at times includes victimization of an abused partner’s children or pets.
Domestic violence is characterized by control and domination of the victim; the battering is often unpredictable and can be triggered by the victim’s action or behavior. An abuser tends to isolate victims, belittle them, destroy their self-image, and convey the idea that they cannot live or manage on their own, increasing their dependence on the abuser. Victims often do not report abuse to authorities for a long time, as they attempt to satisfy the demands of their abuser, hoping he or she will change.
Victims are often emotionally and economically dependent on the abuser, making it harder to leave, particularly if they have children together. Victims also do not leave for fear of retaliation; research shows that victims are at heightened risk when they try to separate from their abuser, a phenomenon known as separation assault. Stalking (i.e., patterns of behavior aimed at initiating another person) is also associated with attempted separation from an abusive intimate partner.
Immigrant women are particularly vulnerable to abuse, as they often are, or believe they are, dependent on their abuser, since the abuser often uses immigration papers as a weapon to compel the wife (or girlfriend) to conform to the abuser’s demands, threatening the loss of immigrant status or reporting the wife (or girlfriend) to authorities. Abused women may also fear that if they report the battering the abuser (commonly the husband or boyfriend) will be deported, and these women will lose their source of support or their immigration status.
The high prevalence and incidence of domestic violence victimization has been associated with high costs to society in terms of medical expenses, lost working days for the victims, and most importantly, negative impact on children who grow up in abusive homes. Many countries and states have passed domestic violence laws, which in some cases mandate the arrest of batterers as well as provide for various services to victims (e.g., counseling, shelters, compensation).
Property Crime
Property crime is the most frequent type of victimization. It includes various forms of misappropriation of property, such as theft, burglary, or robbery (the latter has also elements of violent crime, due to the perpetrator’s hostile face-to-face encounter with the victim, which is normally absent in burglary). Victims of property crime experience stress and anxiety due to the loss of material goods or money, and in some cases experience severe trauma. Those victimized by burglary report trauma related to their home intrusion and violation of privacy; they also fear that the perpetrator may return, particularly if they report the crime. Victims of robbery experience serious trauma as the crime is commonly perpetrated with a weapon or threats to use a weapon if the victims do not comply with the demand to surrender their valuables or money. Victims of property crimes such as theft or burglary often do not report their victimization because they do not believe the police can do anything about it. Victims tend to report when an insurance claim is involved and reporting to the police is required (e.g., in cases of auto theft).
Financial Crime
Persons of all ages are victims of financial crimes, although the elderly experience financial abuse more often than other age groups. Financial crime takes various forms, including telemarketing, mortgage fraud, mass marketing (domestic and international), phishing, and Ponzi schemes, often appearing as affinity fraud whose target victims are in-group members (e.g., immigrants of a specific ethnicity, religious and minority groups, the military). Identity theft is also associated with loss of money, and its victims go through a long, debilitating process of proving they were victims of fraud and restoring their credit. Victims of financial crimes are often too embarrassed to report the victimization, as they are concerned with being viewed as greedy, stupid, or otherwise responsible for their own victimization. Financial abuse is often perpetrated by family members, caretakers, or persons working in residential facilities who have access to or control over the finances of dependent elderly residents. Dependent persons often rely on family members or caretakers for their survival or comfort and thus are particularly vulnerable to financial abuse. These victims are not likely to report the victimization for fear that they would lose the support and help of their caretakers, on whom they are highly dependent.
Role of Victims in the Criminal Justice System
The role of victims in a criminal justice proceedings of adversarial legal systems (e.g., the U.S. legal system) has changed dramatically over the centuries—from a system in which victims were expected to deal with offenders directly, to one in which the state now assumes the duty of bringing offenders to justice. Because in adversarial systems, the parties to proceedings are the state and the accused, victims do not have a party status; at best, they serve as witnesses at the trial of their violators. For most victims, even their role as a witness will not always materialize, due to the high attrition of cases that reach the criminal justice system, as well as high rates of negotiated pleas between the prosecution and the defense. Consequently, until the 1970s, crime victims have been neglected by the criminal justice system, feeling forgotten, alienated, and dissatisfied with justice. During the 1970s and 1980s?, with the emergence of social movements that addressed women’s concerns (e.g., sexual assault and other forms of violence against women, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and the concerns of victims in general, the treatment of victims in justice proceedings began to attract attention. Victims are now accorded various privileges and rights, including notification about proceedings, right to be present in proceedings, the right to receive restitution from the offender or compensation from the state, the right to a speedy trial, and most importantly, the right to be consulted and provide input into criminal justice decision-making regarding the person who violated them. Victim input may apply to issues such as charges filed, bail requested, plea bargain specifics, sentencing (by means of a victim impact statement), and whether a convicted offender is released on parole. Although currently there are no legal sanctions for nonenforcement of these rights, they nonetheless signify an important step in the criminal justice approach to victims, viewing victims as insiders rather than outsiders and as important participants in justice proceedings.
References:
- Bottoms, A., & Roberts, J. V. (2009). Hearing the victims: Adversarial justice, crime victims and the state. Cullompton, UK: Willan.
- Davis, R. C., Lurigio, A. J., & Herman, S. (2013). Victims of crime. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.