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Crim 3 Human Behavior and Victimology: BY: Arnold A. Abayon, Rcrim
Crim 3 Human Behavior and Victimology: BY: Arnold A. Abayon, Rcrim
Why is it Dangerous?
Victim-blaming attitudes marginalize the victim/survivor and make it harder to come
forward and report the abuse. If the survivor knows that you or society blames her for the
abuse, s/he will not feel safe or comfortable coming forward and talking to you.
Victim-blaming attitudes also reinforce what the abuser has been saying all along; that it is
the victim’s fault this is happening. It is NOT the victim’s fault or responsibility to fix the
situation; it is the abuser’s choice. By engaging in victim-blaming attitudes, society allows the
abuser to perpetrate relationship abuse or sexual assault while avoiding accountability for
his/her actions.
Theories of Victimization
As a method of countering the problem of crime, and
of dealing with the numerous victims left in their
wake, criminologists turn to the study of victims and
their relationship to the criminal act.
While caring and understanding the pain and anguish
of the victim and their circle of social influence is of
essential, as is providing treatment and counseling;
criminologists now view the role of the victim in the
criminal process as imperative to understanding the
crime itself.
Studying and researching victimology helps in gaining
a better understanding of the victim, as well as the
criminal, and how the crime may have been
precipitated.
1. Victim Precipitation Theory
The victim precipitation theory suggests that the characteristics of the victim precipitate the crime.
Analyzes how a victim's interaction with an offender may contribute to the crime being committed.
It concerns situations where a victim's negligence or carelessness makes them more vulnerable to a crime.
This theory views victimology from the standpoint that the victims themselves may actually initiate the
criminal act that ultimately leads to injury or death either passively or actively.
1.1. Passive
During this precipitation, the victim unconsciously exhibits behaviors or characteristics that instigate or
encourage the attack.
Examples:
The horrifying practice of lynching (hate crime) that was carried out by Americans against people of African
origins, due to racism.
One employee is passed over for a promotion that is offered to his/ her colleague (victim). This motivates him to
physically harm or spread rumors about the victim.
Two men competing for the love of the same woman may indulge in antagonistic acts towards each other.
The act of terrorism against a select community of people.
1.2. Active
Victimization under this theory occurs through the threatening or provocative
actions of the victim.
Example:
A woman kills her husband due to a prolonged history of regular domestic violence.
In the midst of a heated argument, the victim physically lashes out at the offender,
causing him to shove or hit the victim so hard that he/she falls and gravely injures
himself/herself.
Constant derogation and humiliation of an employee, in public, by the employer,
causes the employee to lash out and physically harm the employer.
A drunken man engages in eve-teasing a woman, keeps chasing her, and eventually
tries to get physical with her. In desperation, the woman reaches for any sharp object
she can find and stabs the man.
2. Lifestyle Theory of Victimization
This theory purports that individuals are targeted based on their lifestyle choices,
and that these lifestyle choices expose them to criminal offenders and situations in
which crimes may be committed.
Examples
Walking alone at night in a dangerous area
living in "bad" parts of town
Conspicuously wearing expensive jewelry,
Leaving doors unlocked and
associating with known criminals are other lifestyle characteristics that may lead
to victimization.
excessive alcohol use and doing drugs.
Features:
According to lifestyle theory, people become victims of
crime because they do not exercise intelligent or rational choice
when putting themselves in social situations.
In general, such social situations refer to the peer group,
friends, social world and environment.
Criminologist Larry Siegel holds that such things as an all-
male peer group, urban environments, weapons-carrying and
excessive partying are all tightly correlated with becoming
victims of crime.
Function:
1. High-Risk Victims
Victims in this group have a lifestyle that makes them a higher risk for
being a victim of a violent crime.
The most obvious high-risk victim is the prostitute. Prostitutes place
themselves at risk every single time they go to work.
They are of high risk because they get into a stranger's car, go to
secluded areas with strangers, and for the most part, attempt to
conceal their actions for legal reasons.
2. Moderate-Risk Victims
Victims that fall into this category are lower risk victims, but for
some reason were in a situation that placed them in a greater level
of risk.
A person that is stranded on a dark, secluded highway due to a
flat tire and accepts a ride from a stranger and is then victimized
would be a good example of this type of victim level risk.
3. Low-Risk Victims
The idea of anomie means the lack of normal ethical or social standards. This concept first
emerged in 1893, with French sociologist Emile Durkheim. Normlessness is a state where the
expectations of behavior are unclear, and the system has broken down.
Normlessness (or what Durkheim referred to as anomie) “denotes the situation in which the
social norms regulating individual conduct have broken down or are no longer effective as rules for
behaviour”.
Durkheim's theory was based upon the idea that the lack of rules and clarity resulted in
psychological status of worthlessness, frustration, lack of purpose, and despair.
In criminology, the idea of anomie is that the person chooses criminal activity because the
individual believes that there is no reason not to.
For example, if society does not provide enough jobs that pay a living wage so that people can
work to survive, many will turn to criminal methods of earning a living. So for Merton, deviance,
and crime are, in large part, a result of anomie, a state of social disorder.
7. Control Theory