Victim precipitation refers to the theory of criminology where a victim of crime is believed to have provoked or incited the acts of the offender. This theory is mostly associated with crimes such as rape, assault, robbery and homicide. Victim precipitation was first made known by Criminologist Marvin Wolfgang in his 1957 article “Victim precipitated criminal homicide”. Wolfgang states the term victim precipitated is applied to criminal homicides where the victim is a direct, positive precipitator to the crime. The role of the victim is characterized by “his having been the first in the homicide drama to use physical force directed against his subsequent slayer.” (Wolfgang, 1957) In 1968 Criminologist Menachem Amir’s primary research was regarding …show more content…
Some writers for example Jones and Aronson (1973), have used this to hypnotize that “respectable” rape victims would be blamed more than less respectable victims. They based this hypothesis on a need to seek extra justification to explain why what appears to be an unfair fate would occur to a respectable individual. (McCaul, Veltum, Boyechko, & Crawford, 1990) This has lead to societies belief system in rape myths, statements such as “she was asking for it” or asking what the victim was wearing or how much they had to drink at the time of the assault creates an attitude towards sexual assault and reinforces the myth that offenders cannot control their sexual urges when multiple studies prove that sexual assault has nothing to do with sexual urges and everything to do with power and …show more content…
News coverage portrayed the offenders as good boys with promising futures that had now been tarnished by these allegations. The school was also rumoured to have taken part in a cover up of evidence to protect the offenders. This became national news in the US when the New York Times ran an extensive piece on the offenders in this case and only talked about the affect on the victim in the last few paragraphs, Anonymous, the hacker group got involved after this and leaked all the information about the offenders and the cover up that took place making the case international news. (Roesch, 2013) Sexual assault and rape are a serious epidemic in today’s society; statistics show that one in five women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape in their lives. (United Nations Development Fund for Women, 2008). And the reporting of sexual assault to the police is exceptionally low and few offenders are successfully prosecuted this leads to a lack of support and education within the community. (Madeleine van der Bruggen,
Victimology is the scientific study of the physical, emotional, and financial harm people suffer from illegal activities. A common struggle Victimologists face is determining who the victim is. In general, crimes don 't have an “ideal victim”. The term ideal victims refer to someone who receives the most sympathy from society (Christie, 2016). An example of this would be a hardworking, honest man who on his way to work, had his wallet taken by force. Most people in society would have sympathy for him. He spent his life making an honest living to earn what he has and was a victim of a robbery. Victimologists study the interactions victims have with criminals, society, and the criminal justice system (Karmen, 2015). According to (Karmen, 2015)
Victimization has a twofold meaning as we try to gain a better understanding from this action. First, it is an act exploiting/victimizing an individual. A relationship has occurred between the victim and the attacker. (Victimization, n.d.) Second, it is also the adversity resulting forced to be a victim. (Victimization, n.d.) This adversity has also forced a relationship between the victim and the criminal justice system as well as socials groups and institutions (media, business, etc.) Victimization is a process. This attacker has forced upon the victim to feel pain, injury, or possibly death. What was the reason for this eternal force? A list of possibilities is endless in the reasoning for such a crime such as intended or unintended, social or individual, civil or uncivil, expected or unexpected, biological or chemical, natural or manmade, legal or
The vast amount of research has provided several explanations to account for the behavior of the offenders and the low rate in which sexual assault cases initiate criminal proceedings through a variety of theoretical perspectives. These include the classical approaches that focus on the individual who has committed sexual assault and the positivist approaches that aim to explain the social factors that influence the prosecution rates th...
There are always those moments when we make decisions that affect the rest of our lives, turning left when we should have turned right. The difference is that most times we live to regret those decisions unlike Carla and her ill-fated jog to her death. There have been throughout time theories as to why offenders commit crime and what drives them to go against all social norms, but now the discussion in the last 50 years, or so, has been what and how much responsibility the victim has in what makes them an attractive target and how their daily routines can even make then more susceptible to crime. The three theories of victimization I found are the Victim Precipitation theory, the Deviant Place theory, and the Lifestyle theory. Each theory has
Whatever is the case, victims’ situations are self-generated and can be prevented if these potential victims can improve on their interpersonal skills. For example, there are two type of situations that are connected to victim precipitated homicide. The first situation is the situational rage where the victim engaged with the offender due to an
First we need to look at what is Victimology and where did it come from? The origins of Victimology can be traced back to the 1940’s to the 1950’s and early 1960’s it erupted after World War II to seek and understand the relationship between criminal and victim. It began when criminologist had came together to examine the victims of crime at a university. ‘Criminology is the science upon which victimology is founded’ (Wallace; Roberson 2) and when two criminologists, “The founding fathers of Victimology” Mendelsohn and Von Hentig first began the field of victimology by using charts and analysis of different types of crimes of victims. They studied the behaviors and vulnerabilities of victims like, rape victims and murder victims. How some of the ways that some of us can relate to of what a victim is. As Wallace; Roberson writes:
From the origins of criminal victimization, we begin with blaming the offended. (Silverii). Still what is more baffling is to question whether or not it is one's duty to make sure victims won't be victimized again or if victims of a crime that are unreported should even be considered victims. There are three main issues that are provided through victimology and these are context, connections, and investigative direction (Turvey). Most victims are not just victims they're perceived by a criminal as an ideal victim. An ‘ideal victim’ is someone who has played no part in their victimization by an offender who was solely responsible for the incident. In the early 1970s, research by the National Opinion Research Center and the President's Commission on Law Enforcement, and the Administration of Justice indicated that many crimes were not reported to police. A lot of times victims are not prepared for the insensitive and unpleasant treatment they may incur from the police, hospitals, and judicial system. In response, the U.S. Census Bureau began conducting the annual National Crime Victimization Survey in 1973. The survey provides the largest national forum for victims to describe the impact of crime and characteristics of violent offenders. The data includes type of crime, month, time, and location of the crime; relationship between victim and offender; characteristics of the offender; self-protective actions taken by the victim during the incident and results of those actions; consequences of the victimization; type of property lost; whether the crime was reported to the police and reasons for reporting or not reporting; and offender use of weapons, drugs, and alcohol.
Individuals might also derogate victims by using the attribution of blame mechanism of moral disengagement. Attribution of blame portrays the aggressor as a faultless victim driven to harmful conduct through forced action (Bandura, 2002). For example, some rapists suggest that the victim was “asking for it” by the way she dressed or acted.
Rape and sexual violence is a very serious problem that affects millions of people each year. Rape is someone taking advantage of another person sexually. Sexual assault can be verbal, physical, visual, or anything that forces a person to join in unwanted sexual contact or attention. ("Sexual Assault.") Rape is one of the most underreported crimes. In 2002, only thirty-nine percent of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to law officials. ("Sexual Violence: Fact Sheet.") Victims sometimes do not report that they have raped because of shame or feeling that it was their fault. It is never the victim's fault. "Victim blaming" is holding the victim of a crime to be in a whole or in partly responsible for what had happened to them. Most victims believe this. ("Myths and Facts about Sexual Violence.")
Understanding the theories of victimology is important to understand the victims, we need to understand the four main theories of victimization. These theories are the principals of victim assessment. It will give the officer the tools to understand the motive behind the victimization giving him different types of views to analyze the victim. The four main theories of victimization are: Victim Precipitation, Lifestyle, Deviant Place, and Routine Activity. These four theories according to victimology give us the idea of how the victim become to be a victim. The word Victimization meanings “an act that exploits or victimizes someone” and “adversity resulting from being made a victim” (Vocabulary.com. Dictionary Victimization (2017)). By understanding the victim and the influences of their social life is important so we can give the victim the treatment and
...lity that the victim may actually be partly to blame for the crime that was committed against them. Therefore it is often the environment that the criminal lives in, and the people that around them that influence them into committing a criminal act.
Victim precipitation refers to the role or responsibility that a victim has in their own victimization. In the first generation of victimization theories and victimologist the idea of victim precipitation was studied and thought to be a piece of the whole picture of a crime committed. As time progressed it was not thought to be as much as a factor.
Alcohol, drugs, lifestyle, and location can also play a role in victim precipitation. A robbery/mugging victim could be at fault if they are intoxicated, on drugs, in a bad part of town, or walking alone at night. Even though they may not take into consideration that these things can play a role in being a victim of a violent crime, it is their responsibility to take precautionary measures to avoid finding themselves in the situation given. In this way, the victim has some contribution to the crime but the offender is the one with more or most
Assigning blame has become an increasingly difficult and complex concept to understand, especially in our legal court system. I associate blame with being held responsible for the consequences of one’s intentional actions. In regards to sexual assault cases, I think the blame should not be placed on the victims, but rather on the perpetrators. Victim blaming justifies the perpetrator’s actions, discourages sexual assault reportings, and can have psychological effects on the victim.
An example of victim precipitation is a female that arrives at a nightclub and is sexually suggestive with a male individual. The female entices the male to buy her drinks while flirting with the man. The female allows slight grooming but the male then becomes more aggressive. The female declines these advances, stunning the male. The male places a date rape drug into her drink and renders her immobilized. The male then proceeds to rape the female. This kind of victimization is comparable to victim facilitation, as the initial situation is created by the victim (likening the shopping bags in the vehicle to the female encouraging the man’s advances). This situation is unlike victim provocation because she cannot be blamed for the man believing she wanted more than a drink based on her flirty nature. In this situation, if the victim had only sat at the bar and left her drink unattended and available for the man to tamper with, this would be considered victim facilitation as she was unaware of her actions which created an opportunity for crime. Had the woman in the bar agreed to go home with the man she met there, it would be victim provocation, as she created and placed herself in the dangerous