Crime Victimiization: The Impact Of Victimization In Human Services

Everyone has been impacted by crime victimization at some point in their life. While not all will experience first-hand victimization, the impact effects many people. Understanding a person’s past victimization will aid in determining their strengths and needs. The world we live in is not perfect, people are messy, everyone has a story, and it is our job as human service professionals to serve each client with a holistic approach. It is often said that human service professionals enter the field because their own past experiences led them to want to help others through traumatizing, victimizing experiences as they were helped. I think my own experience with victimization played a large role in my desire to enter the human services field and

I thought he was right, that I had asked for this to happen, that I wanted it, and that somehow what had happened was my fault. When my roommates woke up the next morning I told them what had happened, not knowing how to feel or react at all. My roommates suggested that Washburn be informed of this incident as they felt the only way he would be stopped from continuing this behavior was for the police to get involved. I chose to report the incident which resulted in an investigation by Washburn Police and the campus Title IX officer. I felt forced to relive the entire event, multiple times, as they continued to investigate. It was eventually determined that the student broke Washburn’s policy and was asked to pay a fine and write an essay defining consent and coercion. The perpetrator remained a student at Washburn and we were in many of the same classes. The classes we shared were only offered once, so I was given the opportunity to decide the seating arrangement that would make me most comfortable and feel safe to continue classes. I appreciated that I was given control in this aspect of the process, as often throughout the experience I felt like all control was taken from me. It was frustrating that he wasn’t automatically kicked out of school, because I felt very threatened, unsafe, and always hyper-alert as I feared running into him on campus. I understood the legal process, but still harbored resentment about the outcome of the