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• Characteristics of the victims
• The interactions and relationships between victims and offenders
• How the victim’s behavior facilitated the crime
There are 3 broad Victimology paradigms focusing on the relationship between a victim and an offender,
and ito which the concept ‘victim’ can be defined:
1. Conservative law and order paradigm
• victim = a person that personally suffers harm, loss, or injury
• offender -> carries all the blame
• victim -> blameless (thus, victim rights are emphasized in this paradigm)
2. Radical victimology paradigm
• Focus on dynamics between offender and victim (diffusion of roles btwn V+O)
• (what surrounding circumstances lead to the victimization?)
• Offender = someone who misuses his power
• Victim -> not entirely blameless
• Rights of victims are important as long as they don’t interfere with the rights of the
offender
• This approach is used in the the United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice
for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power
3. Critical victimology paradigm
• Offenders -> viewed as victims (crime = a reaction to the society in which offenders live
and work)
• Society = real offender that can be blamed for the crimes committed
• The CJS should be abolished / influence of CJS must be drastically reduced
Exposition of Viano’s process approach towards defining the concept ‘victim’
• We can use Viano’s process approach to determine whether someone is a victim
• Viano believes that a person has to proceed thru all 4 of the following stages before he will be
treated as a victim:
o (1) person is injured or suffers at the hands of another person/institution
o (2) the injured person perceives the suffering as unjust/undeserved and regards himself as
being victimized
o (3) person will look outside himself towards family, friends, helping organizations, or the CJS
for recognition of the fact that he has become a victim
o (4) it is only when other people recognize/acknowledge that the person has been victimized
that the person is actually regarded as a victim
• This is when someone who has already experienced victimization, experiences victimization again by
the insensitive treatment of those who were supposed to protect and assist them in the aftermath
of the crime (e.g. police, family, doctors, nurses, lawyers etc.)
Repeat victimization
• This is when someone is repeatedly victimized / repeatedly become victims of crime (e.g. being
hijacked this month and then a victim of burglary next month)
Characteristics that increase the risk/potential of repeat victimization
(these were identified by Finkelhor & Asigian):
• Target vulnerability -> e.g. physical weakness such as biological or social vulnerability (young female)
• Target gratifiability -> e.g. a person who owns valuable goods that the offender wants to obtain
• Target antagonism -> e.g. personal characteristics such as being part of a minority group
Precipitation
• Victim encourages an offender’s behavior to a certain extent
• 2 types of precipitation:
o (1) Active precipitation (on purpose) -> e.g. initiating a fight by provoking someone
o (2) Passive precipitation (unconsciously) -> e.g. having a personality trait that antagonizes
the offender
• Precipitation often results in victim blaming (Just World Hypothesis -> people get what they deserve
/ bad things happen to bad people)
• Opposite view to this ^ is victim defending (rejects victim blaming view):
o According to this view, the offender would have offended in any case no matter what the
victim did (victim behavior doesn’t matter)
o Educating victims won’t prevent crime as the offender will just find a new way to offend
o Many people can’t do anything about their lifestyle (e.g. where they live, or the road they
have to take to get to work)
Facilitation
• This is when the victim unknowingly, carelessly, or negligently makes it easier for the criminal to
commit a crime
• E.g. victim leaving handbag on seat next to her
Impunity
• Some individuals are more vulnerable bc they make it easier for the offender to get away with the
crime
• E.g. sex workers cannot report if they have been robbed by client bc sex work is illegal and offender
knows that
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