Victims and Offenders of Violence
Lecture 1: Definition and types of violence
Exam (70%)
40 multiple choice questions
Covering all course material (lectures; readings; videos; podcasts)
October 26, 2023 13:00-16:00
Broodfabriek
Concepts and definitions
Violent crime
With exception of self-harm and suicide
Violence
Any behavior that can inflict harm to its surroundings (individual, object, animal)
Deliberate vs non-deliberate violence / non-intentional (car-accident,
Humans are violent – survival of the fittest
Violence is not only human animals as well
Harm inflicted
Storm: violent nature
Surgery: it is harmful, but we do not consider it
o There is consent of harm being done to the human
Euthanasia
Boxing: not violent crime, because it’s consent within the ring
Hooligans agree to fight and meet up: we see this as violence because outside parties involved are not agreed,
there are rules within boxing, and even though they agree to fight it is still seen as violence
Violence: “The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against another person, or against a
group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm,
maldevelopment, or deprivation.” (WHO, 2019)
- Interpersonal violence: violence taking place between individuals (not states, like in war)
Crime: an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. An act harmful not only to some individual but also to
a community, society, or the state.
- Rape in marriage: moves within history and region whether this is punishable by a state/authority and thus
whether it is a crime
Dark figure of crime: The massive number of crimes not reported to or detected by criminal justice agencies (the
'dark figures' of crime) are not reflected in official statistics, but they have implications for how crime, criminals, and
the effectiveness of criminal justice policy are viewed.
- Not everyone is ‘missed’, such as homeless people, illegal people (migrants), orphans, neo-nates (newborns
not registered), sex workers, (very young children or old people can be mis-diagnosed)
Death is conflicted, but is condemned and is not counted as homicides: self-defense, death penalty, (lynchings/ honor
killings, statistically ignored)
When is an act regarded as a crime?
1. Consensus perspective: members of society by and large agree on what is right and wrong
o Mechanisms: tv-shows, talks, newspapers,
o Street harassment is not okay anymore
2. Conflict perspective: those with political and economic power make laws to protect their interests; at a
disadvantage of those who do not have such power
o Have’s and have not’s: what is criminal is determined by the have’s and the have not’s have to accept
this
3. Constructionist perspective: violence as a socially constructed phenomenon: a product of individual
decisions, interpretations, and actions.
o As society we construct violence
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, o Interaction between different parties
o One side of scale conflict the other side; construction is in the middle
How to classify violence (basic, no motive involved)
Based on motive
o Robbery violence
Based on relationship between victim and offender
o Domestic violence
o Partner violence
o Gang-related violence
o Child abuse
Based on victim characteristics
o Gender violence
o Skin color
Based on offender characteristics
o Male young offenders
o Adolescent men
o Adolescent girls
o Parental abuse
Based on the criminal code
o Murder
o Man-slaughter
o Assault
o Rape
Based on injury
o Knife
o Firearms
Perspectives: public health vs criminal justice
Public health
Focus on reducing probability of (risk of) harm
Violence as intentional injury
Prevention oriented
Criminal justice
Focus on prevention through deterrence, incapacitation, and/or rehabilitation
Violence as a crime
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, Reaction oriented
Lecture 2: Violence victimization: its meaning and prevalence
The etymology of the word ‘victim’
- Victim is derived from sacrificial object / sacrifice
- Perpetrator: ‘sacrifice for greater good’
- Comes from Christianity to describe Jesus Christ
- Compare yourself with Jesus Christ, the suffering victims go through
How we see victims:
1. Compassion for those who have been victimized
2. Forgiveness; victim can forgive what has happened to them
3. Don’t give eye for a eye, we don’t allow that. Revenge element was taken out. Leave revenge to the state.
The word victim is socially constructed
- By others
- By self
The ideal victim
- Weak in relation to offender
- Legitimate
- Blameless (don’t get blamed for what happened)
- Unrelated to offender
- Offender is big and bad
- Victim can elicit victim status
- The ‘little old lady’
Not true (most of them are in relation with offender)
Others
Victims are seen as weak, lack of agency
“A good victim is before anything else some one who is negatively defined: not intelligent, not visible, not verbal, not
angry. The only permitted mode is: keep sobbing and be silent”
Melvin Lerner (1980)
- The need to believe in a just world
- The just world: good deeds lead to good outcomes, bad deeds leads to bad outcomes
- Distress caused by viewing victimisation: bad things happening to good people
- Observers are motivated to resolve this distress
o Action to undo injustice
o Retell the story
- In all cases observers ending is closure
How victims see themselves
“I am not a victim simply because other people say I am. Other people cannot make you a victim, only you can do
that… I want to be taken seriously and for the events of my case not to be swept under the doormat.” – Natascha
Kampush
“Nothing will be ‘as usual’ from now on. I myself am already different. I don’t know how I am going to gith but I want
justice, and that will be my revenge. The direction of my new path, the only one possible, is clear in my mind. My
honor, and that of my family, depend on it. Though it might cost me my life, I will not die humiliated.
[...] Asode from my family, I have only one strength to call upon: my outrage.” – Mukhtar Mai
Self vs. others
“If the stereotype of victim as ‘passive’ and ‘helpless’ is perpetuated in dominant representations of victimhood,
during a time when individual strength is valued in society, then both males and females may increasingly refuse to
situate themselves in terms of victimhood.”
Consequences
Often turn to victim blaming (could you not have escaped? Why did you dress like this?)
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, Secondary victimization (voice you have in criminal justice system is denied)
Reactive victim scapegoating (being open to what happened, people gets hatred towards the victims)
Critique
Based on western views
Debate between researchers on the origin of secondary victim labelling
Empirical research
Change the label?
Change the word? Or does it come with its own negatives no matter the word used
Who are victims of violence?
Source: victim surveys
Report all crimes where they have been a victim of
Give a clear picture of
o The extent of crime
o Who is likely to be a victim
o People’s fears about crime
Measures dark number of crime
Highlight the risk of repeat victimisation
Measure perceptions of crime and justice and monitor victim satisfaction with police
Victimological risk analysis
Males (exception: domestic violence & sexual violence)
Young adults
Minority groups
Protective services, heath professional, transport drivers/operatives
High population density
Hotspots – especially bars
The victim – is the mean the entire story? No…
Also a victim?
‘in just a few hours, we’d shed our old identities a valued members of a vibrant community to take on a new one: we
were the parents of a perpetrator now, the agent of that community’s destruction’/ - Sue Klebold
- It’s her son, but she did not perpetrate a crime
- Not the victim of the perpetrator, but of the aftermath (= second-hand)
Victim-offender overlap in domestic abuse and homicide
Self-defence during domestic abuse
- Not easy to leave
- Complicated story
- They killed, but out of reaction they could not get out of
All registered sex offenders, street + city. Who lives where?
- You get all the information (even weight)
- Not fairly deflected
- Consequences of site: Hatred, isolation
- We know: most offenders are known, not the weird neighbour you have never seen
- The site does not prevent you won’t be a victim
How can we help victims of violence?
When someone becomes labelled a victim, but is not easily given
Certain conditions:
- Don’t receive the help they need
- Counter the word
- Get the help that they need
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