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Lar Kruzan Victimization Analysis

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Victimization can happen to anyone, and if certain factors exist, the risk of being trafficked through prolonged victimization increases tremendously. In the case of Sara, being forced into prostitution and continuously abused is what led her to becoming an offender. Larry J. Siegal, in his book, Criminology: The Core, explains the factors which leads to victimization and to committing crime through these theories: the victim precipitation theory, lifestyle theory, deviant place theory and the routine activities theory. These theories along with some mental disorders are apparent in the case of Sara Kruzan, with the Deviant Place Theory and the Routine Activities Theory being more prevalent. Although severely victimized, Kruzan became an offender …show more content…

Sara Kruzan, now age 38, is on parole after serving an 18-year sentence for the first-degree murder, later reduced to second-degree manslaughter, of her former pimp George Gilbert Howard. Just as the Deviant Place Theory states, most of the time, it is the deviant neighborhoods that one grows up in which creates a victim, rather than the victim putting themselves in dangerous situations through active precipitation. Kruzan’s becoming of a forced sex worker started out in a poor and transient neighborhood. Kruzan grew up around Riverside, California which is notorious for crime. FBI data states that Riverside, California hits a 15 out …show more content…

Howard was a pimp who lured Kruzan in by offering money, hope, and restoration. In exchange for Howard’s ‘kind’ gestures, he sexually molested Kruzan and trapped her into sexual exploitation until the age of sixteen. A research study done by Columbia Law Review found that violent pimp-controlled prostitution is the most dominant form of sex trafficking in the United States. They also found that traffickers will target young victims at middle schools or high schools, because they are more easy to manipulate (Bernard, 2014, p. 1468). Researchers of the Routine Activities Theory, Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson, describe how it was possible for Kruzan to continue to be a victim through certain living arrangements such as “(1) Proximity to criminals, … (3) target attractiveness, and (4) guardianship” (Siegel, 2017, p. 79) Kruzan’s immediacy to offenders drove her risk to be a victim. It was her attractiveness as a young girl which drew Howard to choose her as his victim, and she was “without friends or family to watch or help her” (Siegel, 2017, p.

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