Liberal Victimology

De St. Aubin (1996) defines personal ideology as “an individual’s unique philosophy of how life should be lived and of what forces influence human living”.

An ideology is a group of ideas (social, economic, culture, etc) about life and accepted as reality by the majority of people in a society. These set of ideas are used by different organizations in the society such as: school, and government, among other, to reinforce such ideology. In a society an ideology serves as means to perpetuate and justify the power of the dominant group.

“Ideology is a cluster of ideas about life, society or government, which originates, in most cases, as consciously advocated dogmatically asserted social, political or religious slogans or battle-cries and which through continuous usage and preaching’s gradually become the

Victimology draws together academics, activists, and policymakers from a variety of backgrounds and identifies three main victimological perspectives. Positivist victimology dates back to the emergence of victimology as a discipline in the 1940s. It looks to understand the process of victimisation and why people become victims of crime by examining the relationship between the victim and offender through an agency lens. Newburn (2013) identifies positivists such as Miers (1989) who see victimisation as being causal in nature and identify three key features:

In a criminal investigation case, a victim is usually seeking justice for an offence against them personally. Victims can

“Victims” and “evidence,” and “motive” are words that investigators use when they are investigating a crime, these individuals have to

Trudging through the mountains of facts, studies, and opinions relevant to social and political issues creates a daunting task for political strategists, leaving them to decide what information is relevant and essential for the voting public to know, in order to rally the voters to support a certain candidate. However, these mountains of facts and opinions can turn off voters, and scare away many potential supporters, forcing political strategists to also engage the emotional lives of the populace: enter the role of cultural narratives- tales of adventure, sacrifice, defeat, and victory grabbing hold of the emotional lives of the audience, and as George Lakoff points out, “…politics is about the narratives of our culture and our

Secondly, the physical aspects of the victim are important as well; is the victim is heavy, and was dragged for a long distance, it can be surmised that the criminal is strong and may have a muscular appearance. (Patterson) Victimology is first and foremost an investigative tool, providing context, connections, and investigative direction. (Turvey) Some people may ask, “Why profile the victim?” but profiling the victim is a very important element that helps profilers better understand the criminal. Profilers look at the general lifestyle and activities of the victim in order to know who had access to them and when. Knowing the victim and properly profiling them may establish a relational link between the victim and criminal. When profiling a victim it is important to look at them as a real person as well as a victim. Some investigators and detectives have a tendency to deify or vilify the victim in a case. Deification involves idealizing victims. For example,

A person who experiences a traumatic event may be expected to experience a range of psychological effects, and, for many years, it was assumed that these psychological effects would be the same regardless of the cause of the injury. However, a growing body of knowledge is demonstrating that the impact of criminal victimization is different than the impact of other types of injuries because the intent element makes a difference in how the victim perceives the harm. In addition, victims of different crimes may respond differently to victimization. The psychological effects of victimization are important because they can help guide the criminal justice system for how to interact with victims and how to make the process more victim-appropriate. For example, victims of violent crimes, like sexual assaults, may benefit more from a victim-centered criminal justice approach than victims of other types of crimes (Resick, 1987). However, one of the problems with the traditional approach to victimology is that it has distinguished between different groups of victims. Emerging research suggest that victim needs are similar across the entire spectrum of crime, particularly the victims' needs for information about the crime and the needs for financial restitution to make them whole (ten Boom & Kuijpers, 2012).

Criminology is more on the study of the crime itself, the study of criminal behavior and to the study of why criminal commit the crime and what the reasons behind committing the crime. Victimology is the study of the relationship between the victims and the criminals, to the interactions between the victims and the criminal justice system, and to the, social and how it deals with crime victims(Daigle,2012).

For most individuals, the thought of blaming the victim of a tragic experience for their own pain and suffering, seems preposterous. However, ascribing at least some of the blame to the victim is not uncommon (Niemi & Young, 2014). Victim blaming refers to individuals finding reasons to hold the victim of an incident responsible for the crime that took place (Hayes, Lorenz & Bell, 2013). For victims of sexual assault, who may already be experiencing self-blame and distrust of others, being blamed adds insult to injury (Harber, Podolski, & Williams, 2015). According to Harber et. al, victim blaming can also have long-term effects on victims, such as, increased anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. In an effort to increase support and resources for survivors of sexual assault researchers must determine why individuals are prone to blaming the victims rather than the perpetrator of a crime.

Like all theories in criminology, victim precipitation ties in to how and why crime happens. While a majority of theories seem to concentrate mainly on the mannerisms and objectives of the offender, victim precipitation works toward understanding the interaction and/or relationship between the victim and the offender. According to this theory, the victim is looked at as a participant in the crime. This happens in one of two ways: first, the victim is the contributor in the crime who makes the first move; and second, the victim encourages or aggravates the offender into committing the crime. These are the main workings of the theory.

Victimology in its strict sense means “the study of victimization, including the psychological effects on victims, relationships between victims and offenders, the interactions between victims and the criminal justice system—that is, the police and courts, and corrections officials—and the connections

The study of victimology dates back to the early 1940’s. Marvin Wolfgang was one of the first victimologists. To fully understand victimology is to understand what a victim is. A victim is a person that has suffered physical or emotional harm

The lifestyle theory focuses on crime victims rather than perpetrators. This theory suggests that the crime victims become a victim due to their own decisions or lifestyle choices that they make. An example of this theory would be going out night alone or living n area that is bad. Not all people have the same type of lifestyle but some lifestyles create problems that cause people to become victims.