The Role Of Victimology In The United States

Victimology in its most simple form is the study of the victim or victims of a particular offender (Roberson. & Wallace, 2011). I feel that the Victims’ Movement has not yet reached its full potential because just like every form of law, legislature or even government there is always ways to improve and to become stronger. Much like when we started to form our government it had so many flaws and it still today has the ability to improve. The problem is that as society changes and crime changes the laws and the system have to change with it in order for things to improve. When it comes to crimes it isn’t just the victim that is

Each year, data are obtained from a nationally representative sample of about 90,000 households, comprising nearly 160,000 persons, on the frequency, characteristics, and consequences of criminal victimization in the United States. Each household is interviewed twice during the year. The survey enables BJS to estimate the likelihood of victimization by rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, theft, household burglary, and motor vehicle theft for the population as a whole as well as for segments of the population such as women, the elderly, members of various racial or ethnic groups, city dwellers, and other groups. The NCVS provides the largest national forum for victims to describe the impact of crime and characteristics of violent offenders.”

Re-victimisation or secondary victimisation has huge prevalence throughout all areas of the contemporary society and example of this comes from the study’s done Patterson who found that nearly half of all rape victim who seek asylum with a law enforcement agencies will face some form of victimisation. Secondary victimisation by definition is any behaviours and subsequent attitudes that indulge in victim blaming and insensitivity, to which cause psychological trauma to the victim. The outcomes of can be devastating as it was found that women who suffered from a crime like rape were more likely to suffer from psychological illness’s like post traumatic personality disorder, however the study did no conclude that the re-victimisation was a causation but rather a reinforce or an undeniable trigger. This study was only conducted with rape victims so it is unclear whether this can be extrapolated onto other crimes, but what is clear is that re-victimisation within any setting is ultimately damaging to the victims involved.

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:

There is an idea that we have become a nation of victims. Some psychologist and most people have a don’t blame the victim mentality. While other psychologist look at the victims as being held accountable in some cases. Looking at the data and validity of these arguments, I believe that neither one should be used but instead we should shy away from the blame approach and develop a better understanding of the role victims play in violent situations

The crime is an action that people do it in illegal. Criminals do not care about the people who live with them. The crime is very positive thing in any country around the world. Community do not fell save and the police working very hard to control the criminals. Also, that cost a lot of money for the government and they sometimes cannot do anything for the criminal because it poor country like Cuba. On other hand, development country such as the UK has much deferent type of crimes, the UK government has very strong law for any crime and the judges do not break the law for any personal gain. However, now Britain has about 8,000 cameras CCTV in the network on most of the UK roads, it is great system because it decrease the numbers of crimes

The victim’s movement’s in the United States of America was as a result of the rising social consequences as from the 1960s that brought out the energies of an idealistic generation in that decade and the one that followed. In my opinion, the victim’s movement has not yet reached its full potential. This is because just like any other form of legislature or government; they still require continued advocacy and action. Moreover, there still some dangerous challenges they have to overcome before the victims can be very sure of a fair and compassionate response to their plight. For instance, some states have amended the constitution to address crime the victim’s rights legislation and the movement must ensure that any other state do the same and

Have you ever thought of using Victimology in a non-Criminal Justice job? Yes, my purpose of taking this class is to learn new information and use it in a non-criminal job position. As a nurse, you deal with different types of victims and not all victims are a result of a criminal act. Our book defines victim as a person who suffers physical, emotional, and financial harm because of illegal activity. Which is true, but furthermore, a victim can be a person in an auto accident, a house fire, a victim of cancer or a child that is repeatedly bullied at school every day. I believe these are examples of victims that are not a result of criminal or illegal

was incorporated as a non-profit organization in February of 1979. In the spring of 1977, students from Pittsburg State University got with police and social agencies to determine how bad the domestic violence issue was in the area and what services were provided for domestic violence. It was found from the survey that 60% of the 350 domestic disturbances were battered women. At first, there was no office or shelter, and many good people from the community would house the victims. In 1981, an office and shelter opened, but victims could only stay for one to three days. That same year, SCC developed a rape victims program for victims of sexual assault Safehouse Crisis Center, Inc. (SCC), 2013).

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).

“The key characteristics of positivist victimology can be described as, the identification of factors which contribute a non-random pattern of their own victimisation, a focus on interpersonal crimes of violence and a concern to identify victims who may have contributed to their own victimisation.”

Criminal profiling is a technique used to help locate and detain criminals before they reach the height of their criminal career by studying the criminal's behavior (Claridge). Profiling works in the same way on every criminal. Criminals typically leave behind a signature, explain signature, at each crime scene which helps law enforcement make a clear identification on the criminal. (Claridge) Victimology and criminal profiling work together to take criminals into custody. Victimology is the study of the victim in a number of crimes perpetrated by the same criminal (Claridge). Victimology is used to distinguish comparisons of each victim of a precise crime. This then helps a profiler discern a pattern in the criminals crimes (citation). When

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 study of victimology includes several different theories. These theories are victim-based, interactional, societal-based, and ecological. However, before on can begin discussing these theories, the history of the development of victimology theories need to be broached. Although victimology may lack a singular theoretical foundation based within the field itself, it can be said that the field as a whole represents the application of several different theoretical insights that were developed from other disciplines. The first of these other disciplines is criminology. From his work, Vold (1958) was able to provide a framework for categorizing theories that relate to victimology. Within this paper the discussion will begin with the early spiritual explanations, followed by

Victimisation is the process of learning the various ways that authority figures determine who is a victim, while also educating the person on how to become the victim. Secondary victimisation, also known as double victimisation refers to the way the state responds to victimisation. The states response has the potential to add further burdens on to the victim. Three main components of the criminal justice system will be focused on in this paper; these are enforcement, adjudication and punishment. This paper will identify why the criminal justice system tend to commit secondary victimisation towards the victims. It will also discuss the pains of victimisation and how secondary victimisation has the ability to amplify these pains. The paper will also identify reforms that have been put in place in order to minimise the occurrence of secondary victimisation.