5. Summary
Summary
As society, its perceptions, and the number and type of victims of crime continues to evolve, it is fitting that the discipline of victimology remains committed to the victims, families, and witnesses to crime. In conducting victim studies, flexible and focused approaches that can be tailored to the typology and often unique circumstances of crimes must be encouraged. Cultural and community stigma can be impactful to already stressful conditions, as can the severity of crime which is the source of physical and mental harm. Keeping a vigilant eye on emerging trends in the discipline of victimization, developing from careful study and a tailored approach to persons adversely affected by crime, will serve to better inform approaches to enforcement, prosecution, corrections, support resources and managing outcomes in each dimension for the future.
Review Questions
- Describe the term “victimology” in simple terms.
- What are some of the rights victims have in your state? Do you think these rights are sufficient? If you could legislate, what rights do you think your state should have that it currently does not? Finally, do you disagree with any of the rights that victims are afforded in your state?
- Explain why the elderly population might be especially vulnerable to financial abuse? Why do criminals target elders in financial scams?
- Artificial intelligence (AI) in many forms is being developed and deployed at a rapid pace. What are some examples of how AI might lend itself well to victimization of certain individuals?
- Why is it both appropriate and important that victimologists employ the Scientific Method when studying the victims of crime?
- What are the four basic questions associated with the field of victimology?
- In what ways do victimization impact a person’s physical and mental health?
- What are some of the anticipated long-term consequences of victimization? How might these consequences vary between different forms of criminal victimization?
References
Burgess, A. W. (2013). Victimology: Theories and applications (3rd ed.). Jones and Bartlett Learning.
Chen, M. S., Kresnow, M.-J., Smith, S. G., Khatiwada, S., & D’Inverno, A. (2021). Prevalence of intimate partner violence, stalking, and sexual violence among active duty women and men and wives of active duty men—Comparisons with the U.S. general population, 2016/2017: Technical report. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, & Department of Defense. https://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/FAP/NISVS-Technical-Report-Prevalence-of-Intimate-Partner-Violence-Stalking-and-Sexual-Violence-Among-Active-Duty-Women-and-Men-and-Wives-of-Active-Duty-Men.pdf
Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy. (2014, April). Revictimization and related services: Literature review. Berkeley Law, University of California. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/WI_Revictimization_Lit_Review_04_03_14.pdf
Cuncic, A. (2023, November 15). Victim mentality: Definition, causes, and ways to cope. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-victim-mentality-5120615
Everytown Research & Policy. (2024, May 14). Remembering and honoring Pulse [Fact sheet]. Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://everytownresearch.org/report/remembering-and-honoring-pulse/ (Original work published 2020)
FBI Jobs. (n.d.). Victim services careers. Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://fbijobs.gov/victim-services
Federal Aviation Administration. (2016). Advisory circular: Electronic new gathering operations (AC No. 91-88). U.S. Department of Transportation. https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_91-88.pdf
Feucht, T. E., & Zedlewski, E. (2019). The 40th anniversary of the Crime Report. National Institute of Justice Journal, 257. https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/40th-anniversary-crime-report
Flores, A. R., Meyer, I. H., Langton, L., & Herman, J. L. (2021). Gender identity disparities in criminal victimization: National Crime Victimization Survey, 2017-2018. American Journal of Public Health, 111(4), 726–729. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.306099
Garcia, O. (Ed.). (2018). Privacy and dignity: A guide to interacting with the media. Multidisciplinary Responses to Families and Communities in Complex Homicide Cases, National Center for Victims of Crime. https://victimsofcrime.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Privacy-and-Dignity-final.pdf
Haskell, J. (2018, July 18). MGM Resorts files lawsuits against Las Vegas shooting victims in effort to avoid liability. ABC7 Eyewitness News. https://abc7.com/mgm-resorts-lawsuit-vegas-shooting-liability-sues-victims/3777516/
Hassan, A., & Li, D. K. (2019, October 3). Las Vegas shooting victims: MGM Resorts to pay settlement up to $800M. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/las-vegas-shooting-victims-reach-800m-settlement-mgm-resorts-n1061976
Hegger, J. (2015, December 8). 3 ideological tendencies related to victimology. Corrections1. https://www.corrections1.com/corrections-1/articles/3-ideological-tendencies-related-to-victimology-tfP7rGAzSeau6Hmj/
Human Rights Campaign. (n.d.) The journey to marriage equality in the United States. Retrieved May 18, 2024, from https://www.hrc.org/our-work/stories/the-journey-to-marriage-equality-in-the-united-states
Hutchinson, B., Chang, J., Brown, J., Margolin, J., Muldowney, K., & McNiff, E. (2018, December 23). The anatomy of the Las Vegas mass shooting, the deadliest in modern US history. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/US/anatomy-las-vegas-mass-shooting-deadliest-modern-us/story?id=59797324
James, S. E., Herman, J. L., Rankin, S., Keisling, M., Mottet, L., & Anafi, M. (2016). The report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. National Center for Transgender Equality. https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf
Jolliffe, D., & Farrington, D. P. (2014). Self-reported offending: Reliability and validity. In G. Bruinsma & D. Weisburd (Eds.), Encyclopedia of criminology and criminal justice (pp. 4716-4723). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_648
Justice Solutions. (n.d.). How crime coverage can affect victims. A News Media Guide for Victim Services Providers. Retrieved May 18, 2024, from http://www.victimprovidersmediaguide.com/coverage.html
Karmen, A. (2007). Crime victims: An introduction to victimology (6th ed.). Thomson/Wadsworth.
Langton, L., Berzofsky, M., Krebs, C., & Smiley-McDonald, H. (2012, August). National Crime Victimization Survey: Victimizations not reported to the police, 2006-2010. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/vnrp0610.pdf
LeClair, D. P. (2007). What is victimology? [Lecture notes]. WebCT@BU. http://vista.bu.edu/webct/
Legal Information Institute. (2022, September). Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defense_of_marriage_act_(doma)
Madara, J. L. (2019, November 13). [Letter from James L. Madara, American Medical Association, to Jeffery H. Anderson, Michael D. DeLeon & Debra Houry]. https://searchlf.ama-assn.org/undefined/documentDownload?uri=%2Funstructured%2Fbinary%2Fletter%2FLETTERS%2F2019-11-13-Letter-to-Anderson-DeLeon-Houry-re-Transgender-Violence.pdf
Mandler, C. (2022, October 13). Murders of trans people nearly doubled over past 4 years, and Black trans women are most at risk, report finds. CBS News. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transgender-community-murder-rates-everytown-for-gun-safety-report/
Mendelsohn, B. (1976). Victimology and contemporary society’s trends. Victimology, 1(1), 8-28.
Morrell, J. (2021, November 18). How journalists can better report on criminal justice. Criminal Justice Alliance. https://www.criminaljusticealliance.org/blog/how-journalists-can-better-report-on-criminal-justice/
National Center for Transgender Equality. (2017). 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey: Washington state report. https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-WA-State-Report.pdf
Office on Violence Against Women. (2023, December 6). Domestic violence. U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved March 9, 2024, from https://www.justice.gov/ovw/domestic-violence
O’Hear, M. (2020). Violent crime and media coverage in one city: A statistical snapshot. Marquette Law Review, 103(3), 1007-1033. https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol103/iss3/14/
Open Society Foundations. (2019, April). Understanding sex work in an open society. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/understanding-sex-work-open-society
President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice. (1967). The challenge of crime in a free society. U.S. Government Printing Office. https://www.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh241/files/archives/ncjrs/42.pdf
Saad, L. (2023, November 16). Personal safety fears at three-decade high in U.S. Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/544415/personal-safety-fears-three-decade-high.aspx
Sanchez, S. (2019). Victims and victim typologies. In C. Richardson (Ed.), SOU-CCJ230 introduction to the American criminal justice system (section 1.14). Open Oregon Educational Resources. https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/ccj230/ CC BY SA.
Seymour, A., & Bucqueroux, B. (2019). Guide for journalists who report on crime and crime victims. Justice Solutions. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/guide-journalists-who-report-crime-and-crime-victims-0
University of Minnesota Libraries. (n.d.). Media and culture. Lumen Learning. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-massmedia/ CC BY SA.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2024, May 17). Immigration options for victims of crime. Retrieved May 18, 2024, from https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-options-victims-crime
VanderPyl, T. (2024). Introduction to criminology. Open Oregon Educational Resources. https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/criminologyintro/
Viano, E. C. (1992). The news media and crime victims: The right to know versus the right to privacy. In E. C. Viano (Ed.), Critical issues in victimology: International perspectives (pp. 24–34). Springer.
Von Hentig, H. (1948). The criminal and his victim: Studies in the sociobiology of crime. Yale University Press.
Washington State Department of Commerce. (n.d.). Safety and Access for Immigrant Victims Program. Retrieved May 18, 2024, from https://www.commerce.wa.gov/serving-communities/crime-victims-advocacy/safety-and-access-for-immigrant-victims/
White, K., Stuart, F., & Morrissey, S. L. (2021). Whose lives matter? Race, space, and the devaluation of homicide victims in minority communities. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 7(3), 333-349. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649220948184
Wiener, C., Gregory, A., Rogers, M., & Walklate, S. (2022, February 15). Why victims of domestic abuse don’t leave–Four experts explain. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/why-victims-of-domestic-abuse-dont-leave-four-experts-explain-176212 CC BY ND.
Yahr, N. (2019, August 22). Doing no harm: the call for crime reporting that does justice to the beat. Center for Journalism Ethics, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin. https://ethics.journalism.wisc.edu/2019/08/22/doing-no-harm-the-call-for-crime-reporting-that-does-justice-to-the-beat/
Adaptation Notes
For this chapter, review checks were written.
