Victims and Victimization Victimology Focuses on Crime

Victims and Victimization

Victimology focuses on crime and its victims. Within victimology, there are several approaches to the practice including positivist, radical, and critical victimology, and there are a limitless number of individuals that may be classified as victims as crimes affect people of all ages, including the people surrounding and involved in victims' lives.

Within victimology, there are three different approaches to be considered: positivist, radical, and critical. Positivist victimology holds that certain victims may contribute to their own victimization (Dignan 32). On the other hand, in radical victimology, attention is focused on the structural factors "relating to the way society is organized, and also the role of the state itself and the legal system in the social construction of both victims and offenders" (33). Critical victimology attempts to examine issues in a wider social context and focuses on how and why certain actions are considered to be criminal.

Victimization is a highly complex process that is made up of three major elements. The first element is primary victimization -- the interaction between the offender and the victim during the commission of a crime. The second element is the victim's reaction, including changes in self-perception, and any formal response that is made. The third element of victimization is further interactions between the victim and others such as law enforcement agencies. If these interactions create a negative impact on the victim, then they can be classified as secondary victimization (23). A victim can be defined as an individual who "suffers direct or threatened physical, emotional or financial harm" as a result of a criminal act by an offender ("Types of Victimization"). Victims can be of any sex, gender, age, or race. Additionally, victims can also individuals that indirectly affected such as survivors of homicide victims ("Victim Services Program: Type of Victim/Victimization").

Of these different types of victims and victimizations, domestic violence and abuse is often overlooked because it takes place in a much more private sphere. Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse occurs when the abuser seeks to gain and maintain absolute control over their victim ("Characteristics of Abuse"). Abusers will do anything in order to assert their power over another individual including using fear, guilt, shame, and intimidation. Physical abuse can include, but is not limited to, any and all forms of beating, treatments that injure the victim such as burning, and the neglect of the victim's physical needs ("Emotional, Physical, and Sexual Abuse of Children and Teens"). Sexual abuse includes any and all forms of unwanted sexual touching including fondling, oral contact, or intercourse. Among children, forcing a child to watch adult sexual activity also constitutes sexual abuse ("Emotional, Physical, and Sexual Abuse of Children and Teens"). Sexual abuse also includes incest and spousal rape. Emotional abuse is much harder to detect than physical and/or sexual abuse because it does not leave any physical marks nor does it physically harm the victim. However, emotional abuse can destroy self-worth, lead to anxiety or depression, and make the victim feel helpless and alone ("Characteristics of Abuse").