theoretical perspectives victimology 2 017 lecture 3 theoretical...than others ± a fine line...
TRANSCRIPT
Dr Wendy Hesketh
Theoretical Perspectives
Victimology 2017
Lecture 3 Theories of Victimisation
In today’s lecture, we will look at the following theories of victimisation:
Positivism
Lifestyle Theory
Routine Activity Theory
Radical Victimology
Suzy Lamplugh
On 28th July 1986, 25 year old estate agent,
Suzy Lamplugh went to meet a client, “Mr Kipper” to show him around a property in Fulham, West London. Suzy was never seen
again. Suzy’s body has never been found, but she has been presumed murdered and
was legally declared dead in 1993.
Everyday Victim Blaming
Is a not-for-profit organisation that
campaigns to have the responsibility to
be placed wholly on the perpetrators of
domestic and sexual violence and abuse.
Introduction
• Victimology can be linked to broader theoretical
traditions – e.g. positivist, radical, feminist, critical
• Theoretical traditions also found in criminology
• Victimhood can be understood in different ways
• Sociocultural processes and human action
influence notions of victimhood
• Each provides a different slant on how criminal and non-
criminal events impact the lives of individuals
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• Von Hentig (1948) changed the focus from perpetrators
to victims of crime
• His approach is referred to as:
- positivist victimology,
- conservative victimology (Karmen, 1990)
- conventional victimology (Walklate, 1989)
- penal victimology; and
- interactionist victimology (Van Dijk, 1997)
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Positivist Victimology
Defining features of Positive Victimology
• Discovery of factors that influence non-random pattern of
victimisation
• Examination of how victims contribute to their victimisation
• A focus on interpersonal crimes of violence (Miers, 1989)
• Von Hentig created a Victim typology of 13 categories:
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1. the young
2. Female
3. Old
4. Immigrants
5. Depressed
6. Mentally defective/depressed
7. The acquisitive
8. Dull normals
9. Minorities
10. Wanton
11. The lonesome and heartbroken
12. Tormentor
13. The blocked, exempted and fighting
• Early victimological work placed scrutiny on the
attributes, behaviour and characteristics of victims
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• Positivist tradition further developed by later scholars
including Wolfgang (1958)
• Amir (1971) – developed the notion of ‘victim
precipitation’
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• A heavy focus on what the victim did – criticised by
many, especially feminists
• Some argue research still needed on the role victims play in
their victimisation – seeking to account for this, rather than
blame (Fattah, 1989)
• Claim to want to account for why some are victimised more
than others – a fine line between blame and account –
especially within a discourse of citizens to avoid
victimisation
• Some claim important as victimisation and offending not
mutually exclusive:
• Two people in a fight, first attacked may kill attacker (Fatah,
1993)
• Victims and offenders not distinct (Sparks et al, 1977; Fagan et
al, 1987)
• Claim better to study dynamic approach, seeing it as an outcome
of interaction
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• Lifestyle approach (Hindelang et al, 1978) & routine
activities theory (Cohen & Felson, 1989)
• Does not focus on motives for offending, but
convergence in time and space of victim and offender
(Gottfredson, 1981)
• Lifestyle:
• The way individuals allocate their time to leisure and
vocational activities (Garofalo, 1986)
• Argued lifestyle impacts victimisation due to likelihood of
being in a particular place at a particular time (Gottfredson,
1981)
• Lasley & Rosenbaum (1981) found victims’ work schedules,
number of weekend evenings spent away from home, and
level of alcohol consumed correlated positively with repeat
victimisation
• Structural factors also form part – e.g. tax policies influencing
marriage rates; public transport influencing trips out of home
Lifestyle & Routine Activities
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• Routine Activities (Cohen & Felson, 1979)
• Similar to lifestyle approach; based on convergence of three
necessary elements in time and space
• 1. motivated offender, 2. suitable targets, and 3. the presence of
capable guardians against the violation Predominately tries to
explain direct contact predatory violations – needs direct contact
between offender and victim/object
• Routine activities are any recurrent or prevalent activity e.g. work,
leisure, social interaction
• Socio-economic processes since WWII have led to a dispersal of
activity outside of the household
• Increased exposure to crime – increased amount of crime
• Criticisms
changes (Farrell & Pease, 1993) 9
• Only a partial analysis of the role of human action and structural
constraints (Mawby & Walklate, 1994)
• Focuses only on those aspects readily captured by a victimisation
survey – omits things like racial and sexual violence
• Based on risk of victimisation in public – ignores victimisation in
private e.g. domestic abuse, sexual violence etc.
• Individuals are portrayed in a passive way – as living within structural
constraints rather than actively resisting them (Spalek, 2006)
• Implicitly blame victims – implies lifestyle/activity can be changed
(Walklate, 1992)
• Acknowledges structure but takes for granted rather than challenging
as e.g. racist or sexist (Walklate, 1992)
• Focusses on a narrow range of crimes – street crime/burglary –
ignores corporate crime etc.
• Positives
• Some argue for crime prevention, especially repeat victimisation –
putting homes in neighbourhood watch areas, encouraging individual
• Focuses on oppressive structural conditions that victimise large
amounts of people
• Argue that by focussing on things deemed criminal by the state (as
positivists have) ignores the damaging practices of those in positions
of power (Schwendinger & Schwendinger, 1975) not defined as
crime
• Question the social construction of victimhood – ask who is afforded
the label most easily, and who has the power to label (Mawby &
Walklate, 1994)
• Challenges notion of the law as impartial and just
• Marxist approach – capitalist practices create victims – some argue
workers are victims since they are exploited by those who own MOP
• Workplace injury and death as criminal victimisation (Freidrichs,
1983)
• Offenders as victims of system that privileges material wealth but
denies the opportunity to achieve it (Greenberg, 1981)
• Offending as responding to the capitalist system, but if caught, punished (Reiman, 1979) 10
Radical Victimology
• Includes infringement of human rights (Elias, 1986)
• Still focuses predominately on class to detriment of other areas 11
• Victimisation very broadly conceived – much wider than positivism
• Includes those brutalised by state oppression, war, corporate crime
etc. whose experiences are seen as needing to be documented and
brought to an end (Quinney, 1980)
• Criticised for a simplistic view of social structure – largely focusses on
class and the means of production
• Obscures more complex processes around race, gender, religion
• Potentially romanticise street crime ignoring impact on individual victim
• Left Realism -
• Most closely associated with the work of Jock Young, Roger
Matthews, John Lea, and Richard Kinsey in the UK
• Approaches crime with a focus on the offender, the state, informal
control and the victim
• Trying to convey lived experience in high crime areas (Matthews &
Young, 1992)
• Includes a focus on victimisation – responsible for local crime surveys
• Significant contribution in terms of understanding victimisation
• Largely highlighted forms of abuse not reported to police nor
detected at accurate levels in crime surveys – rape, domestic abuse,
sexual assault, child abuse (Hanmer & Saunders, 1984)
• Women’s lives and experiences framed by social structure of
patriarchy, underpinned by male violence and the use, or threat, of
violence
• Uncovering ‘hidden’ violence and challenged men’s power to define
abuse has been challenged
• Focus on women’s agency rather than only victimisation
• How women resist and manage their lives around violence
• Viewed as actively struggling against material conditions &
mitigating harms caused by physical and sexual danger
• Dobash & Dobash (1979) – how women strive to improve
violent relationships in early stages
• Stanko (1985) how danger is an integral part of the everyday
lives of women 16
Feminist Perspectives
• Many reject the term victim – implies passivity
• Some advocate the use of the word ‘survivor’ (Kelly,
1988; Lamb, 1999) as recognises that some die, but
many reconstruct their lives psychologically, physically
and emotionally
• Criticised for focussing on white women’s experiences
and neglecting black women and ethnic minorities
• Interconnection between ethnicity/race, class and gender
is likely to be more complex for some - intersectionality
• Experiences of those from minority groups – be that
ethnicity, religion or culture - is less well known about
• Heterogeneity of women only more recently recognised
• Whilst difference is important, it can lead to an avoidance
of any claims making at all (Walklate, 2001)
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• Arose in response to the perceived deficiencies of positivist, radical
and realist approaches
• All of which failed to incorporate an adequate understanding of
agency and structure
• Critical victimologists want to incorporate a critical analysis of both
agency and structure
• How individual action is constructed and reconstructed within
material conditions (Walklate, 1992)
• Critical victimology aims to document how people act within and
resist the structural conditions in which they live (Mawby & Walklate,
1994)
• Sets out a framework that problematises the state
• Charts connections between political, social and economic
processes and victimisation
• Criticised for not recognising interchangeability of victim and offender
status
• Problematic to document individuals as being oppressed even when
they don’t see themselves as oppressed?
Critical Victimology