Victimology

Question 1

Positivist victimology

Answer 1

• Aims to identify the factors that produce statistical patterns in victimisation – especially those that make some individuals or groups more likely to be victims
• It aims to identify victims who have contributed to their own victimisation

Seeks to identify the social & psychological characteristics of victims that make them different from, & more vulnerable than, non-victims. The implication is that the victims in some sense ‘invite’ victimisation by being the kind of person that they are or by the actions they may take & can include lifestyle factors such as victims who show-off their wealth.

Question 2

Positivist evaluation

Answer 2

Important in identifying broad patterns of crime & for highlighting the problem of victimisation in certain types of offence – e.g. domestic violence against women.

🗷 Ignores wider structural factors influencing victimisation, such as poverty & patriarchy that conflict theories such as Marxism or feminism would point out.

🗷 It can easily tip over into victim blaming. E.g. the idea that rape victims ‘asked for it

Question 3

Liberal victimology

Answer 3

In contrast, liberal victimologists focus on all victims of crime, regardless of social characteristics. Negative attitudes experienced by someone, such as a rape victim, at the hands of the police or a judge, after suffering the primary victimisation of the offence itself, is called secondary victimisation. Waves of harm are also a focus, as crimes affect not only the victim but also families & friends, & sometimes terrorise the public too.

Liberal victimologists also study hidden types of criminal victimisation, such as victims of fraud & corporate crime including bank customers, employees & tenants. They are interested in making the victim feel better through actions such as restorative justice.

Question 4

Liberal evaluation

Answer 4

Considers how someone can be a victim twice due to the CJS & how it is often not just the direct victim that can be affected by a crime, but also their family & friends.

🗹 Offers positive ways in which justice can be restorative, rather than simply retributive.

Question 5

Critical (or Radical) victimology

Answer 5

Based on conflict theories such as Marxism & feminism, & shares the same approach as critical  criminology. These approaches are critical of positivist criminology for taking a too narrow & uncritical  view of victims. It focuses on two elements: 
• They suggest that more account needs to be taken of structural factors, such patriarchy & poverty,  which place powerless groups such as women & the poor at greater risk of victimisation (a form of  structural powerlessness). E.g. positivist victimologists might reveal that women & the working-class  are more likely to be victims of particular types of crime, but they don’t tell you why this is the case,  because they don’t discuss the structure of society. 

• They point to the state’s power to apply or deny the label of victim – ‘victim’ is a social construct in the same way as ‘crime’ & ‘criminal’. Through the CJS, the state applies the label of victim to some but withholds it from others – e.g. when police decide not to press charges against a man for assaulting his wife, thereby denying her victim status. This helps to hide the crimes of more powerful people in society & denies the powerless victims any right to justice.

Question 6

Radical evaluation

Answer 6

It is valuable in drawing attention to the way that ‘victim’ status is constructed by power & how this benefits the powerful as the expense of the powerless.

🗷 Disregards the role victims may play in bringing victimisation on themselves through their own choices (e.g. not making their home secure) or their own offending.