CHAPTER FOUR; THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES IN VICTIMOLOGY

1. POSITIVIST VICTIMOLOGY
Positivist criminology is concerned with finding the causal conditions for criminal
behaviour and it thus assumes that the presence of these conditions makes the
criminal ‘different’ in some way from law-abiding members of society. The same
logic was applied in positivist approaches to victimology. Positivist victimology
deals with the measurement of the amount of victimisation, the development of
typologies of victimisation, explanations of why some people are more prone to
victimisation than others, and the relationship between the criminal and the victim
which may indicate the ways in which victims may precipitate crime. The hunt was
on to discover what distinguishes victims from the ideal-typical individual who
does not suffer crime. The key characteristics of positivist victimology include:
The identification of factors which contribute to a non-random pattern of
victimization, a focus on interpersonal crimes of violence, and a concern to
identify victims who may have contributed to their own victimization (Miers 1989:
3). The major strands of positivist victimological theory include:
a) Victim Precipitation Theory
The idea that attention should be focused on the contribution of victims to crime is
one with a long tradition, originating in the field of victimology. Hans von Hentig
was among the first to articulate this stance, positing in the 1940s that victims often
contribute to their own victimization. Von Hentig’s study implied that there were
psychological or social variables which made an individual prone to victimisation.
In The Criminal and His Victim (1948), he referred to the victim’s contribution to
the genesis of crime and the ‘causative’ role of the victim, insisting, for instance,
that victims may incite, provoke or create a situation conducive to the committing
of crime. According to victim precipitation theory, some people actually initiate
the confrontation that eventually leads to their injury or death. Victim precipitation
can be either active or passive.
Active precipitation occurs when victims act provocatively, use threats or fighting
words, or even attack first. In 1971, Menachem Amir suggested that female rape
victims often contribute to their attack by dressing provocatively or pursuing a
relationship with the rapist. Although Amir’s findings were controversial, courts
have continued to find the defendants in rape cases not guilty if actions of the
victim can in any way be construed as consent to sexual intimacy.
While recognizing that the provocative behaviors of individuals can contribute to
their victimization, von Hentig’s classification of victims also emphasizes that the
contribution of victims can result from characteristics or social positions beyond
their control. Some of the victim types in his classification scheme include the
female, the old, the mentally defective, the immigrant, and the acquisitive. Many of
these categories represent the inability of potential victims to resist perpetrators
due to social, physical, or psychological disadvantages. The importance of von
Hentig classification scheme is in suggesting that victim characteristics or social
positions can contribute passively to victimization. Thus, passive precipitation
occurs when the victim exhibits some personal characteristic that unknowingly
either threatens or encourages the attacker. Gender may play a role in the decision-
making process: Criminals may target female victims because they perceive them
to be easier, less threatening targets. Thus, it is possible that a fearful or anxious
demeanor may make a woman more vulnerable to attack. A woman may also
become the target of intimate violence when she improves her job status and her
success results in hostility from a jealous spouse or partner. In other situations,
although the victim may never have met the attacker or even known of his or her
existence, the attacker feels menaced and acts accordingly.
Von Hentig’s typology recognizes that the criminal and the victim may come from
two different worlds, but the perpetrator and the victim often bring equal weight to
the mechanics of the crime. He found that the behaviors of the victim and offender
may be explained by three factors (psychological, social, and biological) which
help define the criminal act and possible consequences. The young, the female, the
old, and the mentally defective and mentally deranged reflect all three factors to
varying degrees. The very young and the very old may be victimized by combined
psychological, social, and biological factors.
Their psychological and biological status may result in ignorance or risk taking
leading to sexual assault or homicide, while increased age may make them eligible
for fraud. The mentally defective and mentally deranged fail to comprehend the
presence of threats and are placed in danger. Immigrants, and minorities are
victimized because of their social status and the lack of a voice in political society.
Thus, they are both victimized and unfairly blamed for all sorts of actions. Von
Hentig experienced this in his own time when his immigration status raised
suspicion about potential sedition.
Beniamin Mendelsohn expanded on the concept of victim precipitation by
emphasizing degrees of victim precipitation. His classification scheme focused
principally on active precipitation, or the behaviors and actions of victims that
contribute to their victimization. Based on his observations as a practicing attorney,
he delineated a classification scheme of victims based on legal considerations of
the degree of victim culpability. The scheme ranges from completely innocent
victims to victims who are completely responsible, as shown below:
 Completely Innocent Victim -No provocation or facilitating behavior
 Victim with Minor Guilt -Victim inadvertently places himself in a
compromising situation
 Victim as Guilty as Offender -Victim was engaging in vice crimes and was
hurt; suicide victim
 Victim More Guilty Than Offender -Victim provokes or instigates the causal
act
 Most Guilty -Victim Started off as the offender and was hurt in turn
 Imaginary Victim- Those who pretend to be a victim
In an additional effort, Stephen Schafer provided a typology that combined von
Hentig discussion of social characteristics or social positions of individuals—
passive precipitation—with Mendelsohn discussion of victim behaviors and the
degree of victim culpability—active precipitation. This typology includes victims
with no responsibility (biologically weak, socially weak, political, and unrelated
victims), victims with some responsibility (provocative and precipitative victims),
and victims with total responsibility (self-victimizing).
Shafer’s Victim Precipitation Typology
Type Description
1. Unrelated Victims (no victim responsibility). Instances in which the victim is
simply the unfortunate target of the offender.
2. Provocative Victims (victim shares responsibility). The offender is reacting to
some action or behavior of the victim
3. Precipitative Victims (some degree of victim responsibility). Victims leave
themselves open for victimization by placing themselves in dangerous places or
times, dressing inappropriately, acting, or saying the wrong things, etc
4. Biologically Weak Victims (no victim responsibility). The aged, young, infirm,
and others who, due to their physical conditions, are appealing targets for
offenders.
5. Socially Weak Victims (no victim responsibility). Immigrants, minorities, and
others who are not adequately integrated into society are seen as easy targets by
offenders.
6. Self-Victimizing (total victim responsibility). Individuals who are involved in
such crimes as drug use, prostitution, gambling, and other activities in which the
victim and the criminal act in concert with one another.
7. Political Victims (no victim responsibility). Individuals who are victimized
because they oppose those in power or are made victims in order to be kept in a
subservient social position.
The commonality in these classification schemes is that they emphasize victim
precipitation, or the possibility that victims either passively or actively contribute
to their victimization. In other words, victim contribution is implicated as a causal
factor in crime.
Marvin Wolfgang analysis of U.S. police homicide records marked the first
attempt to systematically explore victim precipitation. Defining victim-precipitated
homicides as instances in which the ultimate victim was the first in the homicide
event to use physical force against the subsequent offender, this study reported that
26% of homicides that occurred from 1948 to 1952 in Philadelphia resulted from
active victim precipitation. After Wolfgang pioneering study, others assessed the
role of victim precipitation in aggravated assault, armed robbery, homicide, and
forcible rape. These studies indicated that victim precipitation contributes to a
variety of crimes, although estimates of its contribution vary across crime type.
Specifically, studies suggest that 22% to 26% of homicides, 14% to 21% of
aggravated assaults, 4% to 19% of forcible rapes, and 11% of armed robberies
involve victim precipitation.
From the above, it is clear that victim precipitation is based on a number of
problematic assumptions:
 The behavior of the victim can explain the criminal act.
 The offender becomes activated only when a victim emits certain signals.
 A victim’s behavior is necessary and sufficient to cause a criminal act.
 The intent of the victim can be gauged by the victimization incident.
The primary contribution of victimization studies to criminology, and particularly
to victimization theories, is in suggesting that a comprehensive analysis of crime
should incorporate a discussion of the role victims may play in the evolution of
crime. However, these studies also served a secondary function in paving the way
for victimization theories through the controversy and debate surrounding them.
The controversy was sparked in the 1970s, largely by Menachem Amir study of
forcible rape in which the operationalization of victim precipitation included using
indecent language or gestures, possessing a “bad” reputation, and consuming
alcohol. After this study, the concept of victim precipitation came under attack for
blaming the victims of crime for their victimization.
Although the controversy over victim blaming marked a blow for victimization
studies and for the appreciation that victims are an important element in many
crime scenarios, it also marked an important turning point for victimization
research. Specifically, the debate made it clear that victimization research would
have to be broadened considerably before it would be able to attain prominence in
criminology. The victim precipitation studies focused almost exclusively on the
actions of victims, affording little attention to offenders and/or contexts. As such,
critics noted that the studies failed to realize that many factors identified as
precipitous—for example, drinking alcohol—are present in situations where
individuals are not victimized. A clear implication here is that precipitative acts are
not sufficient causes of criminal events.
Rather, a compelling explanation of victimization must focus on additional factors,
including offenders and contexts. In a related vein, some critics suggested that the
singular focus on victim behaviors as contributors to victimization diverted
necessary attention from the social institutions and cultural values that shape the
lives and behaviors of both offenders and victims.
Lifestyle Exposure Theory (LET)
The lifestyle-exposure explanations for victimization reflect the theme that
individuals contribute to their own victimization. Rather than emphasizing the
active provocation in early studies of victim precipitation, however, these theories
link the lifestyles or routine activities of individuals/groups to their rates of
predatory victimization. The routine activities of individuals/groups are posited to
be shaped, in turn, by structural opportunities/constraints and cultural expectations.
Although the lifestyle-exposure and routine activities perspectives are often used
and discussed interchangeably, they can be distinguished though slightly.
The lifestyle-exposure perspective posits that status characteristics—including age,
race, marital status, gender, and income—shape rates of victimization through their
effects on lifestyles. Hindelang and his colleagues define lifestyles as the patterns
of daily activities individuals engage in during the course of work and leisure. The
lifestyles of individuals are deemed important for understanding victimization risk
because they influence the amount of exposure individuals and/or their property
have to crime-prone areas or persons. That is, individuals who spend their leisure
time in bars or other public spaces are more likely to come into contact with
offenders than are individuals who spend their leisure time watching television at
home. Similarly, individuals whose employment requires work with the public
(e.g., sales) are more likely to come into contact with criminals than are individuals
who work alone in their offices.
The lifestyle-exposure perspective rightfully notes that where and how individuals
spend their leisure and work time is influenced by the very status characteristics—
age, race, income, gender, and so on—that pattern criminal victimization. This is
because these status characteristics are associated with varying cultural
expectations and opportunity structures that shape behaviors and lifestyles.
According to this perspective, then, understanding why males are more likely than
females to be victims of crime simply requires the recognition that cultural
expectations and social-structural arrangements encourage males more than
females to spend their work and leisure time outside the home, where they may
come into contact with offenders. But the lifestyle model also considers the
influence of structural constraints upon human action, so that things like tax
policies which may encourage or discourage marriage, influencing the number of
people living alone) or the availability of public transport (which may influence the
number of occasions that people leave their houses) are factors that are also taken
into account when studying victimization.
In terms of its applicability to understanding victimization, LET essentially asserts
that the risk of experiencing crime varies across society given the differences in
how individuals are structurally situated (e.g., age, class, gender, race) (Choi,
2008). This theory is devoted to understanding why certain segments of the
population, such as young men, are more vulnerable to experiencing crime versus
other groups. It also important in explaining the fact that individuals‘ activities and
lifestyles are intertwined with the roles and expectations they holding society.
Thus, a young bachelor is likely at greater risk of experiencing a crime by the sheer
nature of leading a more active lifestyle that exposes him to potential offenders. In
another example, a woman who engages in survival sex as a means to acquire life‘s
necessities is at greater risk of experiencing crime by the sheer nature of that role.
LET is also one of the perspectives that is applicable to victimization. Another
example is the exposure to online activities (risky online behaviour) and the cases
of cyber-stalking and online bullying.
Routine Activities Theory
Cohen and Felson introduced routine activities theory (RAT) to academia in the
1970s at approximately the same time as LET (discussed earlier). Much like LET,
RAT is an opportunity-driven theoretical understanding of victimization.
According to Cohen and Felson (1979), crime likely results from a convergence in
time and space of the following three factors: a potential offender, a suitable target,
and the lack of a capable guardian. This perspective, like LSC, is applicable across
personal and property offenses; moreover, it has informed cybercrime research as
well (Navarro et al., 2015; Navarro &Jasinski, 2012, 2013). While scholars
conceptualize RAT‘s main components slightly differently across studies, the
essential premise underlining each remains largely the same. According to RAT
scholars, potential offenders, formerly referred to as motivated offenders, are
omnipresent in society (Mustaine& Tewksbury, 2009).
The second component of RAT is akin to the main premise of LET and takes into
account target vulnerability to victimization. The target can be a person or property
(Cohen &Felson, 1979), and vulnerabilities broadly range across studies. For
example, in their 2015 study of cyberbullying on social networking sites (SNS),
Navarro and colleagues assessed what behaviours on social media platforms like
Facebook make users vulnerable to cybervictimization. Ultimately, the scholars
found that using SNS daily increased the risk of experiencing cyberbullying
(Navarro et al., 2015). Additionally, bullying others, posting status updates, and
using private messages all increased the odds of experiencing cyberbullying
(Navarro et al., 2015).
The third component, a capable guardian, counteracts the chance of victimization
occurring (Cohen &Felson, 1979). Although scholars‘ conceptualization of the
capable guardian widely varies across studies, this component was envisioned as
someone who could keep a crime from happening by keeping ―an eye on the
potential target of crime (Felson, 2006, p. 80). In other words, using an alarm
system or bright lights may deter a burglary, but these items are not capable forms
of guardianship in terms of understanding RAT. Instead, capable forms of
guardianship are parents, police officers, teachers, and others who are in positions
to both monitor potential targets of crime and act if a crime is likely to occur.
Taking this into account, Cohen and Felson (1979) theorized that the lack of a
capable guardian contributed to the genesis of crime when a potential offender and
suitable target converged in time and space.
These theories have been criticised on the following grounds:
 -They base the risk of victimization according to public and not private
space, since researchers using them examine the probability of victimization
in relation to the amount of time spent in public spaces, thereby excluding
private space
 -They implicitly blame the victim places an unwarranted level of
responsibility on victims to prevent their own victimization and many of
these actions would require victims to drastically alter their lives. Victims
may be able to prevent their victimization by staying in their houses which
have bars on the doors and windows; however, most people have to go out
sometime and some people live in neighborhoods where crime is rampant
making it difficult to minimize the risk of harm. Furthermore, many battered
women are, in fact, imprisoned in their homes with “criminals” who beat
them and lack any means to prevent their victimization. And even if it were
possible to protect oneself from all victimization, many people do not want
to live that way. It may be better to risk a burglary than to feel like one lives
in a fortress.
 -They implicitly create a culturally legitimate victim. The process of creating
culturally legitimate victims makes it more acceptable for some types of
people to be victimized and society is less willing to use its resources to do
anything about it. Thus, prostitutes are blamed for their victimization if they
are raped because they engage in sexually risky and promiscuous behavior in
the first place. They do not warrant our sympathy or any response by the
criminal justice system.
 -They portray the victim as passive, as living within their structural
constraints rather than actively opposing them. The structural processes that
contribute to risk of victimization, whilst being acknowledged, are left
unquestioned ,being viewed predominantly as matters of public policy rather
than issues stemming from racist or sexist structures.
 -They focus on a narrow range of definition of crime, addressing themselves
mainly to conventional understandings of crime such as street crime and
burglary, while ignoring for instance, white-collar crime.
1. CRITICAL VICTIMOLOGY
The term critical has been used in a number of different ways in order to develop
an agenda for victimology. Miers articulates one understanding of this version of
victimology as a resolution of some of the difficulties he associates with
positivism: Many groups and individuals may claim the label, but the key
questions for a critical victimology are who has the power to apply the label and
what considerations are significant in that determination (Miers, 1990: 224).
Central to critical victimology, therefore, is the issue of how and why certain
actions are defined as criminal and, as a result, how the entire field of victimology
becomes focused on one set of actions instead of another. Not everyone is at equal
risk of being the victim of crime, and some victims get more attention than do
others. For example, ironically, at a time when crime discussion is dominated by
calls for more prisons, more executions, and victims rights, some female crime
victims are belittled. In the US for example, some rights groups, academics, and
politicians fervently challenge research showing high rates of wife beating, sexual
assaults committed by male acquaintances and dating partners, and other types of
woman abuse that occur behind closed doors. Moreover, while some politicians
based in Western nations repeatedly point out human rights violations in
totalitarian countries, they simultaneously hide or ignore the victimization of
women in their own so- called democratic societies. Similarly, many mainstream
or positivist victimologists ignore the plight of women and girls abused by male
acquaintances and intimate partners. However, when they do focus on this harm,
they typically examine victims; culpability instead of the broader structural and
cultural forces that motivate men to engage in the abuse of women and female
adolescents. Critical victimologists, however, carefully examine the myriad ways
in which women and girls are victimized by males they know and/or with whom
they are romantically involved. They also emphasize the political nature of crime
and victimization and, like labeling theorists, are sharply opposed to only using
legal definitions of crime. Another key element of their work is studying the many
harms experienced by those who are socially and economically excluded, such as
gay men and lesbians, who are subjected to harassment and bias crime.
If the term crime victim comes up in the course of an individual daily
conversations with friends, relatives, co-workers, or even university peers, it
generally is in reference to a person harmed by an act of interpersonal violence on
the street. Still, critical victimologists sensitize us to the fact that, knowingly or
unknowingly, everyone has been, or will be, victimized by one or more highly
injurious experiences that commonly escape the purview of criminal law. They
also want to broaden definitions of crime to include serious damage done to
workers, consumers, and to the environment by corporations, as well as other
harms done by economic and political elites that are not typically considered
illegitimate (e.g., false advertising). Furthermore, critical victimologists call for
studying and criminalizing the following: violations of human rights, poverty,
unemployment caused by moving corporations to developing countries, inadequate
social services (e.g., substandard housing, day care, education, and medical care),
pornographic and racist media, terrorism, the creating of weapons of mass
destruction, and so on.
Critical victimologists remind us that sometimes entire categories of people (and
often women) are not “allowed” to be crime victims. Certainly street sex workers,
runaway youth, and others are seen as responsible for their pain and suffering by
scores of political and business leaders, agents of social control, and the general
public. Also noteworthy is that studies conducted by critical victimologists reveal
that, contrary to popular belief, many workers are safer on the streets than they are
on the job. Some scholars estimate the corporate death rate at more than 6 times
greater than the street crime death rate, and the rate of nonlethal assault in the
workplace at more than 30 times greater than the rate of predatory street crime.
Although close to 75% of North American women in the paid workforce are in so-
called pink ghettos (i.e., clerical jobs, nursing, and retail sales), they are not
immune to safety hazards. Critical victimologists found that these workers are at
great risk than are others of experiencing the ill effects of exposure to toxic
substances, stress, repetitive strain injury, and other work-related dangers. Indeed,
a back injury suffered by a female nurse who was not provided help lifting a
patient is just as debilitating as the same injury suffered by a male construction
worker at an unsafe heavy construction site.
Critical victimologists do not dismiss or reject all the empirical and theoretical
work done by their positivist counterparts. For example, critical researchers
frequently use mainstream methods, such as representative sample surveys.
However, such surveys include quantitative and qualitative questions that generate
data on social problems generally considered irrelevant by some, such as woman
abuse; sexual harassment and the verbal harassment of gay men, lesbians, and
people of color in public places; and corporate crime. Even when government
agencies decide to gather data on one or more of these topics, critical
victimologists generally uncover higher incidence and prevalence rates because
they define criminal harms more broadly.
Certainly, there are social scientists who find critical victimologists; broad
definitions to be problematic. Some critical criminologists, for instance, suggest
that sweeping accounts may be too broad or vague. Others have even gone so far
as to state that they encompass “everything but the kitchen sink.” Then there are
others who assert that broad critical definitions are simply political agendas rather
than scientific contributions. Critical victimologists respond to this claim by stating
that no scientific method, theory, or policy proposal is value free and that
mainstream scholars are also trying to advance a political agenda that guides their
own work. They also respond to the previous criticism by stating that regardless of
whether they are officially defined as crimes, economically, socially,
environmentally, and physically injurious acts committed by political and
economic elites are just as, if not more, important as those committed by powerless
people
2. RADICAL VICTIMOLOGY
Radicalism within victimology moves us from a framework which sees
victimology as being primarily concerned with victims of crime as defined by a
conventional understanding of the law, to a framework which recognizes the
importance of problematizing the law and the state. The presence of a radical
victimology can be traced back to the work of Mendelsohn, who argued for a
victimology concerned with all victims. However, this radical strand took on a
more substantial form in the late 1960s and early 1970s through to the 1980s. Its
emergence has some parallels with the emergence of radical criminology.
Essentially a radical victimology concerns itself with: victims of police force, the
victims of war, the victims of the correctional system, the victims of state violence,
the victims of oppression of any sort. (Quinney, 1972: 315)
For Quinney all of these could be rendered visible by the development of an
alternative perspective; and that alternative perspective would, just as radical
criminology did, call into question the role of the capitalist state, and the role of the
law within capitalist societies in defining the social construction of both the
offender and the victim. Thus it considers the criminal justice system too to be a
problem contributing to victimization. Thus, ‘institutional wrong-doing that
violates human rights’ (Karmen, 1990: 12), police rule-breaking, wrongful arrest
and false imprisonment, political corruption, and deviant or injurious actions of the
state that may or may not be defined as ‘crimes’ are treated as legitimate areas for
study. By using broader social conceptions of victimization, this type of
victimology promises to challenge dominant understandings of what constitutes the
‘crime problem’ and its impact on individuals and whole communities. This strand
of victimology also does not see society as innately consensual but recognizes the
considerable power of the law and the state to oppress.
There also is a dimension to radical victimology which is concerned to establish
the discipline as one in which the central concern is the question of human rights.
Elias (1985: 17) states: A victimology that encompasses human rights would not
divert attention from crime victims and their rights, but rather would explore their
inextricable relationship to more universal human rights concerns. This broader
scope for victimology echoes the work of Mendelsohn and, arguably, also permits
the inclusion of some of the issues addressed by the feminist movement in the area
of legal rights. The human rights perspective produces a consideration of the role
of the state in the production of victims. He also argues that it is a perspective
which has considerable scientific potential:
Human rights standards can provide victimology with boundaries that include not
merely official victimological definitions, but more objective measures of actual
victimization. By using international covenants, we can promote more universal,
and less national, definitions of victimization. (Elias, 1985: 17) In promoting the
idea of ‘objective measures’ Elias (1986: 245) clearly sees victimology as
concerned ‘to relieve human suffering’ and assumes that this suffering can be
objectively agreed upon. In so doing he also assumes that the universal standards
to which the discipline aspires are ‘the progressive goals of democracy and social
change’.
4. FEMINIST VICTIMOLOGY
Beginning in the mid-1970s, feminists critically assessed virtually all academic
disciplines, pointing out that historically women were usually excluded from
research and theorizing or, if included, were portrayed in sex-stereotyped ways.
Various strands of feminism have impacted differently on both victimology and
criminology. However, in some respects, feminism challenges the very heart of the
conventional victimological agenda and there are some common features across
feminist positions regarding the female victim of crime, one of which is asking the
woman question and this means doing research for example, for rather than on
women.
Among victimologists it is now generally acknowledged that:
 Crime and the experience of victimization occur on a gendered terrain.
 Gender relations impinge on the experience and recovery from crime and
victimization.
First, feminist victimologists maintain that gender— that is, the socially
constructed expectations, attitudes, and behaviors associated with females and
males, typically organized dichotomously as femininity and masculinity—is a
central organizing component of social life. In other words, gender and gender
relations order social life and social institutions in particular ways.
Consequently, when one studies any aspect of social life, including victimization,
one must consider in what ways it is gendered. For example, one must ask how
gender affects frequency and types of victimization. Are females and males
victimized at different rates? Are they more or less likely to be the victims of
different types of crimes? How does gender impact their victimization
experiences? Embedded in this principle is the assumption that gender is not
something natural but rather something social. This is not to deny a biological
component to gender but rather a recognition that gender develops through
complex interactions between biology and culture and may change over time in
response to social actions, opportunities, and experiences. And because gender is
socially constructed, it is ascribed social value in society. In most other societies
throughout the world, one gender (masculinity) is valued over the other gender
(femininity). This differential valuing of genders is called sexism, and feminist
victimologists maintain that understanding sexism is fundamental to understanding
the gendered nature of victimization experiences and both formal and informal
responses to victimization. Although feminist victimologists recognize that males’
voices and experiences have historically been privileged over females’ voices and
experiences, they also point out that not all men are equally privileged in most
societies, nor are all women equally disadvantaged. More specifically, feminist
victimologists maintain that there is no universal male or female experience of
victimization that can be described and understood independently of other social
locating factors, such as race and ethnicity, social class, age and physical ability.
Moreover, these factors are not simply additive; rather, they intersect to produce
qualitatively different experiences and opportunities that must be studied in their
own right. For instance, in studying women’s violent victimization experiences,
one cannot assume that the experiences and reactions of a sample of white, middle-
class women will generalize to all women. One must study a diverse sample of
women to determine how race and class intersect with gender to affect
victimization experiences and reactions. Much feminist work in victimology has
focused on including women in what has traditionally been male dominated
research. Gender, feminist victimologists point out, is one of the strongest
predictors of victimization; males consistently perpetrate more crime, and more
serious crime, including violent crime than females do and are more likely to be
the victims of these crimes. However, feminist victimological research has shown
that females are more likely to be the victims of certain types of crimes, including
sexual assault, incest, intimate partner violence, and sexual harassment, and their
perpetrators are more likely to be men, particularly men they know. Women are
significantly more likely to be victimized by a man they know than by a stranger,
whereas men are about equally likely to be victimized by someone they know as
by a stranger.
Moreover, feminist victimological research has demonstrated that women’s
victimization by men is far more prevalent than previously suspected. In
explaining these findings, feminist victimologists have drawn on research that
shows how traditional gender norms reinforce and reward male dominance and
control over women and how patriarchal societies such as our own privilege males
over females and often blame women for their own victimization. More recent
feminist research has examined the connections between victimization and
offending by girls and women. Feminist scholars and philosophers have also
persuasively argued that women are differently connected to the social world to
men and that women needs and experiences differ greatly from men. Womens
social existence is connected, dependent and interdependent ways and more
orientated towards an ethic of care and responsibility towards others in
relationships. For women the family, the home, emotions, nurturing and caring are
central to social life and these are generally considered feminine characteristics.
Women suffering, as wives, partners, (single) mothers, carers, sisters, and
daughters is intricately connected to these. Even when ostensibly victimising
others — committing property and acquisitive crimes particularly shoplifting and
prostitution —women do so ostensibly and in the main for others benefits, for
families, partners, neighbours and friends. Following feminist criminological
theorising on criminal women this leads to a victimological dilemma for women
who find themselves doubly victimised and doubly suffering. Whilst those who
more closely approximate characteristics typically associated with femininity are
likely to feel others suffering more readily and easily than those who dont, it does
not follow that women necessarily bear the brunt of harm and suffering.
Nor does it imply that women have a monopoly on suffering and hardship. A fully
gendered approach to the understanding and appreciation of victimization in
society should appreciate the suffering of both men and women. Whilst harm,
suffering and victimisation occur on a gendered terrain, men can exhibit so- called
feminine characteristics and women can similarly exhibit those characteristics most
commonly and routinely associated with men and traditional notions of
masculinity. Women can do female or male gender; men can do female or male.
Despite the attention given by radical feminism to the hidden male violence
perpetrated by men against women, Pizzey (1998) has pointed out that some of the
women who had obtained refuge from their battering husbands also admitted that
they had, on occasions, been violent towards their husbands.
An additional principle of feminist victimology that grew out of the feminist
movement is a commitment to collective social action to address sexism and
promote gender equity. Feminists often disagree on the forms and goals of this
activism, but they nonetheless have engaged in various efforts to produce more
gender equitable social change (e.g., lobbying for the revision of rape and sexual
assault laws to reduce the likelihood that victims will be retraumatized by the legal
system if they report the crimes to the police).
Women’s Victimisation.
Women are direct as well as indirect victims of criminal acts and omissions but
they also suffer secondary, repeat, multiple, intersectional and serial forms of
criminal and non-criminal victimisations.
In terms of secondary victimization, a case in point is the serious crime of rape.
While the adversarial system might appear to encourage re-victimization as might
hostile police interrogations and similar approaches from defence lawyers and
members of the judiciary whose questioning, cross-examinations and judgements
assume the woman is an ‘alleged victim’, this does not excuse the treatment some
women have been subjected to by the various institutions and personnel of the
criminal justice system. Thus the reality of the rape victims experience in court is
that she has often been forced to relive her ordeal in the witness box – almost as if
to prove her innocence in the crime. Following the ordeal of rape and other forms
of sexual victimization women and girls must cope with the longer-term aftermath
and this includes psychological damage and the suffering of stigmatization or
ostracization (Human Rights Watch,2004).
Moreover, there is often the risk of being silenced or their voices not being heard
within the CJS in various ways. There are a number of contributory factors that
conspire against victims’ voices being heard and to accounts dismissed. These
factors relate to the bigger social-structural and cultural picture relating to
interpersonal abuse and sexual violence. The legal heritage of the crime of rape,
even in nations appearing to have progressive legal reforms, see rape myths getting
smuggled into the process through entrenched attitudes by agents in the system,
namely, police, judges and even the public (McGregor 2012: 87). Croall (2011)
identifies six ‘rape myths’ that include: women really want and enjoy rape; women
provoke rape; it only happens to certain kinds of women; women lie about it; rape
can be prevented; rapists are sex fiends. Jones (2012: 196) lists five similar
assumptions and myths around sexual violence: sexual violence is rare; false
allegations of rape are common; rape victims should put up a fight and show signs
of struggle and a victim will sustain genital injuries; most rapes are committed by
strangers; stranger rape is more traumatic than rape by a known person. As Brown
and Walklate have observed, there are patterns to the big picture relating to sexual
violence and these include: underreporting, attrition of cases as they drop out at
key stages of the criminal justice process, disbelieving of complaints and giving
men’s explanations greater credence than those of women complainants (Brown
and Walklate 2012: 3)
The consequence of these silencing of victims of sexual violence is underreporting
and undercounting of the magnitude of the problem.
In terms of repeat victimizations, for women, domestic violence is the most
obvious example and for female (and male) children child sexual abuse. In relation
to domestic violence, victim blaming is also in evidence. Additionally for women,
multiple or serial victimization is often a feature of their overall experience of
victimization. Radical scholars refer to women multiple disadvantages and
womens complex cultural heritage and identity in order to demonstrate women
particular relationship to various criminal and non-criminal forms of victimization,
they point to how women victimization is complex and multi-layered, and how
ungendered definitions of multiple victimization render much of our experience
invisible.
In terms of multiple victimization, the impact of victimisations on women includes
women as wives, as mothers, as single parents, as workers and employees, as
consumers, as citizens, as investors, as passengers, as residents and tenants, as
female youths, children and babies . Spaces, places and venues for women's
victimisation include public and private places, the street, the home and care home
the institution, the workplace, the battlefield and the war zone, the shopping mall
and public transport. As women, and as indirect victims, women also feel the
pains, harms and victimisations of those close to them. This suggests a bias in the
gendered nature of victimization where women appear to bear the brunt of harm
and suffering and victimisation.
One of the commonly shared characteristics of victimisation is the notion of being
harmed. Harm, can be physical, emotional and/or psychological and financial.
Harms can involve very many forms of suffering including exploitation, mental
abuse, violence, disease, deformity and deprivation. Harms can be multiple and
serious as well as long lasting and debilitating. Moreover, those victimisations that
remain relatively invisible are not always or necessarily the least serious forms.
Vast amounts of financial hardship remain un-criminalised and whilst men and
women suffer, there are indications that there is a gendered impact here too.
In the recent past, and linked to economic globalisation, there has been an apparent
reappearance of sweatshops where 90 per cent of all workers are young — and in
the West, immigrant — women, working in the garment industry and where
‘operators are notorious for avoiding giving maternity leave by firing pregnant
women and forcing women workers to take birth control or to abort their
pregnancies’. There are also indications from other case studies of corporate crime
that the pharmaceutical, cosmetics, health and medical industry has harmed women
as consumers on a mass basis. Other evidence supports the understated nature and
extent of victimisation of women.
A Norwegian study showed evidence that birth defects linked to exposure to
environmental toxins. There have also been some high profile and recurrent
attempts to expose scandals affecting women and babies. Switzerland largest
industrial company Nestlé, the world largest artificial baby milk producer, has been
targeted for its unethical marketing and its part in causing malnutrition amongst
infants in the global south and an estimated 1.5 million infants to die each year.
The same industrial giant has also been the focal point for pollution incidents and
the target of feminist opposition groups in relation to its sponsoring of beauty
contests and thereby perpetuating sexism. Monsanto has similarly been the focus
of Corporate Watch. This body claims Monsanto has animpressive history of
committing corporate crimes, several of which have a direct bearing on the health
of women, including their marketing of a genetically engineered hormone BST
where evidence suggests BST milk may cause breast cancer (Corporate Watch,
2004b).
An increasing amount of research is also showing violence against women in a
global context. This includes intimate partner violence, sexual abuse by non-
intimate partners, trafficking, forced prostitution, exploitation of labour and debt
bondage of women and girls, physical and sexual abuse against prostitutes, sex
selective abortion, female infanticide, the deliberate neglect of girls and rape in
war. A variety of recently reported incidents are beginning to impact upon the
global victimological landscape.
Other research has recently uncovered how women do not always classify their
experiences as rape and cultural issues appear to militate against those women
from diverse social and ethnic groups publicly admitting their victimisation or
seeking out help.
In terms of intersectionality, the focus of radical feminism on a unitary woman’s
experience has been challenged by critical race feminists as essentialist. They have
contended that gender essentialism, namely the construction of all women’s
experiences of victimisation on the basis of white women’s experiences, obscures
minority ethnic women’s experiences. Crenshaw developed the concept of
intersectionality to facilitate the theoretical explanation of the diversity of women’s
victimization experiences. She argued that theorists should engage in an
intersectional analysis which focuses on the experiences of minority ethnic women
as minority ethnic women, and not as either women or racial minorities (Crenshaw,
1993, p. 385). An intersectional analysis recognises that ‘[i]ndividuals experience
the complex interplay of multiple systems of oppression operating simultaneously
in the world’ (Bond, 2003, p.76). The ability of an intersectional analysis to
document the nature of minority ethnic women’s victimisation may be illustrated
by reference to South Asian women’s experiences of domestic violence in the UK.
In terms of the accepted social hierarchy in South Asian communities, which
privileges men over women, and older people over younger people, women victims
may be doubly subordinated – to their husbands and male family members on
account of gender as well as to their mothers-in-law and other older female family
members on account of age (Chana, 2005, p. 38). In addition, their behaviour is
dictated by the notion of izzat (family honour), on the one hand, and its converse,
shame, on the other (Gill, 2004, p. 474). Although it is regarded as a familial value,
izzat is predominantly concerned with the honour of male family members
(Bhopal, 1997, pp. 64–5). A significant element of izzat is placing the family
above the self. Domestic violence victims are therefore constrained to place the
family above themselves by keeping the domestic violence private.
Telling outsiders damages izzat and brings shame on the family (Gill, 2004,
p.474). Women who break this silence risk serious punishment and, in extreme
cases, even death (Chana, 2005, p. 29). They also receive no support from the
senior female family members, such as their mothers-in-law, as women are ‘taught
that saving face and family unity are more important than individual safety’ (Gill,
2004, p. 477). Minority ethnic women thus face strong cultural barriers, based on
gender and age hierarchies, which prevent them from reporting their victimisation
to the authorities (Chana, 2005, p. 18). However, in addition to being constrained
from within their communities, South Asian women experience racial exclusion
from the white community (Bhopal, 1997, p.77), which is reflected in the attitudes
of criminal justice agencies. There is a tendency on the part of criminal justice
agencies to adopt a non-interventionist approach to domestic violence in minority
ethnic communities for fear of appearing to be culturally insensitive (Chana, 2005,
p. 24). Failures to intervene increase the social isolation of minority ethnic victims.
Furthermore, victims’ fear of police racism combines with cultural barriers to
reduce reporting levels. Gill has emphasised that an understanding of ‘the
historical impact of institutional racism’ is necessary on the part of criminal justice
agencies in order to enable them to appreciate why minority ethnic women are
reluctant to report domestic violence (Gill, 2004, p. 467). South Asian women’s
lived experiences thus comprise interconnected fragments of oppression on the
basis of gender, age, culture and race that constrain them to remain silent about
their experiences of domestic violence. An intersectional analysis is able to capture
the complexity of these experiences in a manner that is obscured by radical
feminist analyses.