what is the term for the extent to which a victim is responsible for his or her own victimization?

Chapter three

Theoretical Perspectives of Victimology

and Critical Research

A bstract: This affiliate will provide the information about the development of the concept of "victim" and the study of victimology. Victimology is a term first coined for a specialty within the field of criminology. In recent times, victimology has come to comprehend a wide array of professional disciplines working with victims. In its original class, victimology examined characteristics of victims and how they "contributed" to their victimization. The emergence of the criminal offense victims' rights move has influenced the field of victimology and the nature of the research. Current inquiry has been helpful in identifying risk factors related to victimization, without blaming victims.

50 earning Objectives: Upon completion of this chapter, students will sympathize the following concepts:

1. The definition of "victim".

2. Research that created the field of victimology.

3. Development of the field of victimology.

4. High-risk factors related to likelihood of victimization.

Overview of Victimology

The Concept of Victim

The concept of victim dates dorsum to ancient cultures and civilizations. Its original significant was rooted in the exercise of cede -- the taking of the life of a person or animal to satisfy a deity. (Karmen, 1990)

Over the centuries, the word victim came to have boosted meanings, so as to include any person who experiences injury, loss, or hardship due to any crusade.

Today, the word victim is used in many different contexts and is broadly interpreted. It is not unusual to hear the discussion "victim" paired with a wide range of man experiences: cancer victims, holocaust victims, blow victims, victims of injustice, hurricane victims, crime victims, and others. Each of these conjures upwards visual images of suffering, devastation and often individual heroism or endurance in the face up of powerful destructive forces. (Karmen, 1990)

One commonality has come to apply to virtually all usages of the term victim: That an private has suffered injury and harm past forces beyond his or her control, and not of his or her personal responsibility.

The frequent and diverse use of the term "victim" -- both in conversation and in impress -- has changed the way people think of victims today. The current connotations of the discussion extend well beyond the historical significant.

A review of the definitions of "victim," listed in the American Heritage Dictionary, illustrates the breadth of the accepted meaning of the term "victim":

one) Someone who is put to decease or subjected to torture or suffering past another.

2) A living beast slain and offered as cede to a deity or every bit part of a religious sacrifice.

3) Anyone who is harmed by or made to endure from an act, circumstance, circumstance agency or condition: victims of war.

4) A person who suffers injury, loss, or death as a result of a voluntary undertaking: a victim of his ain scheming.

5) A person who is tricked, swindled, or taken advantage of; a dupe.

Thus, a victim may be an innocent, led to slaughter, a dupe, or someone whose suffering is acquired by his or her own scheming or ineptitude. Information technology is no wonder that social club has go confused about how positively or negatively to regard some victims.

The term "law-breaking victim" has been used to include a person, groups or people, or entities who have suffered injury or loss due to illegal activity. The harm can exist concrete, psychological, or economic. By definition, this includes victims of fraud or fiscal schemes, businesses, or even the government. In tax or Medicaid fraud cases, the victim is the authorities, and the loss of revenue is ultimately felt by honest citizens who dutifully fulfill their responsibilities.

For the purposes of law-breaking victims' rights and services, the legal definition of "victim" typically includes the following:

• A person who has suffered straight, or threatened, physical, emotional or pecuniary harm as a result of the committee of a crime, including:

A. In the case of a victim who is under 18 years of age, incompetent, incapacitated, or deceased, 1 of the following (in guild of preference): a spouse; a legal guardian; a parent; a child; a sibling; another family member; or another person designated by the court; and

B. In the case of a victim that is an institutional entity, or an authorized representative of the entity.

The crime victims' move has focused near attention on the needs of victims of violent crime. In these cases, terminology has expanded beyond "primary crime victims" to include "secondary crime victims" who also experience the harm first hand, such as intimate partners or pregnant others of rape victims or children of a dilapidated woman.

Some people who have been harmed by crime feel that defining themselves as a "victim" has negative connotations, and choose instead to ascertain themselves as a "survivor." This is a very personal choice that can only be made by the person victimized, and not by whatever other individual. The term "survivor" too has multiple meanings in club, due east.g. survivor of a crime, "survivor benefits." Information technology remains to exist seen whether this terminology for victims of crime will endure.

Who is a Victim?

Media attention on several high profile cases in recent years has clouded the issue of "who is a victim?" For instance, cases in which a victim clashes with antagonists have resulted in the "victim" being tried in the courts, and accept complicated the delineation of victim and offender, i.e. the so-called "subway vigilante," a man who shot four teenagers with an unlicensed revolver on a subway train when he feared he would be robbed. Reportedly, he perceived himself to be a victim of a mugging, and used a weapon on perceived perpetrators, in gild to "defend himself." The "would-be victim" was tried for attempted murder, assault and reckless endangerment. To some, he is/was a victim continuing up for himself; to others, he is a trigger-happy gunman who reportedly overreacted to an inaccurately perceived threat. (Johnson, 1986; Sullivan, 1989; Karmen, 1990)

1 of the get-go books entirely devoted to victims of criminal offense was The Crime Victims Book (Bard, and Sangrey, 1979), which addressed the issue of "who is the victim?" Bard and Sangrey attempted to paint a moving picture of crime victims, stating that:

"Every victim of personal criminal offence is confronted with a brutal reality: the deliberate violation of one human being being by another. The law-breaking may be a murder or a rape, a robbery or a break-in, the theft of an automobile, a pocket picking, or a pocketbook snatching -- but the essential internal injury is the same. Victims have been assaulted -- emotionally and sometimes physically -- by a predator who has shaken the globe to its foundations."

Recent Developments

"Victim defenses" have recently emerged in cases of parricide and homicide of batterers by abused spouses, and accept besides served to blur the previously articulated distinctions between victims and offenders. Advocates for battered women were amid the starting time to recognize the issue, and promote the "dilapidated woman syndrome" defence force to defend women who killed or seriously injured a spouse or partner afterwards enduring years of concrete, emotional and/or sexual abuse. Attorneys defending children or young adults who are defendant of killing a parent accept also drawn upon theories of Mail service-traumatic Stress Disorder to explain the cause of the fatal incident. Such cases have been widely and vigorously debated by victim advocates and criminal justice professionals. Intense media attention to several of these "loftier profile" cases has influenced public stance and spread confusion over who is the actual "victim" and who is the "victimizer." The emergence of evidently overlapping labels (victim and victimizer) underscores the need for a scientific approach to the study of victimology.

The Study of Victimology

Andrew Karmen, who wrote a comprehensive text on victimology entitled Offense Victims: An Introduction to Victimology in 1990, broadly defined victimology:

"The scientific study of victimization, including the relationships between victims and offenders, the interactions between victims and the criminal justice system -- that is, the police and courts, and corrections officials -- and the connections betwixt victims and other societal groups and institutions, such equally the media, businesses, and social movements."

Since victimology originated from the study of crime, some would say that victimology is the study of criminal offense (non victimization) from the perspective of the victim. (Roberson, 1994)

History of Victimology

The scientific study of victimology can be traced back to the 1940s and 1950s. Until then, the principal focus of research and academic assay in the field of criminology was on criminal perpetrators and criminal acts, rather than on victims. Two criminologists, Mendelsohn and Von Hentig, began to report the other one-half of the offender/victim dyad: the victim. They are now considered the "fathers of the study of victimology." (Roberson, 1994)`

In their efforts to understand crime, these new "victimologists" began to report the behaviors and vulnerabilities of victims, such as the resistance of rape victims and characteristics of the types of people who were victims of crime, especially murder victims.

In the course of his legal practice, Mendelsohn interviewed his clients to obtain information about the law-breaking and the victim. He viewed the victim equally one gene among many in the criminal case. His analysis of information almost victims led him to theorize that victims had an "unconscious aptitude for beingness victimized." (Roberson, 1994)

Von Hentig studied crime and victims in the 1940s, and Steven Shaffer later published The Criminal and His Victim. Their analysis of murder focused on types of people who were most likely to be victims of homicide. The almost probable type of victim Von Hentig identified is the "depressive type" who was seen equally an easy target, careless and unsuspecting. The "greedy type" was seen as easily duped considering his or her motivation for like shooting fish in a barrel gain lowers his or her natural trend to be suspicious. The "wanton blazon" is particularly vulnerable to stresses that occur at a given menstruation of time in the life cycle, such as juvenile victims. Von Hentig's last blazon was the "tormentor," the victim of assail from the target of his corruption, such as the dilapidated woman. (Roberson, 1994)

Von Hentig's piece of work provided the foundation for analysis of victim-proneness that is still evident in the literature today. Wolfgang'south inquiry followed this lead and later theorized that "many victim-precipitated homicides were, in fact, caused by the unconscious desire of the victims to commit suicide." (Roberson,1994)

Viewed from the perspective of criminology, victimology initially devoted much of its energy to the study of the how victims contribute -- knowingly or unknowingly -- to their own victimization, and potential ways they may share responsibility with offenders for specific crimes.

Affiliate Two of the National Victim Assistance Academy curriculum, History of the Victims' Movement, discusses the emergence and growth of the offense victims' rights motility in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The crime victims' movement brought increased social and political attention to the poor handling of crime victims by the criminal justice system and challenged the handling of victims by the criminal justice organisation.

The negative effects of "victim blaming" have been a primal tenant of the fight to improve the handling of criminal offense victims. Research into means in which victims "contribute" to their ain victimization was (and continues to exist) viewed past victims and victim advocates as both unacceptable and destructive.

As crime victim services and rights have expanded throughout the concluding 2 decades, practitioners and public policy-makers have looked to inquiry to provide a more scientific foundation for service blueprint and delivery.

More recent avenues of studies in victimology take included:

• How diverse components of the criminal justice system treat victims;
• The touch on of victimization; and
• The effectiveness of certain interventions with criminal offence victims.

Extensive qualitative and quantitative enquiry about the nature and telescopic of crime victim services has been conducted and published. Studies most the effectiveness of interventions with crime victims have also been washed. In add-on, the debate well-nigh the scope and focus of victimology is evolving and is illustrated in the sharply contrasting topics of research that are institute in a variety of victimology journals.

Societal Influences

During the aforementioned catamenia, public opinion was influenced by the explosion of media attention on issues of crime and victimization. Paper headlines and television news broadcasts inundated citizens with endless reports of violent criminal offence and its victims. (Karmen, 1990)

While "victim blaming" has been a persistent defense used by many to combat the growing fright of law-breaking, sensitive portrayals in the media of the stories of individual crime victims have fabricated the feel more than real. In addition, the law-breaking rate has reached such loftier levels that few take been untouched by criminal offense. The seemingly random nature of more than and more serious criminal offense, and an increased sense of vulnerability accept the bulk of Americans fearful of crime.

In addition, America's "police force-and-gild" motility has continued to overlap with the movement to enhance the legal standing and improve treatment of crime victims. Criminal justice reformers seeking greater accountability for offenders through tougher sentencing found allies in outspoken trigger-happy offense victims and politicians who recognized the public's concern about criminal offence and its touch on. The combination has brought greater political support for offense victims' rights legislation and increased funding for criminal offence victim services. (Karmen, 1990)

An example of the careful blending of these ii movements tin be seen in the many laws passed at the land and national level that take authorized the use of criminal fines, penalties, and bond forfeitures to finance the creation or expansion of direct services for crime victims.

Who are America'due south Violent Crime Victims?

Recent data on lifetime likelihood of crime victimization reinforce the notion that nobody living in America is completely free from the risk of becoming a crime victim. While criminal offense victim-related research of 40 and 50 years ago examined the characteristics of victims, much of it approached the issue from the perspective of "shared responsibleness," that is how criminal offense victims were, in part, "responsible" for their victimization. In recent decades, the paradigm has shifted. The report of the characteristics of criminal offense victims has tended to focus on identifying risk factors in gild to ameliorate empathise the phenomena, without attributing blame to the victims. Information about the gamble for victimization has been used to develop crime prevention and enforcement strategies.

Enquiry indicates that in that location is a host of individual, situational, and community-level factors that increment risk of criminal victimization (see Sampson & Lauritsen, 1994, for a comprehensive review).

Annotation: The following material is extracted from a volume chapter by Hanson, Kilpatrick, Falsetto & Resnick (in press).

Demographic Characteristics

The risk of condign a law-breaking victim varies equally a function of demographic variables such every bit:

• Gender
• Age
• Race
• Socioeconomic grade

(Bachman, 1994; Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1992; FBI Uniform Law-breaking Reports, 1992; Hanson, Freedy, Kilpatrick, and Saunders, 1993; Kilpatrick, Seymour & Boyle, 1991; Breslau, Davis, Andreski, and Peterson, 1991; Kilpatrick , Resnick, Saunders, and Best, in press; Norris, 1992; Adler et al., 1994; Reiss & Roth, 1993; Rosenberg & Mercy, 1991).

Gender

With the exception of sexual set on and domestic violence, men have higher risk of assail than women (Gelles & Straus, 1988; Hanson et al., 1993; Norris, 1992).

Lifetime take chances of homicide is three to four times higher for men than women (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1992).

Age

Adolescents accept essentially higher rates of set on than young adults or older Americans (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1992; Hanson et al., 1993; Kilpatrick, Edmunds & Seymour, 1992; Kilpatrick et al., in printing; Reiss & Roth, 1993; Whitaker & Bastian, 1991).

Data from the National Crime Victimization Survey indicate that 12-to-19 twelvemonth olds are two to three times as likely every bit those over 20 to become victims of personal offense each year (Whitaker & Bastian, 1991).

Information from The National Women's Study indicate that 62% of all forcible rape cases occurred when the victim was under eighteen years of historic period (Kilpatrick et al., 1992).

Race

Racial and ethnic minorities accept higher rates of attack than other Americans (FBI Compatible Crime Report, 1992; Hanson et al., 1993; Kilpatrick et al., 1991; Reiss & Roth, 1993).

In 1990, African-Americans were six times more likely than white Americans to exist homicide victims (FBI Uniform Crime Written report, 1992). Rates of violent attack are approximately twice as high for African- and Hispanic-Americans compared to White Americans (Reiss & Roth, 1993).

Kilpatrick et al. (1991) plant that African-Americans (28%) and Hispanic-Americans (thirty%) were significantly more than likely than White Americans (19%) to have ever been violent victims of criminal offence.

Socioeconomic Class

Violence disproportionately affects those from lower socioeconomic classes (U. S. Agency of the Census, 1991). Family income is related to rates of violence and victimization, with lower income families at a higher hazard than those from higher income brackets (Reiss & Roth, 1993).

• For example, in 1988, the risk of victimization was 2.5 times greater for families with the lowest incomes (under $seven,500) compared to those with the highest ($fifty,000 and over) (Reiss & Roth, 1993).

Using longitudinal data from The National Women's Written report, Kilpatrick et al., (in printing) constitute that women with household incomes less than $10,000 had odds i.8 times greater than those with incomes of $10,000 or more than of becoming a rape or aggravated attack victim in the two yr follow-up period. Poverty increased the adventure of assault even after controlling for the effects of prior victimization and sensation seeking.

Withal, some other studies report that family income is a less of import predictor of victimization than gender, age, or ethnicity (Reiss & Roth, 1993).

Interpreting Demographic Characteristic Data

Some of the alien findings about demographic characteristics as gamble factors for violent crime are owing to methodological variations across studies. Another reason for conflicting findings is that many demographic variables are confounded. That is, they are and so interrelated as to crusade some difficulty in separating out their relative contributions.

Demographic variables of age, gender, and racial status all tend to exist confounded with income: young people tend to be poorer than older people; women tend to have less income than men; and African-Americans tend to have less income than white Americans.

Repeat Victimization and the Cycle of Violence

Until recently, there was picayune appreciation of the extent to which many people are victims of crime non just once, merely several times during their lifetime. There was sufficient understanding of how repeated victimization increases the adventure for and complication of crime-related psychological trauma. Nor did nosotros empathize the extent to which victimization increases the adventure of further victimization and/or of trigger-happy behavior by the victim.

Several studies evidence that a substantial proportion of law-breaking victims has been victimized more once and that a history of victimization increases the run a risk of subsequent tearing assault (eastward.g. Kilpatrick et al., in press; Koss & Dinero, 1989; Resnick, Kilpatrick, Dansky, Saunders & Best, 1993; Kilpatrick et al., 1992; Reiss & Roth, 1993; Wyatt, Guthrie & Notgrass, 1992; Zawitz, 1983).

Other research suggests that the take chances of developing PTSD and substance use/abuse issues is higher amongst echo victims of fierce assail than amid those who take experienced only i tearing assault (e.g., Kilpatrick et al., in press; Breslau et al., in press; Kilpatrick, Resnick, Saunders, All-time & Epstein, 1994).

Still other prove suggests that youth victimization history increases risk of involvement with runaway peers and of subsequent delinquent behavior (Ageton, 1983; Dembo et al., 1992; Straus, 1984; Widom, 1989, 1992).

Some research shows that involvement with delinquent or deviant peers increases the risk of victimization (eastward.g., Ageton, 1983), and that substance utilise also increases risk of victimization (e.thou., Kilpatrick et al., 1994; Cottler, Compton, Mager, Spitznagel, and Janca, 1992).

Another line of research has found that a history of child abuse and neglect increases risk of runaway behavior during childhood and adolescence and of beingness arrested for violent assault equally an developed (east.g., Widom, 1989, 1994).

This new knowledge almost repeat victimization and the cycle of violence has several implications for appropriate mental wellness counseling for crime victims:

• Mental health professionals should include crime prevention and substance abuse prevention in their work with victims to decrease the risk that new victimization or substance corruption problems will occur (due east.yard., Kilpatrick et al., in press; Kilpatrick et al., 1994).

• Mental health professionals should not assume that the crime they are treating is the merely ane the victim has experienced. This requires taking a careful crime victimization history.

• Providing effective mental wellness counseling to victims may well exist an effective style to reduce the risk of future victimization, substance use/abuse, delinquency and violent behavior.
  

Residential Location

Where an individual lives influences i's adventure of becoming a violent criminal offence victim. Reiss and Roth (1993) report that violent crime rates increased as a part of community size. For example, the violent crime charge per unit was 359 per 100,000 residents in cities of less than 10,000; but ii,243 per 100,000 in cities with populations over a million translates to rates seven times greater. (Reiss & Roth, 1993; p. 79). Information including non-reported crimes from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) also bespeak that fierce crime rates are highest in cardinal cities, somewhat lower in suburban areas, and everyman in rural areas (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1992). The UCR and the NCVS are meliorate at measuring street crime than at measuring trigger-happy crimes perpetrated by acquaintances or partners. Thus, the assumption that the increased risk of violent assault associated with residential location virtually likely results from stranger attacks, not necessarily from attacks by family members or other intimates, is a function of the limits of the measurement device.

Exposure to Potential Assailants

No trigger-happy assault can occur unless an assailant has access to a potential victim. Someone could have every previously discussed risk factor for violent assault and be completely safe from assault unless approached by an assailant.

A prominent theory attempting to predict risk of criminal victimization is the routine activities theory. As described past Laub (1990), the run a risk of victimization is related to a person's lifestyle, behavior, and routine activities. In plow, lifestyles and routine activities are by and large related to demographic characteristics (e.thou., age and marital status) and other personal characteristics.

If a person'south lifestyle or routine activities places him or her in frequent contact with potential assailants, then they are more likely to be assaulted than if their routine activities and lifestyle do non bring them into equally frequent contact with predatory individuals.

For example, young men have higher rates of assaultive behavior than any other age-gender grouping (Reiss & Roth, 1993; Rosenberg & Mercy, 1991). Thus, those whose routine activities or lifestyles involve considerable contact with immature men should have higher rates of victimization. Likewise, people who are married, who never go out their houses after dark, and who never take public transportation should have limited contact with immature men, and therefore accept reduced risk of assault.

Although some have argued that routine activities theory has substantial back up in the empirical literature (Laub, 1990; Gottfredson, 1981), well-nigh of the crime victimization data that are used to evaluate assault risk measure stranger assaults much meliorate than partner or acquaintance assaults. Thus, the theory is probably much more relevant to stranger assaults than to other assaults.

Why Should the Criminal Justice Organization Concern Itself With Crime Victims' Crime-related Psychological Trauma?

Crime-related psychological trauma impairs the ability and/or willingness of many offense victims to cooperate with the criminal justice organization.

The President's Job Force argued that victims must be treated amend by the criminal justice system because it cannot attain its mission without the cooperation of victims. At every fundamental phase of the criminal justice system process--from contemplating making a report to constabulary, to attention a parole hearing--interactions tin be stressful for victims and often exacerbates crime-related psychological trauma.

Victims whose crime-related fear makes them reluctant to report crimes to police or who are likewise terrified to testify, effectively brand it impossible for the criminal justice system to accomplish its mission. Thus, it is important to empathize:

• Victims' criminal offense-related mental health issues.

• What aspects of the criminal justice system procedure are stressful to victims.

• What tin can be done to help victims with their offense-related mental health problems.

• What can be done to help victims cope with criminal justice system-related stress.
  

Effective partnerships among the criminal justice organization, victim assistance personnel, and trained mental health professionals can help victims with crime-related psychological trauma and with criminal justice system-related stress. By helping victims through such partnerships, the criminal justice organization also helps itself become more constructive in curbing and reducing crime.

As Kilpatrick and Otto (1987) noted, at that place are several psychological theories that are useful in agreement why victims might develop psychological trauma, and why interactions with the criminal justice system are normally stressful for victim.

Why is the Criminal Justice System Stressful for Victims?

This section describes ane theory that has particular relevance for agreement why the criminal justice organization is then stressful for many victims.

Classical Conditioning Theory

The Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov, first described a basic blazon of learning called classical conditioning (Pavlov, 1906). Briefly described, classical conditioning occurs when a neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that produces a particular response. For example, if nutrient is placed in a dog'due south mouth, a salivation response naturally occurs. If the neutral stimulus of a bell ringing is presented to the dog at approximately the same time that the food stimulus is presented, the bong stimulus (conditioned stimulus) will acquire the capacity to produce a conditioned response of salivation similar to the unconditioned response of salivation produced by the unconditioned stimulus of food. What does this have to do with crime-related mental health problems or the criminal justice system?

• Kilpatrick, Veronen, & Resick (1982) noted that a fierce criminal victimization is a existent life classical workout feel in which existence attacked is an unconditioned stimulus that produces unconditioned responses of fear, anxiety, terror, helplessness, pain, and other negative emotions.

• Whatsoever stimuli that are present during the assault are paired with the attack and get conditioned stimuli capable of producing conditioned responses of fear, anxiety, terror, helplessness, and other negative emotions.
  

Classical workout theory predicts that any stimuli present at the time of a violent law-breaking are potential conditioned stimuli that will produce conditioned fear, anxiety and other negative emotions when the victim encounters them.

• Thus, characteristics of the assaulter (e.m., age, race, attire, distinctive features), or characteristics of the setting (eastward.g., fourth dimension of day, where the attack occurred, features of the setting) might become conditioned stimuli.

Classical conditioning theory likewise suggests that negative emotional responses conditioned to a detail stimulus can generalize to similar stimuli.

• Thus, a woman who exhibits a conditioned fear response to the sight of her rapist might too experience fear to the stimulus of men who resemble the rapist through the process of stimulus generalization.

• Eventually, this stimulus generalization process may outcome in the rape victim showing conditioned fear to all men.
  

Avoidance Behavior

The most mutual response to offense-related conditioned stimuli is abstention beliefs. Thus, at that place is a natural tendency for criminal offense victims to avoid contact with crime-related conditioned stimuli and to escape from situations which bring them in contact with such stimuli.

Second-lodge Conditioning

A final classical conditioning mechanism with important implications for understanding the behavior of crime victims is second-lodge conditioning. If a neutral stimulus is paired with a conditioned stimulus (without presenting the unconditioned stimulus), this neutral stimulus becomes a 2nd society conditioned stimulus that tin can likewise produce a conditioned response.

• Thus, whatever stimuli nowadays at the aforementioned time a criminal offence-related conditioned stimulus is present can become a second-club conditioned stimulus that too evokes fear, other negative emotions, and a strong trend to engage in abstention behavior.

• This is important for practitioners as police, prosecutors, and victim service providers may become associated as a 2nd-order conditioned stimulus.
  

Classical Conditioning and Victims' Reactions to the Criminal Justice System

Application of these classical conditioning principles to victims' interactions with the criminal justice organisation helps us understand why the criminal justice system is so stressful for many victims.

Start, involvement with the criminal justice organisation requires crime victims to encounter many cerebral and environmental stimuli that remind them of the crime. These range from:

• Having to look at the accused in the courtroom.

• Having to remember about details of the crime when preparing to testify.

• Confronting a member of "second-order conditioned stimuli" in the course of police, victim/witness advocates, and prosecutors.

2nd, encountering all these crime-related conditioned stimuli frequently results in abstention behavior on the part of the victims.

• Such abstention behavior is generated by conditioned fear and anxiety, not past apathy. Avoidance can lead victims to cancel or not show up for appointments with criminal justice organization officers, or victim advocates.
  

Other Sources of Stress

Aside from conditioning, there are several other reasons that interacting with the criminal justice system can be stressful for victims.

• One reason interactions are stressful is considering victims lack data about that arrangement and its procedures, and victims fearfulness the unknown.

• A second reason interactions are stressful is that victims are concerned virtually whether they will exist believed and taken seriously by the criminal justice system.

Most victims view the criminal justice organization as representative of gild every bit a whole, and whether they are believed and taken seriously by the system indicates to them whether they are believed and taken seriously by society.

Cocky Test Affiliate three

Theoretical Perspectives of Victimology

and Disquisitional Enquiry

1) When did the study of victims of crime originate and what was its focus?

2) Describe the origins of the term "victim" and the evolution of its definition and connotations?

3) How has the crime victims' rights motion influenced the field of victimology?

4) Briefly explain "classical conditioning" and how it might bear on victims' reactions to the criminal justice organisation and victim service providers.

5) Identify three high risk factors associated with likelihood of law-breaking victimization?

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Ageton, Due south.Southward. (1983). Sexual assault among adolescents. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

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