When studying crime and deviance, in particular the causes of crime, it is often useful to look at the reasons behind why people commit crimes in the first place. For interactionists, crime and deviance is a product of labelling. They believe that when a crime is committed, it is because a public application of a negative description of a powerless individual has occurred and that is the reason why a crime has been committed by that individual. Labelling is deterministic of your future life. Interactionists reject official statistics on crime, seeing them as little more than a social construction. They maintain that they vastly underestimate the extent of crime and do not present an accurate picture of crime in society.…
There are many forms and definitions of the concept victim found throughout the criminal justice system, and it important to both understand the notion for which it is applied along with the proper analysis for how it is used. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, defines crime victims as people who had a criminal offense committed against them (Schmalleger, Hall, & Dolatowski, 2010). The Federal Bureau of Prison (BOP) classifies a victim as someone who has experienced direct or threatened physical, emotional, or financial harm as the result of a crime (Schmalleger,…
When an individual becomes a victim of crime, it may lead to serious triggers and consequences after the fact. In fact, after victimization most victims may feel lost and have a difficult time when it comes to treatment and recovering from their victimization experience. In some cases, individuals do not report their incidents to the police, let alone, seek help and treatment. The main reason this may happen is because they are not quite sure where to search for guidance or the appropriate alternative methods that are essential to take after becoming a victim of crime. This becomes more problematic and challenging for the victim because they are…
Pozzulo, J. D., Dempsey, J., Maeder, E., & Allen, L. (2010). The effects of victim gender,…
In this chapter, the author talks about approaches that allow the victim and offender to meet. One of the approaches is the Victim-offender mediation programs (VOMs). In this type of program, the offender and victim are given the opportunity to work out their issues in a conducive environment. The goal of this program is to empower participants, promote discussion, and encourage compromise. In addition to that, there are three basic objectives that come with these meetings: identifying the injustice, making things right, and considering future intentions.…
The work with victims enabled the participants to witness the trauma and devastating impacts of the abhorrent crimes, which helped to provide a deeper understanding into the victims’ experiences, as Participant 1 stated, “The work with victims is really helpful, because you can see, if they are bewildered,…
A victim “is an individual who suffer injuries, losses, or hardships for any reason”, (Karmen, 2013). Persons may become victims of “accidents, natural disasters, diseases, or social problems such as warfare, discrimination, political witch hunts, and other injustices”, (Karmen, 2013). Being a victim of a crime can be very traumatic at times. People often tend to forget the damage it may cause to family, friends, and significant others. Indirect, also known as secondary victims, “are not immediately involved or physically injured in confrontations, but they might be burdened or devastated from the incident that may occur”, (Christiansen, 2012).…
Next, Trauma Recovery and Empowerment Model also known as TREM is an intervention that is also being implemented in substance abuse programs. TREM is intended to help women who have been exposed to severe traumatic throughout their lifespan. This intervention provides a thorough bio-psychosocial structure that addresses female clients’ specific needs (Grant, 2011, p. 4). Equivalent to previous sentence, BWOM accepts six to eight women, due to the fact that women clients require specific needs that are a greater different from male clients particular needs. Namely, women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence, human trafficking, and others traumatic episodes where men were primary the perpetrator. In addition, majority of the women…
Victimiology is the scientific study of the victim’s plight, the criminal justice systems responses, and the publics reactions; a branch of criminology…
Whenever a crime is committed, someone is labeled the victim and someone else the offender. The offender often destroys or hurts something of value through violence and aggressive actions. The victim on the other hand was the helpless, weak, person taken advantage of because the offender could not be stopped. It seems pretty clear. In the book, Courting Disaster, Jennifer Dunn talks about the crime of intimate stalking and how very often the victim role is not an easy one to fit into. The line is not no so clear anymore, and the victim identity is harder to classify.…
Crime Victims have been able to help much more with the identification of the suspects, as well as helping police to not falsely identify criminals. Before the days of protective custody, many crime victims use to be afraid or too uncomfortable to testify due to feeling unsafe of the accused. Services such even the Witness Protective Program have emerged where they go through the trouble of changing your name and identification. All these things have influenced the decisions of crime victims for the positive and have made them feel safer. With a greater influence with the crime victims gains cooperation, without that it makes a case hard against a criminal. The role of crime victims today is very different than in our earlier history. The crime victim once have a more prominent part in directing the progress of the criminal justice. Whereas today, participation in the contemporary criminal process puts numerous burdens on the crime victim. Many of them not only feel victimized by the crime but by the process as well. That tends to make them increasingly fail to help law enforcement. Crime victims not only help in the courtroom but also have proved worth in law enforcement investigations, with trailing suspects, identifying suspects, and even locating…
Over the past few decades the population of the United States as well as the World in general has increased. After that increase in the general population the numbers of the vulnerable population sky rocketed as well. This leads to the passages below. This will focus on the vulnerable population known as victims of violence.…
At the heart of the criminal justice system sits local, state, and federal level correctional facilities. While most restorative research focuses on its application outside of these facilities, the following provides insight on restorative practices that are being utilized more frequently within these facilities. A detailed description of victim-offender mediation, community panels, restorative group conferencing, and peacemaking circles is provided in order to gain further understanding of the most restorative justice practices, and their reputation throughout prisons.…
Victim blaming. This refers to a situation where a crime occurs and the media and/or society portray invalid evidence to blame to the victim of a wrongful act and to say they have “inflicted harm on themselves”. According to Amel Ahmed, a writer for Aljazeera America, young Michael Brown was shot by police for stealing a box of cigars from a supermarket. Many people were shocked and horrified by police misuse of their weapon in this situation. Unfortunately, a few individuals used phrases such as “he deserved it” for defending the police officers behavior. This is an example of Victim blaming in today’s society. Michael Brown’s death is unjustified and an individual attempted to accuse Michael of false evidence such as, saying he was looking at the camera in the store and was making gestures similar to gang signs. Victim- blamers often use small or irrelevant evidence such as this to manipulate the situation into justifying what the criminals (Police) have…
Nicksa also used the sociocultural perspective and cognitive perspective approach. An example of the sociocultural approach in Nicksa’s (2014) article would be the type of crime that was witnessed. What type of crime would most likely prompt a bystander into a helping behavior? The results of the study, as previously mentioned, determined that if the crime was physical assault (punching someone in the face) it was more likely to yield a response. On the other hand, if it was sexual assault the chances of the helping behavior become slim. The topic of sexual assault in our sociocultural perspective also leads into our cognitive perspective, as mentioned above, sexual assault is seldom reported because of knowledge of how law enforcement handles such cases.…