Dr Wendy Hesketh

Theoretical Perspectives

Victimology 2017

Lecture 3 Theories of Victimisation

In today’s lecture, we will look at the following theories of victimisation:

Positivism

Lifestyle Theory

Routine Activity Theory

Radical Victimology

Suzy Lamplugh

On 28th July 1986, 25 year old estate agent,

Suzy Lamplugh went to meet a client, “Mr Kipper” to show him around a property in Fulham, West London. Suzy was never seen

again. Suzy’s body has never been found, but she has been presumed murdered and

was legally declared dead in 1993.

Everyday Victim Blaming

Is a not-for-profit organisation that

campaigns to have the responsibility to

be placed wholly on the perpetrators of

domestic and sexual violence and abuse.

Introduction

• Victimology can be linked to broader theoretical

traditions – e.g. positivist, radical, feminist, critical

• Theoretical traditions also found in criminology

• Victimhood can be understood in different ways

• Sociocultural processes and human action

influence notions of victimhood

• Each provides a different slant on how criminal and non-

criminal events impact the lives of individuals

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• Von Hentig (1948) changed the focus from perpetrators

to victims of crime

• His approach is referred to as:

- positivist victimology,

- conservative victimology (Karmen, 1990)

- conventional victimology (Walklate, 1989)

- penal victimology; and

- interactionist victimology (Van Dijk, 1997)

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Positivist Victimology

Defining features of Positive Victimology

• Discovery of factors that influence non-random pattern of

victimisation

• Examination of how victims contribute to their victimisation

• A focus on interpersonal crimes of violence (Miers, 1989)

• Von Hentig created a Victim typology of 13 categories:

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1. the young

2. Female

3. Old

4. Immigrants

5. Depressed

6. Mentally defective/depressed

7. The acquisitive

8. Dull normals

9. Minorities

10. Wanton

11. The lonesome and heartbroken

12. Tormentor

13. The blocked, exempted and fighting

• Early victimological work placed scrutiny on the

attributes, behaviour and characteristics of victims

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• Positivist tradition further developed by later scholars

including Wolfgang (1958)

• Amir (1971) – developed the notion of ‘victim

precipitation’

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• A heavy focus on what the victim did – criticised by

many, especially feminists

• Some argue research still needed on the role victims play in

their victimisation – seeking to account for this, rather than

blame (Fattah, 1989)

• Claim to want to account for why some are victimised more

than others – a fine line between blame and account –

especially within a discourse of citizens to avoid

victimisation

• Some claim important as victimisation and offending not

mutually exclusive:

• Two people in a fight, first attacked may kill attacker (Fatah,

1993)

• Victims and offenders not distinct (Sparks et al, 1977; Fagan et

al, 1987)

• Claim better to study dynamic approach, seeing it as an outcome

of interaction

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• Lifestyle approach (Hindelang et al, 1978) & routine

activities theory (Cohen & Felson, 1989)

• Does not focus on motives for offending, but

convergence in time and space of victim and offender

(Gottfredson, 1981)

• Lifestyle:

• The way individuals allocate their time to leisure and

vocational activities (Garofalo, 1986)

• Argued lifestyle impacts victimisation due to likelihood of

being in a particular place at a particular time (Gottfredson,

1981)

• Lasley & Rosenbaum (1981) found victims’ work schedules,

number of weekend evenings spent away from home, and

level of alcohol consumed correlated positively with repeat

victimisation

• Structural factors also form part – e.g. tax policies influencing

marriage rates; public transport influencing trips out of home

Lifestyle & Routine Activities

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• Routine Activities (Cohen & Felson, 1979)

• Similar to lifestyle approach; based on convergence of three

necessary elements in time and space

• 1. motivated offender, 2. suitable targets, and 3. the presence of

capable guardians against the violation Predominately tries to

explain direct contact predatory violations – needs direct contact

between offender and victim/object

• Routine activities are any recurrent or prevalent activity e.g. work,

leisure, social interaction

• Socio-economic processes since WWII have led to a dispersal of

activity outside of the household

• Increased exposure to crime – increased amount of crime

• Criticisms

changes (Farrell & Pease, 1993) 9

• Only a partial analysis of the role of human action and structural

constraints (Mawby & Walklate, 1994)

• Focuses only on those aspects readily captured by a victimisation

survey – omits things like racial and sexual violence

• Based on risk of victimisation in public – ignores victimisation in

private e.g. domestic abuse, sexual violence etc.

• Individuals are portrayed in a passive way – as living within structural

constraints rather than actively resisting them (Spalek, 2006)

• Implicitly blame victims – implies lifestyle/activity can be changed

(Walklate, 1992)

• Acknowledges structure but takes for granted rather than challenging

as e.g. racist or sexist (Walklate, 1992)

• Focusses on a narrow range of crimes – street crime/burglary –

ignores corporate crime etc.

• Positives

• Some argue for crime prevention, especially repeat victimisation –

putting homes in neighbourhood watch areas, encouraging individual

• Focuses on oppressive structural conditions that victimise large

amounts of people

• Argue that by focussing on things deemed criminal by the state (as

positivists have) ignores the damaging practices of those in positions

of power (Schwendinger & Schwendinger, 1975) not defined as

crime

• Question the social construction of victimhood – ask who is afforded

the label most easily, and who has the power to label (Mawby &

Walklate, 1994)

• Challenges notion of the law as impartial and just

• Marxist approach – capitalist practices create victims – some argue

workers are victims since they are exploited by those who own MOP

• Workplace injury and death as criminal victimisation (Freidrichs,

1983)

• Offenders as victims of system that privileges material wealth but

denies the opportunity to achieve it (Greenberg, 1981)

• Offending as responding to the capitalist system, but if caught, punished (Reiman, 1979) 10

Radical Victimology

• Includes infringement of human rights (Elias, 1986)

• Still focuses predominately on class to detriment of other areas 11

• Victimisation very broadly conceived – much wider than positivism

• Includes those brutalised by state oppression, war, corporate crime

etc. whose experiences are seen as needing to be documented and

brought to an end (Quinney, 1980)

• Criticised for a simplistic view of social structure – largely focusses on

class and the means of production

• Obscures more complex processes around race, gender, religion

• Potentially romanticise street crime ignoring impact on individual victim

• Left Realism -

• Most closely associated with the work of Jock Young, Roger

Matthews, John Lea, and Richard Kinsey in the UK

• Approaches crime with a focus on the offender, the state, informal

control and the victim

• Trying to convey lived experience in high crime areas (Matthews &

Young, 1992)

• Includes a focus on victimisation – responsible for local crime surveys

• Significant contribution in terms of understanding victimisation

• Largely highlighted forms of abuse not reported to police nor

detected at accurate levels in crime surveys – rape, domestic abuse,

sexual assault, child abuse (Hanmer & Saunders, 1984)

• Women’s lives and experiences framed by social structure of

patriarchy, underpinned by male violence and the use, or threat, of

violence

• Uncovering ‘hidden’ violence and challenged men’s power to define

abuse has been challenged

• Focus on women’s agency rather than only victimisation

• How women resist and manage their lives around violence

• Viewed as actively struggling against material conditions &

mitigating harms caused by physical and sexual danger

• Dobash & Dobash (1979) – how women strive to improve

violent relationships in early stages

• Stanko (1985) how danger is an integral part of the everyday

lives of women 16

Feminist Perspectives

• Many reject the term victim – implies passivity

• Some advocate the use of the word ‘survivor’ (Kelly,

1988; Lamb, 1999) as recognises that some die, but

many reconstruct their lives psychologically, physically

and emotionally

• Criticised for focussing on white women’s experiences

and neglecting black women and ethnic minorities

• Interconnection between ethnicity/race, class and gender

is likely to be more complex for some - intersectionality

• Experiences of those from minority groups – be that

ethnicity, religion or culture - is less well known about

• Heterogeneity of women only more recently recognised

• Whilst difference is important, it can lead to an avoidance

of any claims making at all (Walklate, 2001)

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• Arose in response to the perceived deficiencies of positivist, radical

and realist approaches

• All of which failed to incorporate an adequate understanding of

agency and structure

• Critical victimologists want to incorporate a critical analysis of both

agency and structure

• How individual action is constructed and reconstructed within

material conditions (Walklate, 1992)

• Critical victimology aims to document how people act within and

resist the structural conditions in which they live (Mawby & Walklate,

1994)

• Sets out a framework that problematises the state

• Charts connections between political, social and economic

processes and victimisation

• Criticised for not recognising interchangeability of victim and offender

status

• Problematic to document individuals as being oppressed even when

they don’t see themselves as oppressed?

Critical Victimology