Journal International de Victimologie

JIDV 2 (Tome 1, numéro 2 - Janvier 2003)  

Auteurs

riminal victimization comes in various forms.  In most of us, the form that arouses the greatest fear is a violent, interpersonal attack by a stranger or someone we barely know.  Such a predatory, face-to-face encounter is the least common category of victimization—making up about 10-12% of all such events—but is the one we hear about most about through the mass media.  It is also costly, not only by the fear it evokes, but also in the emotional and financial toll it takes on its victims.  In short, when we hear the word “victimization,” interpersonal predatory victimization is what we generally think about and precisely what we want to avoid.     

 Predatory victimization, like all criminal victimization, has at least three measurable components.  As above, the two with which we are most familiar is a motivated offender who may seek, but at minimum somehow comes into physical contact with, at least one suitable target or victim.  Often, however, it has a “fascinating third party, one that is not even there” (Felson 1998 at 53), who needn’t even be human, who makes victimization possible—or at least makes the offender’s job easier.  This third party is a capable, but absent, guardian: a policeman in the next block, a never installed motion-detecting light, or my best friend’s childhood dog.  

“Motivated Offender” 

If we pause to think, “What makes up criminal victimization?” we may tend to focus—some might say dwell—on the criminal offender.  The stereotypes that surround this person may or may not parallel the characteristics of all violent predators, but neither are they entirely atypical.  Generally he embarked on his criminal “career” or life trajectory (path) into crime at an early age (see, e.g., Blumstein and Cohen 1987; Laub and Lauritsen 1993; Sampson and Laub 1993, 1988).  More often than not, his life began in an emotionally charged unstable environment.  There he experienced repeated severe physical abuse, emotional trauma, and showed signs of “hypermasculinity” engendered by the absence of a father (see, e.g., Amato and Gilbreth, 1999; Henrich, 1999; Ishii-Kuntz, 1994; Koski, 1996; McLanahan and Garfinkel, 1989; McLanahan and Sandefur, 1994; Munroe and Munroe, 1992; Werner 1979).  

Already physically, emotionally and nutritionally neglected, as a preteen he began to drink alcohol and to obtain and use illegal narcotic substances, perhaps partly attributable to his abuse and/or in an attempt to “self-medicate” (Norden, 2001).  This reckless consumption may have occurred together with—or at least with the acquiescence of—a surrogate father or other non-biologically related male that served as his role model. 

In addition to persistent addictions, he may have suffered other psychophysiological maladies to include prolonged enuresis (bedwetting), and has a history of truancy, fire setting and animal cruelty.  He and his mates were mutually aggressive, and if he developed any “romantic” interest this relationship too was peppered with violence because by then he was no longer a victim, but that to which Dilulio (1995) has referred as a “superpredator” to whom violence is a normal part of any close relationship (Dilulio 1995; compare Simons et al. 1998, 1995; Wells and Rankin 1991; Wilson 1995). 

In short, his life has followed a predictable cycle of childhood abuse, early onset drug abuse, possibly self mutilation / tattooing, a history of suicide attempts and trauma “so severe that he is unable to think [his] way out of it and break the cycle” (Norden, 2001; see generally Blau and Blau, 1982; Blumstein and Cohen, 1987; Christie, 1994; Farrington, 1995; Glueck and Glueck, 1950; Koski, 1998, 1996; McLanahan and Garfinkel, 1989; McLanahan and Sandefur, 1994; Sampson and Laub, 1993, 1988; Wells and Rankin, 1985; Wolfgang et al., 1987, 1972; Wolfgang ,1958; Wright and Wright, 1994).

The criminal act for which he is first imprisoned is not his first criminal act.  Despite his history he will not claim justification or excuse through “mental disease or defect” (the “insanity defense” in many jurisdictions) for at least two reasons.  First, he may risk spending more time institutionalized than if he enters a guilty plea, even to the maximum sentence authorized under law for his crime.  Second, he is diagnosable only as a substance abuser and “personality disordered,” and these are rarely constitute a “mental disease or defect” sufficient to excuse crime.^[1]      

When he was aged ten many of us would have felt regret for his circumstances, but today he is big enough, and brutal enough, and frankly scary enough for most of us not to care.  If we do care, rehabilitation is usually ineffective—he is “damaged goods” beyond repair in most people’s view, even his.  Prison will neither deter nor reform him because prison feels comfortable to him.  In all but the most extraordinary circumstances, he is ultimately released.  

Like most other convicts he “lacks imagination when it comes to relocation” (Koski, 1998) so he will find himself back on the same streets, among the same people taking the same drugs, making the same mistakes and troubling the same police as before; and like most other convicts he will recidivate (re-offend) at a rate from 60 to well over 90 percent (Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, 1989, 1987; Koski, 1996 and sources cited therein).  While he spends his free time—and to him, all time is free time—committing crimes, he lacks the skills and mental acuity necessary to plan and become successful at it.  He defines himself—as do the social workers, substance abuse counselors and prison officials that surround him—not simply as a loser, but as a double loser that failed even at crime (US News & World Report, 1975). 

 Not only is this person the least amenable to change, he is also the component that has the least bearing on the outcome of a criminal—more properly a victimization—event.  He is necessary, but not sufficient for criminal victimization to happen.  Because he has less real control over the merger of the three components in time and social space, our perceptions of his importance—and the amount of energy and resources directed his way, may, depending on one’s point of view, be misplaced.  Moreover as noted, such efforts are at best reactive, not proactive.  

Since his life experiences may include events like single- or multiple- offender forcible rape victimizations, which in turn may foretell profound lifelong debilitating effects both for himself and for his victim(s) (see, e.g., Atkeson et al., 1982; Berger, 1981; Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1997; Burgess and Holmstrom, 1978; Ellis, 1983; Ellis et al., 1981; Golding, 1996; Goodman et al., 1993; Katz, 1991; Koski, 2002; Maguire, 1991; Ruch and Chandler, 1983; Ruch and Hennessy, 1982; Ruch and Leon, 1983; Ruch et al., 1980; Sales and Shore, 1984), we find it productive to suggest a way by which to help remove one or both of the remaining components from the picture.     

“Suitable Target”

In addition to an offender, predatory victimizations—robbery, rape, nonsexual assault and homicide among them—also require a suitable target, that is, a victim.  At a minimum, then, direct-contact predatory victimizations include at least one motivated offender who comes into direct physical contact with at least one victim.  These two elements are necessary to interpersonal victimization, and also sufficient.   

The answer to the question, “Who specifically is likely to become a victim of a crime?” may be a surprising one.  In research conducted between 1948 and 1952, Marvin Wolfgang (1958) concluded that most crimes of interpersonal violence are intra-racial; committed by people close in age and of the same gender (usually male); and more often than not, between parties known to one another—reinforcing later findings that most crime, especially violent interpersonal crime, is perpetrated by people who are not strangers to their victims.  So despite that we have narrowed the focus to stranger attacks, the larger and more accurate scene is closer to Weis and Milakovich’s (1974) assertion that one has more to fear from “whoever may be waiting for them at home than anyone they are likely to meet in the streets, however dark and ill-lit they may be.”  

 Several decades after Wolfgang published his findings, researchers Lauritsen and Davis-Quinet (1995) extended his and other analyses, which involved the distribution of offending—very few offenders account for the vast majority of crime—to an analysis of the distribution of victimization.  The old joke that “Every 20 seconds someone is burglarized in this country, and she is getting sick of it,” turns out not so funny: some victims account for a disproportionate number of victimization incidents, and previous victimization tends to predict future, or repeat victimization.  [The “joke,” see Farrell and Pease (1993), is designed to represent a state of “incidence concentration” in which a single victim gets all the crime; see also, e.g., Farrell (1995).] 

 Lauritsen and Davis-Quinet introduced two concepts they believed help to explain this.  “State dependence” refers to the hypothesis that prior victimization increases future risk because the initial victimization experience alters something about the individual.  “Heterogeneity” refers to the hypothesis that prior victimization predicts future risk not because the earlier victimization incident has changed the individual, but because the individual possesses some unidentified knack, or propensity for victimization.

 As it turns out, not all victims are alike, that is, some people tend to become victims of some types of crime but not others.  Although different crimes are associated with different risks, here is a look at those who are generally at high victimization risk:

* young people

* males

* single people

* people who live alone

* people who work or go to school—as opposed, for example, to retired people

* people who drink lots of alcohol

* people who go out a lot at night

* past (repeat) victims, as above

* people who themselves commit crimes(Felson 1998 at 72)

One may notice that:

(1) These same things are associated with people that offend, which helps to explain the last factor, that sometimes people who are victimized are similar to (or even the same) people who offend.  This is a concept denominated the “victim-offender link”: see, e.g., Hewitt 1988; Koski, 2003; Pokorny 1965; Riedel and Zahn 1985; and

(2) Under many of these circumstances when a person becomes a victim, they are often seen as something less than an “ideal” victim by the police, prosecutors, judges, the public, the media, juries and sometimes even themselves (Bell et al., 1994; Black, 1971; Block and Block, 1992, 1980; Bondurant and Donat, 1999; Borgida, 1981; Borgida and Brekke, 1985; Borgida and White, 1978; Brandl, 1993; Branscombe et al., 1996; Brekke and Borgida, 1988; Bryden, 2000; Christie, 1986; Dietz and Byrnes, 1981; Estrich, 1995, 1987; Fischer, 1997, 1991; Kahneman and Miller, 1986; Kalven and Zeisel, 1971, 1966; Koski, 2003, 2002, 2000a, 2000b,1999; LaFree 1989, 1985, 1981; Lerner 1970, 1965; Lerner and Matthews, 1967; Lerner and Simmons, 1966; McShane and Williams, 1992; Matoesian, 1993; Mitchell et al., 1999; Myers and LaFree, 1982; Note, 1968; Rubin and Peplau, 1975, 1973; Ryan, 1971; Shaver, 1985, 1970; Smith et al., 1976; Stanko, 1981; Sudnow, 1965; Suffet, 1966; Taslitz, 1999; Testa and Livingston, 2000; Testa and Collins, 1997; Ullman et al., 1999; Ullman and Siegel, 1993; Vera Institute of Justice, 1977; Walsh, 1986). 

This “blaming the victim,” as it was termed by William Ryan (1971) in his classic book of the same name, seems to hold across groups as diverse as worshippers in synagogue killed by random explosion; stranger and acquaintance rape victims male and female; poor people; minority group members, including black people, Spanish-speaking people, and aboriginal people; differently-abled people; and survivors of tragedies, as in “survivor’s sickness.”^[2]    

As noted, our preventative perspective suggests that a decrease in victimization can be effected by changes in the everyday routines of potential victims, based on the expectation that victims will become so when there is a suitable target (above) unprotected by any capable guardian (below).  It neither explains why people blame victims for their misfortunes nor does it assume that potential victims have an obligation to avoid any particular behavior.  Paraphrasing Felson’s (1998 at 179) explanation of its advantages, they include: 

(1) efficiently reducing crime at low cost;

(2) avoiding political controversies by giving all people—after all, everyone is a potential victim—an equal right and chance to participate;   

(3) assisting the victims that need it most, for example, repeat and potential repeat victims; and

(4) helping everyone think more clearly about crime by accurately assessing its attributes.

“Capable (But Absent) Guardian” 

The preventative approach outlined here assumes that the motivation to commit crimes and the number of people available to commit them remains relatively constant.  The celebrated observation by sociologist Emile Durkheim over two centuries ago—that in every human society there are always those willing to commit crimes, and for a variety of reasons only some yet specified—is no less true today.  This is the motivated offender.     

Next, victimization rates may decline apart from any changes in, or even speculation about structural or cultural conditions.  For example, poverty is persistently called a driving force behind crime, but sociologists disagree about whether poverty itself produces crime, or whether the fact that only some people are poor elevates crime.  Fortunately, we need not today resolve that discussion.  This is because criminal victimization can be reduced even without changes in any macro-level conditions that may (or may not) motivate the offender. 

Elaborating on an observation made by Schwendinger and Schwendinger (1986 at 262) Koski (1998) states:

In everyday city life [crime] appears to emerge almost spontaneously without any macroscopic economic and political determinants [as] choices freely made by youngsters.  Even though severe economic, political and ideological constraints are often operating behind the scenes, the profound changes in these adolescents’ lives just ‘seem to happen’ because they are following the rules of the street.

            In other words, while crime may be driven by large socioeconomic forces beyond our view, it doesn’t appear like that most of the time, when most of the time we have other things to think about.  Here I am a suitable target, but free to make choices that make me less so.   

In this way, we remove from our perspective—and more importantly from our reality—both the offender’s point of view and the offender’s ability to inflict harm.  We can visualize the preventative formula as follows: 

In Figure 1, we see the grouping in social time and space all three elements of a victimization event.  In Figure 2, while all elements are present they do not converge.  We have already seen that there are things different about the potential (but non-victim) in Figure 2 from the victimized person in Figure 1.  That is, some people at greater victimization risk than others.  But it is so by reasons in addition to the habits of people.  

Specifically, we note a third possibility pictured below: a capable guardian is present, or appears sometime during the victimization event, or doesn’t leave when needed—when it might not be too late to prevent the otherwise occasioned harm.  

The pictured guardian is nonhuman; this is by intent, as many capable guardians are simple but effective nonhuman, sometimes inanimate devices. 

Is crime prevention complicated, outside this simple context?  No.  Mayhew (2000a, 2000b) wanted to design a way to protect taxi drivers, who are generally high-risk people.  So she developed a typology of eight risks to driving a cab, to include picking up customers who appear inebriated, and those who hail from the street rather than calling ahead.  Based on these risk factors she developed a list of avoidance strategies, or new routines, to include the obvious—like not picking up customers that hail from the street or who are drunk—and simple new inexpensive technologies such as a ten-dollar flashing emergency light mounted atop each cab. 

In Part II of this series, reviewed is our “meta-analysis” of research studies that have identified, over a period of nearly forty years, risk factors associated with acquaintance rape.  By comparing what we found out about acquaintance rape risk factors with what women do—and with what they might do otherwise—we have begun to develop a typology of ordinary routines to help women avoid rape by someone they know.  In the next part we focus on alcohol use as a risk factor and its relationship to rape victimization.     

To Conclude 

A pragmatic victimization reduction objective is to identify warning signals for victimization.  If certain people are at high levels of future risk, crime prevention resources—capable guardians among them—can be used by those people to produce prominent reductions.  If we found out that a lone woman really was burglarized every twenty seconds, we would doubtless call her house a “hotspot” and station the police there permanently.

Sociologists increasingly understand the mechanisms that “cause” crime.  That does not mean that effective crime control measures cannot assist those in greatest need today.  Victims need not wait until researchers have solved—as Winston Churchill put it in another context—the “mystery inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma” of criminal victimization, its causes and control.  Once high-risk groups and prosocial—that is, less “victimogenic” activities—are identified, individuals are free to pursue or ignore these as they see fit.  

What we have developed here is but a broad outline; it is a relatively new but practical perspective.  A promising step, which we take up next, is to move beyond thinking about crimes perpetrated by strangers to thinking about the considerably larger number perpetrated by people we know.  Intellectualizations about the “criminogenic” nature of societies, the sources of evil within them and the motivational bases therefore probably are less fruitful than simply to conclude that bad things happen—not just crime but additional health threats.  Like exercise and a good diet, personal engagement in managing victimization risk may help to avoid meeting with it.