Theories of Victimization

These theories are an excerpt of L. Siegel's book Criminology, a must have if you are interested in learning about the processes and motivations leading to criminal behavior as well as the trends and characteristics of the different types of crimes.

Victim Precipitation Theory.

This theory states that some people may actually initiate the confrontation that eventually leads to their injury or death. Victim precipitation may be active or passive.

- active precipitation occurs when a victim acts provocatively, uses threats or fighting words, or even attacks first.

- passive precipitation occurs when the victim exhibits some personal characteristics that unknowingly either threatens or encourages the attacker. It may also occur when the victim belongs to a group whose mere presence threatens the attacker's reputation, status or economic well-being. Some research indicate that passive precipitation is related to power.

Lifestyle Theory.

People may become victims because their lifestyle increases their exposure to criminal offenders. The basis of this theory is that crime is not a random occurrence but rather a function of the victim's lifestyle.

People who have high risk lifestyles (drinking, taking drugs, getting involved in crimes) maintain a much greater risk of victimization. Ex: young runaways living on the street. One element of lifestyle that may place people at risk for victimization is ongoing involvement in a criminal career.

Deviant Place Theory.

The more people are exposed to dangerous places, the more likely they will become victim of crime and violence.

Routine Activity Theory.

The volume and distribution of predatory crime are closely related to the interaction of 3 variables that reflect the routine activities

- the availability of suitable targets (1)

- the absence of capable guardians (2)

- the presence of motivated offenders (3)

Victim Types

It is not an easy matter to interact with victims. For that, you have to take in account and adapt to their emotions, their psychological state, and to the age of the victim. If you don't, you will only develop incomprehension, tension, conflict and mistakes. It is also very important for you to recognize what type of victim you have to deal with (still alive or unfortunately deceased) as you will not react the same way with each of them.

1) The real victims: they say the whole truth, with the content and the form that go with it. These are very rare, just because of the psychological defense mechanisms a victim develops to cope with the suffering, pain, and shame caused during the victimization process.

2) The fake victims: they are pathological liars, also very rare. But they do exist, so please be careful to detect them when you meet them.

3) The real-fake victims: people who are capable of lying all the way through, but who are really suffering inside. The victim wants to get attention by making up terrible facts to cover up a real suffering that was not revealed, recognized and treated.

4) The direct victims: those who were directly and emotionally involved in the victimization process.

5) The collateral victims: all the people who have an emotional link to the direct victim (family, friends, close entourage of the victim, but also the mother or father or wife or child of a serial killer that did not know what was happening, the girlfriend of a rapist...)

6) The indirect victims: people who belong to the same professional or institutional circle as the direct victim (when a policeman is killed, all policemen mourn).

7) The unknown victims: when the victims are unknown to the offender, they teach us that the offender and the victim probably didn't know each other, and that the motivation was probably the fruit of a fantasy and/or pathology.

8 ) The known victims: they teach us that the offender and the victim probably knew each other and that the motivation is a classic one (passion, greed, revenge) that can be uncovered in a more classical investigation.

9) The serial victims: the victims and the offender probably did not know each other.

10) The single victims: the victim and the offender probably knew each other.

11) The low-medium-high exposure victims: this concept of victim exposure gives vital insight on how the offender committed his crime. This concept will be developed more in details in a later post.

12) The selected victims: refer to an organized offender who targets specific victims because they fit his motivations.

13) The total opportunity victims: refer to an unorganized offender who targets his victims for irrational reasons or according to his own pathological logic. (example: because some voices told him to).

14) The partial opportunity victims: refer to a mixed offender, with an organized or unorganized dominant according to the case, and whose motivation will be partly logical and clear, but also partly pathological and/or fantasy focused and/or irrational.

Here I would like to make a comment and remind that nobody is victim "by chance" (see the post on Victimology Principles), and that even in the case of a total opportunity victim, there is a link between the victim and the offender (what the victim represents in the offender's mind, or the environment represents to the offender)

15) The physical victims: people who have suffered from wounds, burns, broken bones and any physical injury.

16) The psychological victims: people who have suffered from heavy negligence, mental cruelty, bullying, important lack of affection, moral harassment and other mental and psychological attacks.

17) The psychosomatic victims: people who suffer so much on a psychological level that you can see it on the physical body, or that have endured so much physical pain that they also keep very deep psychological wounds.

Victimology Principles

1) There is always a reason why victims become victims.

The first and main principle of victimology may seem unfair or even unrealistic to some (especially people who have already victimized) is that there is always a reason why victims have become victims.

- Indeed, when you consider the mind of a criminal, there is something he sees in the victim that motivated him to act. For the criminal, there is either a selection or at least a negative perception of the potential victim, what will trigger for any reason the acting out, with or without mobile.

- Victims are never victims by chance (or rather misfortune), whether there is a mobile (vengeance, greed, passion...) or not (paranoia where the offender thinks the victim persecutes him, sexual fantasies where the offender will select specific types...).

- Victims sometimes become victims due to their own vulnerability. Some studies have shown that a person who has already suffered a trauma, who has already been a victim, or has not done anything to overcome the trauma, are more likely to be victimized again than others.

2) Who look alike come together, complete and recognize each other.

- That applies to everyone: you wouldn't stay with someone a long time with someone you don't share common interests or elements of complementary. Therefore, it will be easier for a person who has been victimized to turn to other victims who would be more understanding, would be able to help and accept this person. Moreover, the way other people look at the person who has been victimized is very important to the victim.

- A victim has a tendency to take some distance with the family and friends because it is hard for this person to handle that the loved ones are suffering for the person who has been victimized. The victim doesn't want to cause any suffering, and this suffering is just adding up to the victim's own suffering.

- At the same time, when someone is feeling depressed, "normal" and happy people disturb, they are a reminder that the victim is not "normal", failures and sad. The victim will therefore take some distances and try to get closer to those more alike who will be able to turn the bad emotions around into better ones.

- People don't come together by chance or by misfortune: in general, a dominant person needs a submissive one, as much as a submissive one needs a dominant one for example. Take domestic violence, very often the victim is in a state of mind leading up to the violence, and very often thinks that the beating was deserved. I am not saying that the victim deserves the beating, nobody deserves it. What I am trying to say is that some people think so bad of themselves that they meet people who do to them what they think they deserve (does that make sense?). This explains (partly) why even if the victim leaves the violent partner, it is only to meet a new one that is also violent and abusive.

- Once someone is getting used to lean towards certain types of people or profiles of people, the victim develops the ability to decode people and behaviors with similar characteristics.

3) Every offender has been a victim, and every victim may become an offender

- The judicial logic and practice tends to focus towards the offenders, the people who are causing harm to society. However, people are not born criminals, they become criminals. The causes and origins of criminal behavior are always multi-factorial, and all these factors operate in a very dynamic and interactive life process where, step by step, people become offenders.

- Anyone can become an offender if: 1) their past and personality predispose them, 2) if the circumstances are favorable, 3) an event triggers the acting out.

- But as much as every offender has been a victim of some sort at some point in their life, every victim does not necessarily become an offender.