What is victimology: concept and subject of study

Greetings, friends!

Everyone knows that some people are much more likely to commit a crime than others. Factors such as a criminal history or dissocial personality disorder may contribute to this. But not everyone knows that there is another pattern: some people are more susceptible to crimes being committed against them. It turns out that the likelihood of becoming a victim depends on the characteristics of appearance, behavior, mood, condition and other factors.

To study how and why people become victims of crime, a separate science was created within the framework of criminology - victimology. Today it is an important and actively developing socio-psychological discipline. Its benefits are undeniable: the better we understand the behavior by which people bring disaster upon themselves, the fewer crimes against the individual will be committed - the most serious offenses in the criminal code of any country.

What is victimology?

Victimology is a scientific discipline that studies how people or groups of people become victims of crime. It examines the behavior of the victim and her relationship with the offender before the crime, at the time of its commission and after it. In addition, victimology studies the crisis states in which victims find themselves, determines the necessary assistance measures and finds ways to prevent repeated crimes.

Particular attention is paid to such aspects as:

the victim’s place in the chain of events that ended in the crime against her;
the relationship between the offender and the victim (both long-term and those that preceded the crime);
sociological, moral, psychological and other characteristics of the victim;
the behavior of the victim at the time the crime was committed against her and after it.

To finally understand what victimology is, let’s consider the basic concepts with which this science operates. These are “victim behavior”, “victimization” and “victimization”. All these terms are also derived from the Latin word “victima”, which means “sacrifice”. Let's look at the meaning of each of these concepts in more detail.

Victim behavior

These are all kinds of actions, statements and other actions by which a person increases the likelihood that a crime will be committed against him. Victim behavior can be considered a night walk in a desert area or presence at a disco in very conspicuous clothes. This category also includes violation of public order (there are often people in society who want to calm the bully down with brute force).

Victimization

Sometimes victimization is considered synonymous with the term “victim behavior,” but this concept also includes physical and mental states. Circumstances also play a role. For example, a person who returns home at night in a state of alcoholic intoxication is a victim. And beautiful girls are more likely to be sexually assaulted, so attractive appearance can also be considered a factor in victimization.

The state of victimization cannot be considered as a reason to share guilt between the criminal and the victim. The exception is situations when victimization was a consequence of an offense committed by the victim (for example, if a heavily drunk guy behaved defiantly, provoked a fight and was injured in it).

In most cases, the victim's victimization is not considered by the court as a mitigating circumstance for the offender. However, for public opinion it can become a reason for the so-called “victim blaming” - partial or complete shifting of blame onto the victim (this Anglicism has already become an established term in the Russian language, since it most accurately defines the meaning of this phenomenon).

By the way, victim blaming is a big problem in modern society. Most often, it manifests itself in public condemnation of victims of sexual violence (in the style of “It’s her own fault - there was no point in dressing up like that!”), as well as victims of domestic violence (“So she deserved it, because there is no smoke without fire!”).

Victimization

This is the name for the process of turning a victimized person into a victim. This process can be quite complex and take a long time from the first contact between the offender and the victim until the crime is committed. Victimization also includes the victim's reaction to the crime and subsequent events (including the victim blaming mentioned above, which is sometimes called “re-victimization”).

Victimological prevention

In our country, there is very little statistical information about victims of crime, which makes it difficult to collect and develop methods for preventing victimized behavior. We can highlight some countries in the world where victimology is developing most intensively: the USA, Germany, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, Italy. They actively develop not only theoretical problems of victimology, but also practical aspects of the victimological direction of crime prevention.

Thus, research centers in some US universities conduct research on various indicators of victimization of the population and organize special victimology clinics. In German police educational institutions, a special course on the basics of victimology is taught, lectures are given and seminars are held on the application of the provisions of this course in police practice. Victimology has also received a certain development in Japan, where victimological research is carried out by a comprehensive legal research institute and a police research institute, which have special laboratories of psychology and educational work that study the personality and behavior of victims, the damage suffered by them, and the forms of relationships between victims and offenders.

Attempts to protect people from criminal environments in foreign countries are even made through architectural planning. This is a fairly new direction, but has already received development. For example, in one of the areas of London (Stonebridge), the development features made it difficult for police officers to apprehend criminals. Soon, at the request of law enforcement agencies, the municipality decided to demolish a number of houses and redevelop Stonebridge. Architectural features that created a crime-prone landscape were eliminated, and residents of Stonebridge were allocated £1,000 by the Housing Ministry to equip each apartment in the block with an alarm system and other security measures.

What questions does victimology answer?

Victimology is a science that studies a wide range of issues. But the most important for her are the following:

What patterns are visible in the age, gender, social, personal, behavioral and other characteristics of victims of different types of crimes.
What daily, seasonal and other types of fluctuations are present in the crime structure of a particular region.
How do the circumstances under which a person capable of committing a crime comes into contact with a potential victim affect the likelihood of committing criminal acts?
How does the victim’s behavior influence the offender’s choice of a specific method of committing a crime?
How a potential criminal chooses a victim (how the selection process occurs, on what factors the result depends).
How to organize timely identification and protection of victimized persons.
What measures are necessary and appropriate to use in relation to victimized persons in order to ensure their safety. In certain situations, measures can be coercive (for example, if a person’s victimization is due to the fact that he grossly violates public order or deliberately provokes others with defiant behavior that is unacceptable in the given circumstances).
In what directions should research be conducted to find new ways to reduce crime by influencing the victimization of potential victims?

The science

What is victimology? There are three main definitions of this science:

Auxiliary for criminology. It is studied during the course of criminal law and criminology.
Independent victimology, as a science about the psychological characteristics of victims. The subject of her study is not only the victim of a criminal offender. The study includes individuals suffering from psychological pressure at home or at work.
Victimology defines one of the branches of criminology and does not exist as a separate science.

History of the development of victimology

Until the mid-20th century, it was believed that the likelihood of committing a crime depended only on the offender and the surrounding circumstances. But in 1948, Hans von Gentig’s book “The Criminal and His Victim” was published, in which the author first raised the issue of victimization. He described in sufficient detail various situations in which the predisposition of the victim to the crime committed against him was obvious. In particular, he noted that alcoholics and hooligans are more likely than others to receive serious bodily injuries in fights.

Soviet criminologists learned about victimology a little later. Its active popularization began in the late 1960s at the instigation of Lev Frank, who published a sensational article on this topic in 1966. The new approach assessed the motives of the criminal taking into account the profile of his target. This provided criminologists with greater opportunities, since it is much easier to study the victim (even when it comes to murder, you can interview friends and relatives, finding out what kind of person he was, what he wanted, how he communicated).

The purpose of knowledge

The concept and subject of victimology is characterized by the study of the influence of the psychological state of the victim on the attacker. The temperamental characteristics of the victim are called victimization. It turns out that a person initially has psychological properties, a predisposition to becoming a victim of crime. For example, victims of scammers tend to trust strangers, have poor understanding of life, are often greedy or low-income, and believe in omens.

Victim psychology factors

The main categories of victimology that influence the nature of the crime have been identified by scientists relatively recently:

Killers are attracted to people who are self-centered and not afraid to take risks. They differ in that they do not think about the consequences of their own actions. Often the future victim knows his killer. She is characterized by aggressiveness, conflict, and addiction to alcohol or illegal substances.
The ideal victim of rapists is characterized by: promiscuity in acquaintances and internal immaturity as a person. Such people are infantile and have little experience in relationships with the opposite sex; they can be either overly modest or, on the contrary, attract everyone’s attention with shocking antics.
Victims of scammers are determined by greed and gullibility.
The domestic aggressor keeps his victim under constant influence, parasitizing on her feelings. The person suffering from his actions depends financially or physically; he can be any family member (wife, mother, child, cohabitant, etc.). As a rule, these are impressionable people with a weak will.

Considering that each case of violence is purely individual, psychologists were able to select some features inherent in the emotional state of the victim at the time of the crime.

Types and types

Victims are divided into the following types according to their characteristics:

infantiles - such people are spoiled by the affection and care of their parents and are confident in their irresistibility. They are not completely unprepared for the reality of life and the cruelty of some people;
risky, bright personalities - such people are looking for adrenaline and are ready to do anything to achieve their goal. Cruelty and violence are perceived by such people as a game, an opportunity to get a thrill;
“white and fluffy” - outwardly positive people, endowed with themselves, seek dependence on another person - economic, physical, emotional. Such people themselves are looking for a “master” who could control them;
successful and independent people , accustomed to fight and go to the end. They are ready to sacrifice even themselves to achieve an illusory goal and will stop at nothing. As a rule, such people do not know the measures in any area of life.

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Karpman Berne triangle - how to get out?

According to K. Bern's theory, in the triangle of interhuman relations, each participant plays his own role - Victim , Aggressor (Persecutor) and Savior (Deliverer).

A person can try on different roles in this triangle, but the main thing does not change - each participant is happy with the current situation: the Aggressor is happy with his role as the ruler of fate, the Victim likes to suffer and receive everyone's attention, and the Sufferer likes to feel like a “good” person and receive gratitude from the Victim.

To get out of the role of the Victim, you need to realize your position and try not to repeat your past actions.

The victim needs to take responsibility for his feelings and actions, not ask outsiders for help , but try to get out of the current situation himself.

Often it becomes difficult for the Victim to realize what she really feels and what she wants to receive and feel.

What is Karpman's Triangle of Doom? Find out from the video:

Causes and Effects

The victim perceives the surrounding reality as an alien, aggressive world that wants to offend him.

This line of behavior is most often born from negative childhood events, memories of which haunt a person throughout his life.

There may be several reasons for this behavior:

Lack of self-confidence, low self-esteem - as a rule, uncertainty is born in childhood or adolescence due to a lack of parental love and care or bullying from older people, peers.
Dependence on the opinions of others - such a person tries to please everyone, adapting to the judgments of the people around him.
The fear of standing out from the crowd , of being different from others - this fear also comes from childhood, when the child tried to be as inconspicuous as possible for fear of being bullied.
Fear of failure , fear of being rejected.

As a result of these reasons, a person tries to find the cause of his troubles and suffering outside of his personality, looking for someone to blame.

Unsure of his abilities, he unconsciously tries to evoke self-pity , as if saying to life and those around him “hit me,” “humiliate me,” “hurt me.”

Such a person acts only as he is told, being confident in the strength and intelligence of the people around him. He considers himself flawed and incapable of making the right decisions.

About the causes and consequences of victim syndrome in this video:

Victim complex

Its appearance is influenced by experiences of events that form a negative psychological perception of the world. These could be critical situations, problems in your personal life, world disasters, catastrophes, losses and traumatic events. These are situations in which the victim reveals himself:

Crime. Various types of crimes and attempted crimes, terrorist attacks.
Violence. Both domestic and sexual.
Abuse or additive behavior. Various types of addictions, submission to the influence of cults and groups.

What's the benefit?

A woman has a victim complex - why is it beneficial to be a victim? A victim woman often feels sorry for herself and looks for the culprit of her sometimes invented problems . She often cries, complains about life, and tries to shift responsibility for her decisions onto other people's shoulders.

But for the woman herself, this position often seems beneficial - she receives attention, support, and help from the people around her.

Sometimes with such a defenseless appearance she hopes to attract a strong man .

A victim woman is allowed and forgiven a lot, because she, poor and unfortunate, suffered from an evil world.

The role of the victim relieves a woman of many obligations, and it becomes easier for the victim herself to achieve what she wants .

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