The present nature of the victim commenced around 30 years ago, while it aimed at improving ways in which the justice system treated victims of crime. The initiative has grown to emerge as among the most successful one in the recent years. The legal drive for the nature of the victim evolved from a decision that the Supreme Court of the United States made in the Linda R.S. v. Richard D. case. In the event of Linda, the Supreme Court emphasized on the issue as to whether an unmarried woman would direct the office of the prosecution from deploying a statute in a discriminatory manner on matters related to criminalizing child support non-payment, in line with whether the victim lacked sufficient standing for seeking the requested relief. In a statement, the Court supported the then-existing notion that it is not possible for a victim of crime to direct a criminal prosecution. The reason for this was that a private citizen did not have a judicially cognizable interest on matters related to prosecution of a different individual. The Court focused on the idea for remedying the case, while arguing that the Congress would institute statues, which would result to establishment of legal rights. The invasion ended up creating a standing, even while no injury would prevail in the absence of the statute. For over period of around 10 years since the Linda R.S. v. Richard D. case, the president issued the Victims of Crime Task Force. Since then, the present nature of the victim has targeted establishing autonomous independent roles in the event of crime victims when it comes to proceedings during the criminal justice process. The move has attempted these measures in several ways, including the federal Congress as well as state legislatures (NCVLI, 2018). Around 33 states have reformed their constitution to allow them to deal with the rights of crime victims, whereas other states follow legislations that guide the rights of crime victims.
When it comes to the federal system, it passed certain rights of crime victims in 1982, such as the Victim and Witness Protection Act, together with several laws, thereby making it possible to recognize the crime victims’ rights legislatively. Additionally, the judiciary recognizes certain aspects of allowing crime participants to have participatory status. For example, in the event of the Payne v. Tennessee case, the Supreme Court of the United States acknowledged that victims of crime should not be regarded as faceless or nameless non-participants during criminal justice proceedings. In this case, it was noted that the public needed a sense of justice, which has prevailed all over the country. For these efforts, they have contributed greatly to various laws that afford the rights of crime victims (NCVLI, 2018). These comprise of rights to privacy, information, protection, financial compensation in the event of losses, due process, and presence during criminal justice processes.
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Analyzing the Victim Movement
Regarding the victim movement, it emerged from efforts aimed at responding to the atrocities that occurred during the Second World War. Most countries that exercised civil law emphasized on assisting the victims in a sensitive manner in line with making sure that the victims played a role in criminal justice proceedings. During 1985, the United Nations instituted a resolution, which created vital standards for safeguarding the rights of the victims in line with extending the standards to international crime victims. The ICC (International Criminal Court) recognizes the rights of the victims. Within the U.S., Victim Movement emanated from the movements by women and the civil rights movements that prevailed during the 19960s, while a renewed emphasis on law as well as order emerged in the 1970s as a means for handling the growing rates of crimes (Boland, 2017). Prior grassroots efforts resulted to centers for domestic violence and rape crisis, which later led countrywide coalitions to be established.
Researchers started emphasizing on the trauma that crime caused to children and women. Initial programs meant for offering assistance were created to guide the criminal justice system. During the 1980s, the victim movement grew to comprise of numerous groups, agencies, organizations, and institutions aimed at making sure that voices of individuals were heard. The financing by the VOCA (Victims of Crime Act) and the OVC (Office for Victims of Crime established a foundation for victims movements. These targeted advocating for creation of programs and policies oriented toward the victims. The victim movement succeeded in advocating for legal basis for safeguards as well as the “bill of rights” that protected victims during criminal justice proceedings (Boland, 2017). Nonetheless, certain critics emerged with the goal of arguing against the alterations in the legal system, while they argued that offering the victims more roles would interfere with the discretion of the prosecution in line with impairing the rights of the defendants.
Assessing Impact of Victim Movement
The victim movement has played a critical role in leading to the establishment of numerous legal reforms as well as diverse laws, which target safeguarding the interests of the victims. Most of the states have incorporated victim protections in their constitutions. These initiatives, which have targeted attaining a balance in the criminal justice system, have raised huge debates. The many reforms that the victim movements have introduced have allowed victims to realize increased roles, although rights lacking remedy appear illusionary, while they have presented increased challenges. The major area subject to discussions entails incorporating rights of federal victims when making constitutional amendments. For the victims’ movement it keeps evolving. Presently, numerous collaborations facilitate in boosting service delivery while at the same time growing advocacy for populations who were previously underserved and unidentified (Weiker, 2018). Still various advocates continue supporting the need for a more holistic approach, which would ensure that crime victims realize significant consideration in the same manner as crime perpetrators.
Concerns with Restitution
Restitution refers to a kind of reparation made through offering a compensation or an equivalent for damage, loss, or injury caused. However, this approach is affiliated with certain concerns, which lead it be ineffective in certain areas. For instance, restitution fails to deter crime. Restitution justice does not emphasize on ending crime, indicating that retributive systems punish criminals without focusing on their actions afterwards. The system usually addresses the problem by educating criminal ways of living normal lives, while eradicating the crime incentive. The system is also incapable of improving an offender since it does not concern this aspect. It anticipates that criminals will improve themselves, whereas this does not always serve as a realistic situation. Failure to improve an offender leads them to engage in additional crimes, while harming others. Moreover, the restitution system is backward looking in that it emphasizes on past crimes as opposed to the present, which renders it ineffective in dealing with offenders (Weiker, 2018). It just focuses on a strategy that handles past crimes, while ignoring future actions, which is something that is associated with rehabilitation.
Cost of Being a Victim
Crime is known to bring immense costs within the society, including financially as well as in intangible terms. The direct crime victims usually bear significant costs. Individuals who have experienced sexual violence, physical attacks, as well as other forms of crimes face threats of diverse health issues together with other kinds of setbacks. Often, these issues normally have tremendous impacts while they continue even after a crime is undertaken. On physical injuries, victims of these kinds of crimes face numerous injuries, which change their lives significantly. Physical crimes cause over 2.2 million in form of reported injuries, while the offenses account for more than 700,000 hospitalization days. When considering the unreported injuries, the costs that the victims continue to rise. Crime victims also experience physical trauma, in terms of mental health changes, particularly if the crime was life threatening or traumatic. The victims of crime normally develop debilitating emotional behaviors and disorders, such as anxiety, fear, depression, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, and avoidance disorders, which continue indefinitely. In addition, victims of crime experience employment challenges. Due to psychological and physical injuries, victims of crime usually struggle at work, while they are usually less productive in the workplace. They end up losing their employment. Moreover, crime victims experience relationship challenges, such as trust and intimacy issues, which affect their personal relationships negatively (Andreozzi & Associates, P.C, 2018). This is particularly the case when it comes to sexual abuse victims.
Assessing Victim Rights Concept
Victim rights refer to the laws that federal and state governments pass with the goal of creating several rights of victims. Here, the laws need that victims have particular protections, information, as well as play a certain role in the criminal justice system. The rights of these victims are dependent on jurisdiction laws for investigating a crime and the prosecution process. Victims serve as individuals facing direct harm from a certain crime that a different individual committed. Inn certain states, the rights of the victims apply to victims of serious crimes, whereas other states offer legal rights to misdemeanor victims. Other states permit homicide victim’s family members, incompetent individuals, or disabled individuals to practice the rights while representing the victims (NCVC, 2018). The victims in this case have rights of receiving fairness, courtesy, as well as care from low enforcement together with other officials in the entire criminal justice system.
Crime victims have various rights. For instance, the right for information requires that victims have information required to exercise their rights in line with seeking resources and services. The victims mostly have rights of receiving information concerning their rights, compensation, the services, and resources they can access, ways of contacting justice officials, and expectations from the system. They also need rights for receiving notifications concerning vital events surrounding their cases. Additionally, the victims have rights for protection. In numerous instances, the victims have rights for protection from intimidation, threats, or retaliation in the event of the criminal justice proceedings. The protections might comprise of police escorts, relocation, witness protection initiatives, and restraining orders. Furthermore, crime victims have rights for applying for compensation. All states offer victim compensation for reimbursing victims associated with violent crimes. The compensation facilitates in recognizing the financial losses that the victims faced to assist them recover from the various losses they experienced. Also, victims of crime have rights to restitution from offenders (NCVC, 2018). In numerous states, crime victims have restitution rights, indicating that offenders need to pay the victims in order to cater for the damage that emanated from a crime.
Significance of Sex Offender Registration
The sex offender registration is significant in terms of mitigating future crimes. For instance, the sex offender registries comprise of details associated with sex offenders, including their photographs, names, and addresses, which are made available to the public. Sharing the information of the sex offenders with the public allows them to take precautionary measures, particularly for their kids. The sex offender registry also classifies sex offenders in diverse categories (Grocki, 2018). For instance, child abusers coerce kids below the recognized legal age to into sex activities. These differ from rapists in terms of affect and thought processes, while they usually perceive their behavior as uncontrollable and internal whereas the ones of rapists are external and controllable. Child abusers might serve as incest offenders or nonfamily members. Additionally, incidences of female offenders prevail whereby females subject males to sexual abuse. Most of the individual abusing other people sexually are damaged either socially or psychologically, such as in the event of situations whereby they experienced instances of sexual abuse in the past, while other have low self-worth values. In this case, the manner in which the sex offender registry classifies sex offenders in terms of typologies allows people to take the needed precaution to avoid them. This applies for children and adolescents under the guidance of their parents or guardians. Adults also need to be cautious of sex offenders because certain offenders, particularly rapists might target them as well (Simons, 2018). For the sex offender, they provide parents and other people with an avenue of knowing whether any sex offenders live close to their neighborhood. This way, they would be able to exercise caution making sure that they monitor their children when playing so that the sex offenders do not rape or molest their children. In this vein, sex offender registries foster protection by allowing individuals know whether certain individuals within the neighborhood need watching out for. Sex offender registries are also important because they allow individuals to know the appearance of the sex offenders as well as their probable targets. For instance, if sex offenders are known to target kids aged five-year-old girls, and an individual has a girl aged five years, it becomes possible to keep away (Grocki, 2018). While the sex offender registry does not aim at hindering sex offenders from repeating their offences, since this serves as the purpose of jails, they play an essential role in warning children, parents, and other vulnerable populations that sex offenders live close to them, hence allowing them to exercise significant caution when such individuals are close.
Nature of Violence and Criminal Behavior
Regarding the nature of violence and criminal behavior, each individual within the society needs to helping offering a safe environment, by remaining alert to criminal behavior and reporting situations to nearby law enforcement. Violence and criminal behavior serve as crimes in which perpetrators of offenders commit by utilizing threating means toward victims. These kinds of crimes revolve around instances whereby violent activities serve as objective, including rape and murder, together with crimes that lead to violence. Violent crimes might or might not be carried out using weapons. Based on jurisdiction, violent crimes might differ from harassment or homicide. Generally, violent criminals comprise of bank robbers, aircraft hijackers, terrorists, burglars, rapists, carjackers, torturers, kidnappers, murderers, active shooters, drug cartels, and gangsters among others (Childtrends, 2018). These activities contribute to violence and criminal behaviour, which demand addressing to have a safe society.
Explaining Victimology Concept
Victimology entails studying relationship that exists between a perpetrator and a victim. In gaining understanding of the concept, it is essential to gain understanding of what a perpetrator and a victim entail. A perpetrator is a person who commits an offence against a victim (Kent State University, 2018). A victim is an individual that perpetrator hurts. In the event of the law enforcement institutions, they utilize victimology study as well as Victimology theories to allow them assess whether an offender hurt a victim.
On the history of victimology, the FBI stipulates that notable awareness prevailed concerning victims between 1970s and 1980s, when the civil rights movement ended. During 1972, the FBI established the BSU (Behavioral Science Unit), which targeted studying relationships that prevailed between victims, perpetrators, as well as group dynamics within the society. Law enforcement officers would visit FBI headquarters situated in Quantico, Virginia, where they would receive trainings. The trainings allowed the police officers to start understanding the distinct victims that prevailed between offenders and victims. The BSU embarked on studying the patterns and relationships existing between perpetrators and victims. In line with the BSU, various independent organizations where victims reported their issues, including POMC (Parents of Murdered Children) and MADD (Mothers against Drunk Drivers) established with the goal of studying distinct kinds of crimes, which affected the people they loved (Kent State University, 2018). These groups worked in unison with the goal of helping to define the relationship that prevailed between victims and offenders better, while these are still utilized in today’s victimology theories.
Various theories surround the concept of victimology. The exposure/lifestyle theory serves as a victimology mode, which suggests that the chances of a person suffering are mostly reliant on the lifestyle concept. Many individuals are usually victimized during the night hours. For this lifestyle theory, it revolves around several premises, such as the uneven criminal victimization distribution across time and space. This relates to prevalence of high-risk times as well as places. The second premise is that perpetrators are not representative of the population’s sample, translating to high-risk individuals. The third premise is that lifestyle is determinant of chances of victimization via the intervening association and exposure variables. The last premise is that individuals to not have similar exposures to high-risk times and places, while these differ to an extent based on the existent of high-risk individuals. Other models also revolve around the victimology concept. For example, the interpersonal model depicts the violence directed toward women as a repercussion of own psychology as well as unusual interpersonal relationships. The family violence model illustrates the phenomenon more based on educational and socioeconomic forces. Lastly, the gender political model aims at schematizing abuse directed toward women as a means by males to sustain their dominant position over females. For these modes, they are quite essential in studying victimology. The concept of victimology is quite essential. It does not serve as just an academic pursuit. Rather, it has direct relevance to the real world as well as repercussions (Kent State University, 2018). It offers perspective, which makes it possible for professionals to communicate with victims better in line with earning trust from the society.
Stephen Shafer is one of several scholars who proposed the concept of a victim typology. He categorizes victims and classifies them into groups based on how responsible they contribute to their own victimization. His victim typology is, therefore, based on an individual's social attributes an behavior. His idea of the victim typology is a combination of that proposed by von Hentig which is based on personal characteristics and that of Mendelsohn which is based on behavior. He is of the opinion that people have a functional responsibility not to provoke others into causing harm to them. It is upon individuals to behavior in an appropriate manner to prevent others from victimizing them. He identified different categories of victims and the levels of responsibilities they need to demonstrate. Victims that did not require any form of responsibility included victims who were unrelated, biologically weak victims, socially weak victims, and political victims. On the other hand, there are victims who required some form of responsibility. These types of victims include provocative victims and precipitative victims. Finally, there were victims who required total responsibility such victims were those who were regarded as self-victimizing (Criminal Justice).
Crime Victimization Extent, Trends, and Patterns
On the extent, trends, and patterns of crime victimization, 2016 estimates revolve around violent crimes, including robbery, sexual assault, rape, simple assault, and aggravated assault together with property crimes, such as motor vehicle theft, burglary, and other kinds of thefts. Other kinds of crimes entail intimate partner violence, domestic violence, weapon use, and victim injury. According 2016 data on crimes, the violent victimization rate against males rose by between 15.9 in 2015, and 19.6 in 2016 for every 1,000 males aged over 12 years. During the same period, the aggravated assault rate against males aged over 12 years increase from 2.7 to 4.2 for every 1,000. In addition, the violent victimization rate against individuals aged between 25 and 34 years increased from 21.8 to 28.4 for every 1000 individuals during the same period. In the event of females in this aged group, the victimization rate increased from 24.6 to 33.4 for every 1,000 females (Morgan & Kena, 2016). From the data, it is evident that the rate of victimization is on the rise, indicating that the law enforcement needs to step up its measures to deal with these crimes.
Consequences Related to Crime Victimization
Various psychological, emotional, physical, financial, productivity, and social among other consequences result from crime victimization. In this case, it is crucial to note that people are different, indicating that crime influences them differently, The major thing worth noting is comprehending that changes in the manner in which individuals feel might be due to the traumatic encounters individuals experience. The major thing that can pose challenges in dealing with crime entails understanding that a different person did it deliberately. As opposed to the case of an illness or accident, individuals involving themselves in crime do so with the goal of causing harm. The influences from crime might take a long time to end, although this does not depend on the seriousness of the crime. Certain individuals are able to cope well, while others suffer from significant distress. For instance, crime makes people to feel upset, angry, or encounter other strong emotions. Some become surprised on their emotional feelings. These emotions can lead them to become more confused and unsettled. Crime also makes things to start falling apart for the victims. Some people show physical symptoms, including feeling ill or lacking sleep. In other instances, the victims start blaming themselves arguing that they should have considered doing things in a different manner, particularly owing to the shame they experience (Victimsupport, 2018). Individuals also develop problems that continue during the long term, including illnesses related to anxiety and depression.
Sexual Assault, Spouse Abuse, and Stalking Relate to Victimization Concept
Sexual assault serves as a major as well as deleterious trauma form. The victims of this crime have higher chances of portraying significant negative mental health situations. The victims of this kind of assault portray severe symptoms because sexual assault causes significant physical and emotional harm. When it comes to spouse abuse, it has psychological and physical effects, while it can influence any person of any gender, age, sexual orientation, or race. It comprises of behaviors aimed at scaring, harming others physically, or controlling partners. Whereas each relationship differs, spouse abuse entails unequal dynamics of power whereby partners target exerting control toward each other and in various ways. These practices comprise of threats, insults, sexual coercion, and emotional abuse, all of which affect the victims tremendously. In the event of stalking, it entails repeated and unneeded surveillance through which people or groups direct toward each other. Stalking behaviors relate to intimidation and harassment, all of which comprise of monitoring or following the victims (Yates, 2017). All these practices relate to the victimization concept because they target inflicting discomfort to the victims while at the same time leading them to experience emotional, psychological, and physical harm.
References
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Grocki, S. J. (2018). Sex offender registration and notification act. Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/sex-offender-registration-and-notification-act-sorna
Kent State University. (2018). What is victimology. Retrieved from https://onlinedegrees.kent.edu/sociology/criminal-justice/community/what-is-victimology-and-why-is-it-important
Morgan, R. E., & Kena, G. (2016). Criminal victimization, 2016: revised. Retrieved from https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=6427
NCVC. (2018). Victims' rights. Retrieved from http://victimsofcrime.org/help-for-crime-victims/get-help-bulletins-for-crime-victims/victims'-rights
NCVLI. (2018). History of victims’ rights. Retrieved from https://law.lclark.edu/centers/national_crime_victim_law_institute/about_ncvli/history_of_victims_rights/
Simons, D. A. (2018). Sex offender typologies. Retrieved from https://smart.gov/SOMAPI/sec1/ch3_typology.html
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Weiker, R. (2018). Victims' rights, victims' needs, and the role of restorative jusutice. Retrieved from https://restorecal.org/victims-needs/
Yates, D. (2017). Increased risk of suicide, mental health conditions linked to sexual assault victimization. Retrieved from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-08-suicide-mental-health-conditions-linked.html
