All criminal action entails the victimizer attacking the victim. Originally, most criminologists typically had the belief that the offender was the one who was solely accountable for all perpetrated crimes; therefore, they had their focus on the victimizer alone. On the contrary, time has revealed that apparently the victim also plays a role in the execution of criminal acts. This relative involvement of the victims, sometimes either actively or passively, has resulted in the rise of the field of victimology, which studies the intrinsic relationships between the victimizer and the victim. A criminal act is dependent on various contributing factors such as gender, marital and social status, age, social ecology, ethnicity, and race among others, which eventually determine the nature of the victimization itself. The involvement of victims as instigators of crime is an examination that has brought forth various theories, with some of the more conspicuous ones including routine activity theory, lifestyle theory, and the victim precipitation theory
Amongst all theories, the victim precipitation notion is the most common one and occurs when victims initiate confrontations, which in due course give rise to their own victimization. In most cases, victim precipitation theories involve instances of violence whereby the victims’ actions accord enough criminal incentives to the offender, resulting in crime perpetration. Most precipitations occur actively whereby the victim is the one who provokes the offender using; vulgar language, provocative clothing and body language, use of minor attacks, and the use of swear words and other threatening languages. Passive precipitation, on the other hand, involves behavioral tendencies, personality traits, and character, among others. As such, this theory holds victims responsible for criminal acts and excuses the behavior and actions of offenders. The most enduring examples of active precipitation occur when a woman kills her husband because of a consistent history of domestic violence or the constant public humiliation and derogation of an employee by their employer, which causes the employee to abuse the employer physically.
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The former case of domestic violence occurs more frequently, and in recent times, the case whereby Chamari Liyanage, a doctor who killed her husband for being abusive towards her for years, underscores the victim precipitation theory (Day, 2017). In this case, the husband who was the victim was a perennial and consistent abuser to the wife. Dinendra Athukorala, the husband, met Chamari Liyanage in Sri Lanka and at that moment all seemed charming and good. However, the husband possessed outward charm while hiding the inner evil of extreme violence. The presiding judge in the case would later describe Dinendra Athukorala as an offender who was manipulative and merciless (Day, 2017). Dinendra abused his wife regularly and kept a stash of 13 terabytes of bestiality and child exploitation images; accentuating his manipulative and derogatory temperament. As Ms. Liyanage provided her statement, her eyes welled up with tears as her face crumpled, recalling the four years she had dedicated her life to an abusive partner. Her testimony and evidence provided sufficient cause for victim precipitation, in that, it became evident that she faced not only physical abuse but also sexual, emotional, psychological and financial. All these occurrences summed up active precipitation since the victim provoked the offender knowingly, resulting in the perpetrator's act of murder. Ms. Liyanage used a 1.8-kilogram mallet to mush her husband’s head resulting in his instant death.
Two days later, Ms. Liyanage received a charge of murder and after a three-week trial; the extensive evidence of domestic violence resulted in a verdict on not guilty of murder. However, she received a conviction of manslaughter and sentenced to four years in prison; a light sentence compared to what she had done, delineating the victim precipitation theory. While at Greenough Regional Prison, she confessed she felt freer than in her marriage (Day, 2017).
References
Day, L. (2017). 'I thought he would change': Doctor who killed abusive husband speaks out . ABC News . Retrieved 18 October 2017, from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-06/doctor-chimara-liyanage-speaks-about-killing-abusive-husband/8327370
