There exist different theories of victimization in criminology, which people in the profession need to comprehend for criminal justice to be issued effectively. Lifestyle theory is one of the theories that will be discussed concerning the movie Brian Banks. Lifestyle theory of victimization holds that crime is a developmental process in the lines of three variables: Incentive, opportunity, and choice (Walters, 2014). However, it is based on the demography of the people that the theory applies. For instance, in gang-related crime, the incentive of the perpetrator while still in the developmental stage could be that that they saw their big brother affiliated in a gang and the nice things that they got from gang-related activities. An when the perpetrator got the opportunity to join the gang, they took it, thus making a choice. Understanding the theory can help the stakeholders in criminal justice interrupt the phases of criminal lifestyle before it reaches maturity. The phases entail initiation, transition, maintenance, burnout/maturity. The objective of criminal justice is to capture the vice before hitting the transition phase and doing that may solicit victimization.
In the movie Brian Banks, the young man goes into a secret spot in high school to make out with a girl but stops midway and goes back to class. Later that same day he is arrested and charged for rape. While in court, he is advised by his attorney to plea guilty and get a lesser sentence since he was a first-time offender. However, he receives a six-year sentence being the full sentence for the crime he committed. Only that he did not commit the crime. The lifestyle theory of victimization applies to his case. Just because he was a minority or African American, the people in the criminal justice system dealing with his case believed that there was a high chance he committed the crime – an application of lifestyle theory of victimization. The woman accusing him of the crime, a young female attending the same school, and acquainted with bran since middle school played the victim and stood by her story throughout. She was believed she was a woman and the weaker sex in society. The prosecution team did not have any DNA evidence to prove their case, while the DNA test that Brian took was swept under the rug to enable him to plead guilty to the alleged crime. He ended up also registering as a sex offender that limited his life choices once he got out. If the prosecution team was objective, they would also have visited the hallway that the girl claimed to scream for her life as Brian dragged her through. If she made the slightest of sound, there were classes ongoing to notice them. Lifestyle theory pegged Brian or his race to be prone to crime and would be though to have captured his lifestyle crime on the onset of development, therefore, a win for criminal justice.
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Routine activity theory, on the other does not use demography but takes into account the location and the likeliness to commit a crime based on their daily routine. The theory suggests that anyone can commit a crime if the three elements of crime converge in one space of time. The elements are a motivated offender, an attractive target, and lacking guardianship. In Brian’s case, all three elements lined up to the alleged crime he committed (Pratt & Turanovic, 2015). However, it was not taken into account the location. The school is an institution of learning where students are legally protected from such crime. The hallway leading to the secret location in the school was so silent that a screaming girl wouldn’t go unnoticed. If the location was put into account, routine activity theory would not have made sense, forcing the prosecution to look deeper into the case. Looking deeper would have raised the hallway story and given Brian a fighting chance. If Brian’s representation, also a woman, believed that Brian did not commit the crime, she would have fought for the young man. In some sense, being the woman, she may have silently sympathized with the allegedly raped girl. She may also have believed that Brian should have received some punishment.
Brian ends up being victimized for a crime he did not commit based on the lifestyle theory of victimization. If routine activity theory was also used to test his criminal development, he might have been found not guilty rather than serve 85% of his sentence for a crime he did not commit. It is important to combine all the four theories of criminal victimization as tests before using them in judgment.
References
Walters, G. D. (2014). Lifestyle Theory. Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice , 2937–2946. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_509
Pratt, T. C., & Turanovic, J. J. (2015). Lifestyle and Routine Activity Theories Revisited: The Importance of “Risk” to the Study of Victimization. Victims & Offenders , 11 (3), 335–354. https://doi.org/10.1080/15564886.2015.1057351
