Homicide victimization has increased in the recent past due to the increasing number of shooting incidents. It is believed that network exposure to homicide is deeply associated with victimization, as there is greater risk of victimization when an individual is close to a homicide victim. The threat of shooting in towns is more concentrated than in other places. For instance, in the city of Wilmington there has been an increase in the rates of violent crimes over the recent years. However, homicide victimization is not distributed equally across all the populations due to the fact that young individuals are at a greater risk of being killed than the old people. Additionally, male persons are likely to be killed than women. For example, the Wilmington Shootings of 2010 shows the nature of murder in Wilmington by considering the demographics of the suspects and victims that are identified including gender, age, race, and the criminal records.( Beaver, Nedelec, Boutwell and Boccio, 2016).
The lifestyle model theory states that people from certain populations are likely to suffer personal victimization due to their way of living which exposes them to risky circumstances. The length of time an individual spends in a public place, especially at night and the period spent among a group of strangers increases the chances of victimization. In addition, the theory states that the chance of a person being victimized is not created by his or her lifestyle but by an individual’s exposure to risk. Therefore, routine is significant since it enhances the publicity of people without actual restrains that can inhibit the occurrence of a crime.
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Notably, there are several theories of personal victimization, including the theory of social interactionism. The theory tries to explain why criminal behavior is a learned behavior that an individual acquire through his or her interaction with others. These social interactions may include playing football together or swimming. People can learn criminal activities through there interaction with their coworkers, peers, and even family members. The theory of social interactionism shows how individuals interact with other groups of people and how their associations with different people may lead to criminal activities.
Strain theory was developed to discuss the increasing rates of crimes that occurred in the United States of America. The theory states that certain pressures increase the chances of crime. These stressors can cause undesirable feelings, such as anger and frustration. Furthermore, the theory states that a society may force a person to achieve certain goals that are accepted socially even when they do not have the means of attaining them. Therefore, an individual may use crime to escape from this kind of pressure. Additionally, some people may use wrong doing in order to alleviate the negative feelings. For example, a person who has been unemployed for a long time may take part in selling drugs or stealing in order to get money quickly or even use the illegal drugs with an aim of feeling better and reducing the negative emotions. The strain theory aims to explain three important points. First, it describes the specific forces that causes an individual to engage in crime. Moreover, the strain theory explains the reasons why certain strains increases crime and lastly it describes the factors that causes an individual to or prevent a person from responding to pressure with criminality.
Learning theory is set of ideologies that describes how people get, retain and remember knowledge. Individuals can better understand the different ways through which learning take place through studying and doing research on different learning theories. There are three different learning theories. Among them are constructivism, behaviorism and cognitive information process. The behaviorist theory explains that associations between stimuli and responses leads to a new behavior. Additionally, the theory of cognitivism states that the processing of information leads to the understanding and the retention of the desired information. Lastly, the constructivist describes how people construct their own knowledge of the universe through their own experiences. Therefore, the learning theory formulates the process through which an individual may acquire the criminal behavior through his or her associations with persons who have criminal values and attitude. Additionally, association of an individual with people who have noncriminal behaviors may be used to determine how a person can learn the criminal behavior from others. Furthermore, individuals absorb immoral action from there significant others, such as peers, family members or coworkers.
The incidents that occurred in the city of Wilmington showed that there was a relationship between the offenders and the victims. In order to acquire the relationship between the offender and the victim, the connection between all the suspects of a crime and all the victims involved in the incident were studied. After the stage of examination, the victim-offender relationship for the case was then classified according to the closest connection between any suspect and victim. For instance, in a case that involved two suspects and a victim, it was discovered that both the two criminals and the victim were friends then there would be a certain level of relationship that would be given to that crime (Macleish, 2011). Determining the connection that the suspected criminal has with his or her target helps to offer additional means observing conditions that may have brought the murder suspect and the victim into the closeness desired for the killing to take place. The report on the shooting in the Wilmington city showed that the most common victim-to-criminal relationship was otherwise known while the most infrequent was friend. Additionally, the suspect and the victim relationship in the Wilmington city was identified through race and gender. It was discovered that a large number of shooting incidences involved a black male suspect shooting a black male victim. Therefore, it is seen that most shootings in the Wilmington city are as a result of gang-related activities.
Since the 2010 shooting report, Wilmington has been implementing recommendations proposed by the Wilmington Public Safety Strategies Commission ( House Joint Resolution 2 ). Among these recommendations is the improvement of investigative practices. This recommendation was very significant because it enabled the policing unit to find the suspected criminals and make them face the law. Additionally, the commission recommended that the community engagement and the policing efforts should be increased by giving the police officers more authority to solve problems so as to tackle minor criminal cases. Lastly, the commission recommended that changes should be made to the police department’s management structure. All these recommendations were made in order to reduce the crime rates in the Wilmington city. There have been many changes in the crime rates in the Wilmington city since the 2010 Shooting Report. This is seen as there has been less murder cases reported over the recent past.
References
Beaver, K. M., Nedelec, J. C., Boutwell, B. B., & Boccio, C. (2016). The association between intelligence and personal victimization in adolescence and adulthood. Personality and Individual Differences , 98 , 355-360.
House Joint Resolution 2 . Wilmington Public Safety Strategies Commission. Retrieved from https://cjc.delaware.gov/wilmington-safety-commission/
Macleish, T. (November, 2011). Wilmington shootings 2010 a comparative working paper of suspects and victims in Wilmington, Delaware. Delaware Criminal Justice Council . Retrieved from https://cjc.delaware.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/61/2017/06/2010ShootingReportFinal_min.pdf
Payne, Y. A., Hitchens, B. K., & Chambers, D. L. (2017, December). “Why I Can't Stand Out in Front of My House?”: Street ‐ Identified Black Youth and Young Adult's Negative Encounters With Police. In Sociological Forum (Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 874-895).
Vakhitova, Z. I., Reynald, D. M., & Townsley, M. (2016). Toward the adaptation of routine activity and lifestyle exposure theories to account for cyber abuse victimization. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice , 32 (2), 169-188.
