Essay: Victimology And Criminal Justice: Issues And Solutions" (62 Characters)

1.Provide a historical overview of the change from a Victim Justice System to a Criminal Justice System. Include the following sociological/criminological terms in your response: retribution, restitution, lex talionis, gemeinshaft, and gesellschaft). 

2.Early scholars in the field of victimology often employed theories of victim precipitation in their work. Define victim precipitation, and describe its implication for understanding why people resort to criminal behavior. What shortcomings underlie the victim precipitation approach? 

3.Provide an overview of the topics that contemporary victimologists study. Include a discussion of general victimology and critical victimology in your response.

4.Public interest in victim issues—including the level of concern for victim well-being— has changed significantly over time. Using a sociological perspective, explain how The Victim Movement has been influenced (directly and indirectly) by a variety of other social and political movements. 

5.Describe three of the following methodological issues that plagued first-generation Victim Surveys: crime misclassification, telescoping, memory decay, selection of respondents, definitional problems.

6.Compare and contrast the types of data collected for the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Your response should outline the methodological advantages and disadvantages of each data source, and should include a discussion of the Dark Figure of Crime. 

Using information in Chapter I: General Information of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report Handbook (see Moodle) construct responses to the following questions:
7.Classifying and scoring offenses for the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is a complex process. Define and describe the Hierarchy Rule and the Separation of Time and Space Rule. What do you think are the benefits and drawbacks of these rules for reporting agencies? In other words, what pros and cons may these rules have with regard to the collection of crime data for the Uniform Crime Report (UCR)?

8.The following is a description of the ‘Petit Triple Murders’ that occurred in 2007 in Cheshire, Connecticut. Read the description of the crimes that occurred, and then explain how the hierarchy rule would apply to this specific case study.

Challenges faced by victims especially females and minors

There is a historical overview of the change from a Victim Justice System to a Criminal Justice System. It can be stated that the original discipline of victimology was born out of a desire for studying the victims for answering all kinds of legal and social questions. The term victimology can be defined as a preventive issue that is linked to the social health. Presently, it has developed to a criminal justice system where the texts are treated as a presumed victimhood for all the existing numbers that can be applied and acts as an objective for the offender-victim relationship. However, the concept of the victim study is relatable to the legal conflict. From the introduction of victimology till the Middle Ages the burden of the justice system generally fell on the victim. Hence, it was observed that the justice system had operated as per the principle of lextalionis. This suggested a theory where a criminal will be punished according to their acts and will cause equal amount of harm. When the victim justice system has developed in the criminal justice system, a retributive justice theory is applied as it holds the best replies to a crime that is proportional to the offence. In the criminal justice system, it can be said that a convicted offender can get an order of restitution from the Court. Restitution is given on the criminals, as it is a state government program. Previously, a set of criminologists, legal scholars and sociologists stated a similar theory where the victims were being overlooked as a source of information regarding the criminals and crimes. The gemeinschaft home acts a restorative justice while dealing with the offenders. The restorative justice is a concept that has developed over the years.

The term Victim precipitation covers the basic degree according to which the victim is usually held laible for her or his own victimization. As per the views of the scholars, the typology involved with this issue implicates the contribution of the victims as a causative factor when the crime is committed. The concept of victim precipitation deals with the patterns of criminal behavior. For instance, there have been plenty of homicides that have occurred due to victim precipitation. In case of victim precipitation, there has been an interpersonal relationship between the offender and the victim. Criminal behavior also includes rape incidents that take place in the society. There are existing factors that usually helps in precipitating the criminal acts of the offenders. The victim can therefore state whether precipitated rape was an essential factor. Various scholars have opined differently regarding the concept of victim precipitation. According to the views of Amir, the victims associated with the crime can psychologically standards of behavior. However, it might vary between males and females. The idea of victim precipitation should not be abandoned as per the knowledge of Cooler. Thereafter, the victim precipitation assumes in the scenario that the offender gets activated only when the offender emits a few specific signals. The behavior of the victim is sufficient and essential for causing a criminal act (Camp and Van). Hence, an individual must conceive of the concept of victim precipitation as a factor of contribution. Critical victimology refers to other factors and crimes that are associated with the victims. It consists of war crimes, deportation, smuggling, privacy and human slave trade. Thus, these shortcomings help in underlining the approach of victim precipitation.

Development of rape crisis centers, counseling centers for abuse victims, shelters for battered women, and children centers within the justice system

There have been lack of theoretical advances that brings the genuine tension form the concepts of victimology including both general and critical. According to Mendelsohn, general victimology must come out of the provincial backwaters of criminology and the domain, which it owns. Therefore, over the years, victimology was independent from the term criminology (Walklate). General victimology deals with five kinds of victims. They are the social environment, technology, a criminal, natural environment and one’s self. The victims of social environment help in incorporating class and group oppression. Individuals who do the scientific innovations in the society are regarded to be technological victims. Natural environment deals with the natural calamities, which consist of hurricanes, floods and earthquake. These were the major concerns of general victimology. Critical victimology refers to the situation where the general approach was outlined in the preceding section. The work of the critical victimologists tends to be more interested in expanding the field of victimology. It provides a wider social context where the versions of victimology have become more dominant as compared to the others. The major victim oriented initiatives helps in perpetuating the basic definitions of the crimes arising in the society. The critical victimology offers and essential view, which carries great potential for the field of victimology. The socio-cultural discussions include why violence occur and the investigations of the victim programs (Doerner and Lab). Hence, various authors have opened on the concept of general victimology and critical victimology.

Victimology movement has influenced both indirectly and directly by a variety of other social and political movements. The major concern of the victim movements is for the victims well being and the reaction to the charges of victim complicity in the offence. Various kinds of movements of the earth and contributed to the renewed interest in the plight of the victim (Daigle). The basic movements of victimology includes efforts in establishing the children’s rights, movement of the women, concerns of the over growing crime problem and the legal reforms. With the help of the sociological perspective, the women's movement included a large component of it while dealing with the victims. They have been arguments of the victim blaming which dealt with sexual assault and rape.

In this matter, victims are mutually female who find themselves and the lifestyle on trial whenever and of indivisible apprehended. The criminal justice therefore must be strong enough to take or give a fair judgment regarding such criminal issues. For the benefit of the women, there must be a development of the rape crisis centre, counseling for abused men and their children and Shelters for the battered women. If the concerns are viewed in a sociological manner, every child of the society must be given the rights of the children, which they can execute and exercise (Paul Elliott Rock, and McLaughlin). Child abuse is an old age practice that has become worse over the years. Political movements must look after the specific children’s bureaus within the criminal justice Agencies where the expanded order established are growing with the recognition of child maltreatment. Hence, Shelters should be created to house children from such abusive situations. It is the duty of the society to take care of the juveniles and secure them by providing them shelter and home as they were the emerging new class of victims of both abuse at home as well as society in general. United States have faced the rate of growing crime problem. However, victim issues were a major focus of the 1967 Presidents commission on law enforcement and the administration of Justice (Clevenger). The problems and issues must therefore be identified and solved as it has been increasing in the present times.

Telescoping method and memory decay

The method of telescopingis such that it takes place when criminal events are bought mistakenly on the part of the respondents. However, the time of occurrence must have been different which may be outside the prescribed time or within the server period. For instance, mention can be made about a victimization survey that has been supposedly taken for the part of the research. In this regard certain questions asked by the interviewer to the interviewee taking part in such survey. The questions may be categorized as whether the interviewer has stolen any car during the past 12 months. However, in reality the automobile was actually taken four months before. In these cases, the person taking part in the survey cannot memorize the incidents that actually occurred to him in the past years (Dale). Therefore, advice can be given to the interviewer that the interviewee taking parts in the survey in fact a victim of the crime.

One of the major drawbacks in this survey was faulty memory. The nature of memory decay is such that it can be evidenced from the reports provided by modern researchers buy depending upon the reviews given by respondents who were victimized during the prescribed time frame. However, most of the respondents could not provide appropriate answers to the survey questions because most of them could not memorize the actual events (Hall).

In the survey process, the most significant concern was regarding the selection of appropriate respondents. Form the very beginning, the study emphasized upon the process of selection of respondents and ensured that these respondents are not selected randomly from the existing households and locality. They made sure that individuals aged below 18 would be excluded from the survey unless and until they were married. Additionally, all domestic offences were addressed as major crimes against the head of the households. However, the underlined and existing facts could be biased towards the end outcomes. Despite all the preceding concerns, there prevailed other imperfections which created unfavorable impact upon the findings. It is worthwhile to refer here that certain definitional issues arose in the survey questions, which created an inability on the part of the field workers while locating the actual area of crimes.

In recent years, there has been a growing Reliance on the concept of victimization Survey data for assessing the nature of criminal activities in a long term. It is worth mentioning that the underlined reason for such change is actually based upon the realization that the UCR has been suffering from systematic and prevailing limitations (Pemberton, Mulder, and Aarten). Since time immemorial the criminologist, they have identified that the official reports January underestimated on how much time actually occurred. The basic only victims always helped in uncovering much more crime as compared to UCR. The victim surveys help in capturing the data on the victim and the situations that surrounds the criminal event. On the other hand, the NCVS stated that 21 million tribes were committed in the year 2014. When both UCR and NCVS are compared, the USR tabulated fewer than half as compared to NCVS. Victims however revealed to the interviewers about the incidents that did not come to the attention of the police. The incidence that recently took place includes robbery, motor vehicle theft, aggravated assault and the other cases of theft that were usually reported to the police. The rate of crimes can be derived and compare graphically of both UCR and NCVS. According to the survey, the NCVS reveals essential higher levels of offence that has major differences appearing in burglary and theft. (Wals and Jorgensen) The survey of victimization also provides the excess information that are not addressed by the USR. For instance, the male individuals are happened to be more violent crime victims as compared to the female.

Selection of appropriate respondents in the victimization survey

The Hierarchy rule helps in obtaining the highest level of offence and by avoiding all the other ones. It is only applicable to the process of crime reporting which has not affect on the number of charges. UCR is therefore regarded as a worldwide cooperative statistical effort having colleges, universities and federal law enforcement agencies by reporting the data on crimes. It is therefore a complex process. Both the separation of time and space rule is dealt with the FBIs. It is their law and order, which is exercised for identifying the crimes. The pros of this method are that it keeps a track of the crimes committed.

In the given scenario, the hierarchy rule will be applicable since it required counting the highest offences occurred and the number of charges for which the defendant can be prosecuted in the Courts. Therefore, since Jennifer dies die to strangulation and the other two daughters of smoke inhalation, William can make a survey and take the matter to the Courts.

References:

Camp, Tinneke Van. "Book review: A companion to crime, harm & victimisation." (2017): 227-229.

Clevenger, Shelly, et al. Understanding Victimology: An Active-Learning Approach. Routledge, 2018.

Clevenger, Shelly, et al. Understanding Victimology: An Active-Learning Approach. Routledge, 2018.

Daigle, Leah E. Victimology: A text/reader. SAGE Publications, 2017.

Davies, Pamela, Peter Francis, and Chris Greer, eds. Victims, Crime and Society: An Introduction. Sage, 2017.

Doerner, William G, and Steven P Lab. Victimology. 8th ed., 2018.

Downes, David, Paul Elliott Rock, and Eugene McLaughlin. Understanding deviance: a guide to the sociology of crime and rule-breaking. Oxford University Press, 2016.

Fattah, Ezzat A., ed. Towards a critical victimology. Springer, 2016.

Fitz-Gibbon, Kate, and Sandra Walklate. Gender, Crime and Criminal Justice. Routledge, 2018.

Hall, Matthew. "Environmental harm and environmental victims: Scoping out a ‘green victimology’." International Review of Victimology 20.1 (2014): 129-143.

Hilinski-Rosick, Carly M. "RECURRING VICTIMIZATION." Contemporary Issues in Victimology: Identifying Patterns and Trends (2018): 131.

Laruelle, François. General theory of victims. John Wiley & Sons, 2018.

McDonald, William F. "Theories of Criminal Victimization." The Criminal Victimization of Immigrants. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2018. 11-28.

Pemberton, Antony, Eva Mulder, and Pauline GM Aarten. "Stories of injustice: Towards a narrative victimology." European Journal of Criminology (2018): 1477370818770843.

Reyns, Bradford W., Bonnie S. Fisher, and Ryan Randa. "Explaining Cyberstalking Victimization Against College Women Using a Multitheoretical Approach: Self-Control, Opportunity, and Control Balance." Crime & Delinquency(2018)

Spalek, Basia. Crime victims: Theory, policy and practice. Macmillan International Higher Education, 2016.

Spencer, Dale C. "Corporeal realism and victimology." International review of victimology 21.1 (2015): 31-44.

Walklate, Sandra. "Victims and Victimology." The Wiley?Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Theory (2017): 1-2.

Walsh, Anthony, and Cody Jorgensen. Criminology: the essentials. SAGE Publications, 2017.