Factors of Victimization

FACTORS OF VICTIMIZATION
.1 Victim
“Victims” means persons who, individually or collectively, have suffered harm, including
physical or mental injury, emotional suffering, economic loss or substantial impairment of
their fundamental rights, through acts or omissions that are in violation of criminal laws
operative within Member States, including those laws proscribing criminal abuse of power.
A person may be considered a victim, under this Declaration, regardless of whether the
perpetrator is identified, apprehended, prosecuted or convicted and regardless of the
familial relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. The term “victim” also includes,
where appropriate, the immediate family or dependants of the direct victim and persons
who have suffered harm in intervening to assist victims in distress or to prevent
victimization.
The dictionary meaning of victim is:

1.A person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action oragency: a victim of an
automobile accident.
2.A person who is deceived or cheated, as by his or her ownemotions or ignorance, by the
dishonesty of others, or bysome impersonal agency: a victim of misplaced confidence;
thevictim of a swindler; a victim of an optical illusion.
3.A person or animal sacrificed or regarded as sacrificed: warvictims.
4.A living creature sacrificed in religious rites.
In short victim is a person who has sufferer due to any of the reason. There are provision of
relating to compensation to the victim, but the major question is that whether it is only on
paper or it works. Any person victim of crime need lot of time to recollect himself from that
particular incident which take palce in his life.
1.2 Victimization
There is a large body of evidence that demonstrates a close relationship between offending
and victimization. One reason for this is that some kinds of crime arise out of mutual
interactions between people, to the extent that victims and offenders are almost
interchangeable: the clearest example would be fights in and around pubs on a Saturday
night. Even where crimes do not arise immediately out of interpersonal interactions, people
often tend to commit offences on others within their social circle, because these people are
most accessible to them, or because they are paying off an old score. This way we can say
that victimization is the relation between victim and the accuse, there is no exact definition
available on it. There are different theory of victimization which are as follow:
* Primary victimization
* Secondary victimization (post crime victimization)
* Re-victimization (repeatedly became the victim)
* Self-victimization (variety of reason to justify abuse)
Victimization
Perhaps the first theory to explain victimization was developed by Wolfgang in his study of
murders in Philadelphia. Victim precipitation theory argues that there are victims who
actually initiated the confrontation that led to their injuries and deaths. Although this was
the result of the study of only one type of crime, the idea was first raised that victims also
might play a role in the criminal activity.
Victimization is a highly complex process encompassing a number of possible elements. The

first element (often referred to as ‘primary victimization’) comprises whatever interaction
may have taken place between offender and ‘victim’ during the commission of the offence,
plus any after effects arising from this interaction or from the offence itself. The second
element encompasses ‘the victim’s’ reaction to the offence, including any change in self-
perception that may result from it, plus any formal response that s/he may choose to make
to it. The third element consists of any further interactions that may take place between ‘the
victim’ and others, including the various criminal justice agencies with whom s/he may come
into contact as a result of this response. Where this interaction has a further negative
impact on the victim, it is often referred to as ‘secondary victimization’.
3.2 Primary victimization

The ‘primary victimization’ phase of the process, it may be helpful to begin by distinguishing
between the ‘effects’ or consequences that are known to result from crimes of different
kinds and their ‘impact’ on victims themselves. Certain crimes entail physical effects, which
are likely to involve some degree of pain and suffering, and may also entail loss of dexterity,
some degree of incapacity and/or possible temporary or permanent disfigurement. Many
crimes also have financial effects, which may be either direct. Very often crime can result in
additional costs that might be incurred, for example, in seeking medical treatment or legal
advice, or loss of income as a result of attending to the crime and its aftermath, or possible
loss of future earning potential. Certain crimes can also have psychological and emotional
effects upon victims including depression, anxiety and fear, all of which can adversely affect
their quality of life.
3.3 Secondary victimization

Secondary victimization refers to the victimization that occurs not as a direct result of the
criminal act but through the response of institutions and individuals to the victim.
Institutionalized secondary victimization is most apparent within the criminal justice system.
At times it may amount to a complete denial of human rights to victims from particular
cultural groups, classes or a particular gender, through a refusal to recognize their
experience as criminal victimization. It may result from intrusive or inappropriate conduct
by police or other criminal justice personnel. More subtly, the whole process of criminal
investigation and trial may cause secondary victimization, from investigation, through
decisions on whether or not to prosecute, the trial itself and the sentencing of the offender,
to his or her eventual release. Secondary victimization through the process of criminal
justice may occur because of difficulties in balancing the rights of the victim against the
rights of the accused or the offender. More normally, however, it occurs because those
responsible for ordering criminal justice processes and procedures do so without taking into
account the perspective of the victim.
3.4 Re – victimization
Crime is not distributed randomly. According to a recent estimate, based on data from the
British Crime Survey, 44% of all crime is concentrated on 4% of victims. (Farrell and Pease,
2001) The following table shows the proportion of victims in this source who will be a victim
of a similar offence within a year of the event.
Some of the repeat victimization is due to the victim living or being associated with the
offender. Wife battering tends to happen more than once to the same victim who continues
to live with the same man. This is also true of sexual incidents.
Some of the repeat victimization in property offences is due to the location of the victim or
their residence. Those who live close to a concentration of potential offenders in residences
that are unprotected are particularly at risk of repeat victimization.
Repeat victimization is disillusioning to victims who report their experience to the police and
the criminal justice system because they were not protected. Being victimized a second time
increases the psychological trauma of the event.
3.5 Self victimization

In this category person himself commits such act which result in his own victimization we
can say up to certain extent that it can be included in repeat victimization only as it result
from wrong persons company, wrong habit, etc.
Factors of victimization
Risk Factors for Victimization
Individual Factors:
 Prior history of DV/IPV

 Being female
 Young age
 Heavy alcohol and drug use
 High-risk sexual behavior
 Witnessing or experiencing violence as a child
 Being less educated
 Unemployment
 For men, having a different ethnicity from their partner's
 For women, having a greater education level than their partner's
 For women, being American Indian/Alaska Native or African American
 For women, having a verbally abusive, jealous, or possessive partner
Relationship Factors
 Couples with income, educational, or job status disparities

 Dominance and control of the relationship by one partner
Community Factors
 Poverty and associated factors (e.g., overcrowding)

 Low social capital-lack of institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and
quantity of a community's social interactions
 Weak community sanctions against DV/IPV (e.g., police unwilling to intervene)
Societal Factors
 Patriarchal gender norms (e.g., women should stay at home, not enter workforce, should be
submissive)

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FACTORS OF VICTIMIZATION

The dictionary meaning of victim is:

3.A person or animal sacrificed or regarded as sacrificed: warvictims.

4.A living creature sacrificed in religious rites.

Victimization is a highly complex process encompassing a number of possible elements. The

3.2 Primary victimization

3.3 Secondary victimization

3.5 Self victimization

 Prior history of DV/IPV

 Couples with income, educational, or job status disparities

 Poverty and associated factors (e.g., overcrowding)

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