[Ebook PDF] Crime Victims: An Introduction to Victimology, 10th Edition

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Crime Victims: An Introduction to Victimology, 10th Edition

Authors: by Andrew Karmen (Author)

Learn about victimology from a true classic text in the field. CRIME VICTIMS: AN INTRODUCTION TO VICTIMOLOGY, Tenth Edition offers the most comprehensive and balanced exploration of victimology available today. The author examines the victims’ plight, carefully placing statistics from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report and Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Victimization Survey in context. At the same time, he “humanizes” victims’ stories through compelling case studies. The text systematically investigates how victims are currently handled by the criminal justice system, analyzes the goals of the victims’ rights movement, and discusses what the future is likely to hold. In this up-to-date edition, you’ll read about the practical issues facing victims and learn about “survivorology” and “bystanderology.” You’ll also gain insight into the seriousness of intimate partner violence, child abuse, sexual assaults in the U.S. military, acquaintance rapes on college campuses, shootings on campuses, whether arming for self-protection is an effective strategy, and other high-profile issues.

PREFACE TO THE 10TH EDITION
Victimology Faces Some Daunting Challenges This 10th edition of Crime Victims: An Introduction to Victimology was written during the fall of 2017 and the spring of 2018. Three problems posed challenges: Victimology was being stigmatized with a totally undeserved bad reputation; scientific investigations aimed to uncover what is really happening were under attack; and several previous sources of
data were no longer available, even in an era of open access to big data.
“Bad-Mouthing” Victimology Is Becoming More Widespread In June of 2018, a public opinion poll asked registered voters whether they thought the Democratic Party was focused on victimology. About half of the respondents answered, “yes.” Now, if only the Republican Party also showed a similar interest in victimology, that would be a positive development, wouldn’t it? If both liberals and conservatives focused on victimology, it would alleviate the plight of people whose homes were burglarized or whose cars were stolen and relieve the suffering of individuals who were robbed, or raped, or beaten, or shot, right? Not really!
For years, the term “victimology” has been misused to refer to what is properly labeled “victimism”—an outlook in which members of a group emphasize how they have been oppressed and exploited throughout history and now demand an end to this mistreatment. These days, the scientific study of criminal victimization often is mixed up with the controversial political ideology of victimism. This misunderstanding of what victimology actually is all about has led some influential commentators who ought to know better to condemn what they brand as victimology when they actually intend to denounce victimism. The unfortunate result of this sloppy phrasing is that the entire discipline of victimology is being tarred with a completely unfair negative reputation.
There is reason to believe that this mixing up of victimology with victimism is intensifying because this disturbing confusion reached a new high (or worse yet, a new low) when pollsters asked respondents, “A Democratic gubernatorial candidate said this week about Democrats that ‘our party right now … is pickled in identity politics and victimology….’ Do you agree or disagree?” Just about half of all respondents agreed (including nearly 45 percent of Democrats, as well as over 55 percent of Republicans). Only about 25 percent of the sample answered they were not sure (Rasmussen Reports, 2018). So, that means about 75 percent of the respondents felt they knew what the term “victimology” actually refers to—but do they really? I don’t think so.
Students might enter introductory college courses with a preexisting condition that must be confronted and remedied right at the outset: a hostility toward what they mistakenly have been told about victimology. If they believe that victimology is something to be rejected and condemned because it reflects bitterness and can be divisive, then those of us who teach courses in victimology certainly have to dispel any negative misimpressions about this branch of criminology on the first day of classes. An expanded discussion in Chapter 1 tackles this problem right away. It presents a table containing a slew of victimology-bashing quotes drawn from articles and speeches over the years so that students can spot the confusion whenever they come across it. That will enable them to get past this stumbling block and move on to the valuable and interesting insights that researchers have uncovered about the plight of persons harmed by criminals and the efforts that are underway to alleviate their suffering.
What Happened to Respect for Evidence and the Pursuit of Truth? The United States currently is beset by intense political polarization and torn by acrimonious debate. Some partisans seem hostile to the concept of expertise, disregard established facts as inconvenient truths, and dismiss damaging revelations as fake news. Instead, vague impressions, baseless claims, raw prejudices, unfounded fears, uninformed opinions, atypical cases, exaggerated negative stereotypes, and half-truths taken out of context are touted as alternative facts and new realities. As data-driven and evidence-based decision
making becomes downgraded as wonkish, policies that are ideologically driven and emotionally appealing become elevated. To counter this drift away from fact-based insights about the social problems that currently burden us all, including interpersonal violence and theft, I have adopted a new format that emphasizes data, well-grounded estimates, and other statistical measurements, such as the results of victimization surveys. Throughout this 10th edition of Crime Victims: An Introduction to Victimology, the findings unearthed by researchers are highlighted by indenting them with “bullets.” This new way of accentuating information derived from investigations is meant to consistently remind students that assertions and generalizations must be backed up by empirical proof carefully derived from the application of
scientific methods. I want to dispel any notion students might harbor that victimology is merely a mix of personal opinions and common sense rather than the accumulation of knowledge derived from the findings of carefully designed research projects and thoroughly tested theories.
A Growing Absence of Information in the Age of Big Data The third challenge I encountered while working on this 10th edition of the textbook is that several sources of data that were monitored and analyzed in
previous editions have dried up. Ironically, in this age of collecting big data, the federal government’s Bureau of Justice Statistics has phased out its State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) program, which made it possible to monitor how often judges ordered offenders to pay restitution to their victims. Also, starting with the 2016 annual Uniform Crime Report, the FBI has stopped publishing as many tables of data as it did in the past (e.g., the table about victim–offender relationships that traditionally allowed victimologists to track the number of murders committed by husbands of their wives and by boyfriends of
their girlfriends—and vice versa—is no longer being published). Also, it is no longer possible to discover how many murders started out as robberies. I also have discovered that researchers have not recently tackled some of the most important issues that should be the focus of periodic victimological investigations. For example, no recent figures are available about whether most burglary or motor vehicle victims have insurance coverage and whether it is adequate to reimburse their needs; about whether or not car alarms and burglar alarms really work and are sound investments; whether victim compensation programs run out of money before the fiscal year ends, leaving victims who apply later in the year out of luck; and whether victim–offender programs are effectively handling a greater share of criminal cases per year. In sum, many classic studies carried out decades ago need to be replicated, and several discontinued monitoring systems generating useful data streams ought to be revived.