At all times there was a criminal and his victim. But only in the twentieth century did the law take shape into a single concept that served as the beginning of such a subject of research as victimology. The basis of the theory is that any victim has a certain set of characteristics that make her become the object of a perfect crime. However, everything is more detailed.
Areas of study
Before talking about such a social phenomenon as victimization, as well as identifying the reasons for its development and influence on other processes of development of society, it is necessary to clarify the basic concepts of this term. I must say that such areas of scientific knowledge, such as psychology, sociology, pedagogy, jurisprudence, etc., deal with this problem, which puts this topic in the ranks of the most relevant.
General concept
Victimization is a social process in which a person becomes a victim of a crime. Simply put, this is the result of the actions of the criminal in relation to the victim. Here it is worth defining the concept of victimization. It refers to the tendency to become a victim. Thus, victimization and victimization are inextricable concepts in which the former is a characteristic of the latter. In this case, it can be measured by the number of cases of harm and the totality of the characteristics of the victims of the crime.
Victimization: concept and types
The founder of such a subject as victimology was L.V. Frank. Actually, without its influence the concept of victimization would not have developed. So, Frank introduces his definition of the term. According to him, victimization is a process of becoming a victim, as well as its result, regardless of whether this is a single case or a massive one.
However, immediately after this, a flurry of criticism fell upon Frank. Other researchers note that the concepts of the process and its result should differ from each other, and not be a single whole.
For example, Rivman argues that victimization is an act in which a crime committed against a person affects the development of his addiction. And if a person turns from a potential victim into a real one, then this process is called “victimization-result”.
Process communication
In evidence, it is worth noting that these two phenomena are inextricably linked. Any action aimed at achieving the state of the victim has its logical conclusion.
This means that at the moment when the person was attacked, no matter what the outcome of the event was, he already automatically acquires the status of a victim. In this case, the attack itself is victimization in the concept of the process. And the person in respect of whom the crime was committed, is a result.
That is why victimization is the process of the influence of one event on another. The more crimes occur, the higher the risk of becoming a victim.
Case Study
In order to understand the circumstances under which an ordinary person becomes a victim of a crime, a number of studies are needed.
Victimization and its degree are determined in the presence of summary data on the number of all victims. It does not depend on the gravity of the crime, its outcome and the presence of other factors that provoked the incident.
Simply put, victimization is the totality of all cases when an object has suffered moral or physical damage.
Everything else, thanks to the study of the degree of predisposition to becoming a victim, we can talk about such a thing as crime. If we draw parallels between the cause and the consequence of these phenomena, the conclusion suggests itself. The more victims, the higher the crime rate, which means that human destructiveness is actively developing as an element of the social life of society.
Types of Victimization
Like any other phenomenon, the process of becoming a victim is divided into species. So, by its nature, it can be individual or mass.
In the first case, it is understood that the damage is done to one specific person.
In the second case, we are talking about a social phenomenon - the totality of both the victims of the crime and the acts of harm themselves, provided that the place and time are certain, as well as the availability of qualitative and quantitative characteristics. Another such massive phenomenon is defined by the term "crime."
Also, depending on the degree of social coordination of both crime itself and the subject's predisposition to it, the following types of this process are distinguished:
1) Primary. It means harming a specific person at the time of the crime itself. It doesn’t matter if it was moral, material or physical damage.
2) Secondary victimization is indirect harm. It can be associated, for example, with the immediate environment, when all members of his family suffer from theft of property of one person. There are other methods of indirect harm. It is expressed in hanging labels, accusations of provoking illegal actions, alienation, humiliation of honor and dignity, and other actions aimed at desocializing the victim.
3) Tertiary. It refers to the impact on the victim through law enforcement or the media for their own purposes.
Sometimes a quaternary is also distinguished, understanding under it such a thing as genocide.
Victim Types
Since the concepts of process and result are inseparable from each other, the types of the latter should also be clarified.
Victimism happens:
1) Individual. It consists of a combination of personal qualities and the influence of the situation. It is understood as a predisposition or already realized ability to become a victim in conditions when, objectively, the situation allowed to avoid this.
2) Mass. It means a collection of people with a number of qualities that determine their degree of vulnerability to criminal acts. Moreover, each individual person acts as an element of this system.
At the same time, mass victimization has its subspecies, including group, object-species, and subject-species.
Psychological Theories of Victimization
As mentioned above, the concept of victimization puzzled many disciplines. Including psychology. Many scientists have put forward their theories of explaining why a person turns into a victim. Consider the most popular of them.
According to Fromm, Erickson, Rogers and others, victimization is (in psychology) a special phenomenon inherent in every person due to the presence of destructive features. At the same time, a destructive orientation goes not only outside, but also towards oneself.
Freud also adhered to this concept, however, explained that without conflict there can be no development. The concept of the confrontation of two instincts fits here : self-preservation and self-destruction.
At the same time, Adler says that aggressive attraction is inherent in every person. And typical behavior is a reflection of inferiority. It does not matter if it is real or imaginary.
Stekel’s argument is also interesting. According to him, in dreams a person manifests his hatred, a valid attitude towards the surrounding reality and a tendency to manifest a drive to death.
But Horney most likely relates his reasoning to pedagogical activity. He says that the personality is formed from childhood. Many factors can affect the manifestation of neurosis and, as a result, the difficulty of social functioning.
Victimization is ... in pedagogy
By the way, according to pedagogical theories, there are several age stages at which the risk of developing victimization is increased. There are 6 of them:
1) The period of intrauterine development, when the influence is through the parents and their wrong lifestyle.
2) Preschool period. Ignoring the need for love for parents, misunderstanding of peers.
3) Junior school period. Excessive custody or, on the contrary, its absence on the part of parents, development of various defects, rejection by teachers or peers.
4) The teenage period. Drunkenness, smoking, drug addiction, molestation, the influence of criminal groups.
5) Early youth. Unwanted pregnancy, attribution of non-existent defects, alcoholism, failure in relationships, bullying by peers.
6) Youth. Poverty, alcoholism, unemployment, failure in relationships, inability to further education.
Conclusion
Thus, we determined what victimization and victimization are, the concept and types of this phenomenon. The presence of certain personality traits gives reason to attribute it to a risk group when confronted with various illegal actions. The only way out of this situation is the help of specialists, aimed both at the prevention of this phenomenon, and at eliminating its consequences.