INITAO COLLEGE Course Code: Criminology 1

Jampason, Initao, Misamis Oriental Course Title: Introduction to

1st Semester, S.Y. 2020 - 2021 Criminology

Instructor: Subject Schedule: Tuesday

Chule Tom B. Cagalawan, RCrim. 10:00 to 12:00 & 1:00 to 2:00
Mobile Number:
09363964432 Facebook Group Page:
e-mail address: Bachelor of Science in
tomchulecagalawan@gmail.com Criminology Initao College
Contact Schedule: (official page)
M,T,W,Th and F; 8:00am - 5:00pm
MODULE 12
Topic: VICTIMOLOGY Desired Learning Outcomes:
Duration: 3 hours 

Specific Instruction: this module serves as your notes. Write the important words with regards to the topic.

INTRODUCTION:

This topic is the continuation of module 11. For broader discussion on the topic about “victimology”.

Kinds of Crime Victim

The kinds of victim are as follows:

1. Direct or Primary Crime Victim

This kind of victim directly suffer the harm or injury which is physical, psychological, and economic losses.

2. Indirect or Secondary Crime Victim

Victims who experience the harm second hand, such as intimate partners or significant others of rape victims
or children of a battered woman. This may include family members of the primary victims. However, Karmen (2007)
also included first responders and rescue workers who race to crime scenes (such as police officers, forensic evidence
technicians, paramedics, firefighters and the like) as secondary victims because they are also exposed to emergencies
and trauma on such a routine basis and that they also need emotional support themselves.

3. Tertiary Crime Victim

Victims who experience the harm vicariously, such as through media accounts, the scared public or
community due to watching news regarding crime incidents.

Note: The Supreme Court of the United States first recognized the rights of crime victims to make a victim impact
statement in the sentencing phase of a criminal trial in the case of Payne vs Tennessee 501 U.S 808 (1991)

What is Victim Impact Panel?

A victim impact panel is a form of community-based or restorative justice in which the crime victims (or
relatives and friends of deceased crime victims) meet with the defendant after conviction to tell the convict about
how the criminal activity affected them, on the hope of rehabilitation or deterrence.

Victim Assistance

The following are the ideal supports to be given to victims:

1. Victims should receive the necessary material, medical, psychological and social assistance through government,
voluntary, community-based and indigenous means.
2. Victims should be informed of the availability of health and social services and other relevant assistance and be
readily afforded access to them.

3. Police justice, health, social service and other personnel concerned should receive and other relevant assistance
and be readily afforded access to them to the needs of victims, and guidelines to ensure proper and prompt aid.

4. In providing services and assistance to victims, attention should be given to those who have special needs because
of the nature of the harm inflicted or because of factors such as those mentioned in paragraph 3 above.

Mendelsohn (1937)

He interviewed victims to obtain information, and his analysis led him to believe that most victims had an
“unconscious aptitude for being victimized.”

Mendelsohn’s Types of Victim

1. Innocent – Portrayed as just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

2. Victim with only minor guilt and was victimized due to ignorance.

3. Victim who is just as guilty as the offender and the voluntary victim. Suicide case is common to this category.

4. The victim guiltier than the offender - this category was described was described as containing persons who
provoked the criminal or actively induced their own victimization.

5. The Most Guilty Victim “who is guilty alone” – An attacker killed by a would-be victim in the act of defending
themselves.

6. The Imaginary Victim – A victims suffering from mental disorders, or those victims with extreme mental
abnormalities.

According to Mendelsohn, the last five types all contributed somehow to their own injury, and represented
as victim precipitation.

1. Depressive type – A victim who lacks ordinary prudence and discretion. It is an easy target, careless and
unsuspecting. They are submissive by virtue of emotional condition.

2. Greedy of Gain or Acquisitive Type – A victim who lacks all normal inhibitions and well-founded suspicions. This
victim is easily duped because his or her motivation for easy gain lowers his or her natural tendency to be suspicious.

3. Wanton or Overly Sensual Type – A victim where “female foibles play a role. This victim is particularly vulnerable
to stresses that occur at a given period of time in the life cycles, such as juvenile victims. Further, this victim is ruled
by passion and thoughtlessly seeking pleasure.

4.. Tormentor type – The victim of attack from the target of his or her abuse, such as with battered women. The most
primitive way of solving a personal conflict is to annihilate physical the cause of the trouble (Walklate, (2007).

5. Lonesome Type – This is the same to the acquisitive type of victim, by virtue of wanting companionship or
affection.

6. Heartbroken type – This victim is emotionally disturbed by virtue of heartaches and pains (Manwong, 2008)

Von Hentig’s Classes of Victim

The Following are the classes of victim according to Hentig:

1. The Young – The young is weak by virtue of age and immaturity.

2. The Female – Female is physically less powerful and is easily dominated by male.

3. The Old – The Old is incapable of physical defense and the common object of illegal scheme.

4. The Mentally Defective – Mentally Defective person is unable to think clearly.

5. The Immigrant – Immigrant is unsure of the rules of conduct in the surrounding society.
6. The minorities – Racial prejudice may lead to victimization or unequal treatment by the agency of justice
(Manwong).

Segment 2: Crime Prevention and Protection Principles

Crime Prevention and Protection

This can be broadly defined as anything that reduces the level of crime and/or the perceived fear of crime.

Frameworks of Crime Prevention are:

1. it is focused on making the environment safe from crime;

2. It may reduce the potential for crime in high-risk potential situations, and

3. Halt the possibility of future crime.

These three areas of action (safe environment, high-risk potential and future crime) have been
conceptualized as primary, secondary and tertiary prevention (Brantingham & Faust, 1976)

Frameworks of Crime Protection are:

1. It is focused on ensuring victims their r to rights assistance and attention to their needs, and

2. It particularly emphasized prevention of re-victimization.

The action was exemplified by ideals contained in the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, but also by other governmental and non-governmental programs involving victim assistance, advocacy,
compensation, reparations, reconciliation, restoration and reintegration.

Stages of Primary Crime Prevention are:

Primary Prevention can be done in any context or location, whether a residence, workplace, school,
neighborhood, community, or society. Primary prevention involves altering the environment in such a way that the
root causes, or atleast the facilitators, of crime are eliminated.

Theories of Primary Crime Prevention are:

a. Social Disorganization theory (Shaw and Mckay, 1942)

Social Disorganization Theory states that residential mobility and racial heterogeneity led people to have
little interest in improving their neighborhood and more of an interest in moving out, leaving behind an area where
crime could easily occur.

b. Defensible Space Theory (Newman’s, 1972)

Defensible Space theory of defensible space, like its counterpart in the field of private security called
Crime Prevention through Environment Design, tends to focus on preventing easy access and exit by potential
criminals as well as the elimination of their hiding places and where they can geographically select a target.

c. Routine Activity Theory (Cohen and Felson’s 1979)

RAT posits a high rate of potential victims becoming actual victims whenever three things occur in space
and time together: the absence of capable guradians; an abundance of motivated offenders; and suitable targets.

d. Broken Window theory (Wilson and Kelling’s, 1982)

Broken Window Theory argues that signs of decay, disorder and incivilities, such as abandoned building,
broken street lights, and graffiti all invite potential criminals to an area.

On a larger level, primary prevention can be based on macro-social theories about the causes of crime in
society, with examples of such efforts being job, housing, education, healthcare, and religious programs (Lavrakas,
1997).

2. Secondary Prevention
 Secondary Prevention involves a focus upon specific problems, places, and time with the twin foals of
reducing situation-specific opportunities for crime and increasing the risks for committing crime. Following Clarke
91980), many people call this Situational Crime Prevention. Secondary Prevention is most typically based on well-
established law enforcement practices, such as:

a. problem-oriented policing where the problem drives a team solution;

b. hot spots analyses which targets certain areas for saturation or directed patrol;

c. surveillance and target-hardening which increase the risk and effort for committing crime;

d. property identification;

e. security lighting;

f. intrusion alarms;

g. neighborhood watch;

h. citizen patrols;;

i. protection personnel, and

j. efforts on the part of victims to change their lifestyles.

A major criticism of secondary prevention is that it doesn’t really reduce crime, but displaces it to other
areas.

3. Tertiary Prevention is a term taken from the field of medicine to describe procedures to be taken after a disease
or threat is manifest. Such procedures typically serve a deterrence or minimization of harm purpose, and are almost
alwaus characterized by being reactive, or after the fact. Examples would include personal injury or property
insurance as well as self-protective measures engaged in by those who have been victimized previously. Carrying a
non-concealed self-protective device or walking. Carrying a concealed device or whistle to blow for help
accomplishes the purpose of minimization, or at least the chance unsuccessful criminal outcome.

Tertiary Prevention is often symbolic, as with get-tough legislation and other legal reforms which make
the punishment for crime more certain, severe, and swift.

Segment 3: Criminal Justice System Response to Victim

First of all, we need to know who the victims are. While crime victim-related research of 40 and 50 years
ago examined the characteristics of victims, much of it approached the issue from the perspective of “shared
responsibility,” that is how crime victims were, in part, “responsible” for their victimization.

In recent decades, the paradigm has shifted. The contemporary study of the characteristics of crime
victims has tended to focus on identifying risk factors in order to better understand the phenomenon, without
attributing blame to the victims. Information about the risk for victimization has been used to develop crime
prevention and enforcement strategies.

Researched indicates that there is a host of individual, situational, and community-level factors that
increases risk of criminal victimization. Let’s look the individual factors. Individuals can be described in terms of their
socio-demographic characteristics. These characteristics are encapsulated in the acronym S.A.U.C.E.R.

The risks of becoming a crime victim varies as a function of S.A.U.C.E.R:

1. SEX – Male or Female

2. Age – Young, middle aged, or elderly

3. Urban – urban or rural

4. Class – Socioeconomic class

5. Ethnicity – Racial characteristics

6. Religion – Religious preference

“homan”