INTRODUCTION TO

CRIMINOLOGY
Lecture 5
Modernity and risk
Crime and victimisation

___________________________
Dr Peter Stiernstedt, CPP, CISM
Lecturer in Criminology
University of West London
T: 020 8231 2998
1 E: peter.stiernstedt@uwl.ac.uk
Twitter: @omniumrerum
 Study skills
workshop
30 mins

2
 Session 5 overview

Modernity and risk Crime and victimisation

 Traditional and modern Victimology – what is a victim?

societies Victim-proneness

 Advanced liberalism Factors of victimisation

 The culture of control Impact of victimisation

 Criticisms of the risk society

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Modernity and risk
Lecture 5
Part 1

4
 Introduction

 The contemporary world

 What are the major trends affecting the criminal justice

system?
 Emerging themes

 Governmentality

 Risk
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 What defines modernity?

 The essential difference between

modern and traditional society, most

theorists of modernization contend, lies
in the greater control which modern
man has over his natural and social
environment.

 This control, in turn, is based on the

expansion of scientific and

technological knowledge. 6
(Huntington, 1996)
 The modernisation process

Modernisation is: 1. Lengthy

1. Revolutionary 2. Phased
2. Complex 3. Homogenising
3. Systemic 4. Irreversible
4. Global 5. Progressive

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(Huntington, 1971)
 From Modernity to Late modernity

1. Changes in the nature of production and consumption, including the impact of

globalisation on markets and the new insecurity of employment.

2. Changing nature of families and households, including increasing female

employment, rising divorce rates, etc.

3. Changes in social ecology, including to time and space as a result of transport and
communications.

4. The social impact of the electronic mass media.

5. Democratisation in social life (declining deference and diminishing power rations

between men and women, social groups, etc.)
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(Garland & Sparks, 2000)
 From Modernity to Late modernity

1. Difference 1. Mediated

2. Fragmentation 2. Actuarial

3. Intensity 3. Internecine

4. Transience conflict
4. Reinvention

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(Young, 2007)
 “Steering and rowing”

The The Keynesian The New

Nightwatchman State Regulatory State
State
• Prior to the • Much greater • Shift toward a
19th century central state redefinition of
most of the control and the role of the
steering and belief in the state in which
most of the ability of the it steers but
rowing is done state to leaves the task
in civil society regulate. State of rowing to
rather than the involved in civil society.
state. much steering,
but is weak on
rowing.
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Adapted from Braithwaite (2000)
 The next era

 The Single European Act of 1986 included the objective of the internal

market in the EEC Treaty, defining it as ‘an area without internal frontiers
in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is
ensured’.

 Changing nature of:

Capital and business

Service delivery

Human capital

Physical goods

 To a more international/transnational affair beyond the control of the

nation state. 11
 Michel Foucault

 Madness, Power and Sexuality

 “Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in

the Age of Reason” 1961

 “Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison” 1975

 “The History of Sexuality” 1976

1. Without the exercise of power there is no knowledge

2. There is no power without knowledge

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1926 - 1984
 “Conduct of conduct”

 The ways we think about the process of governing.

 Sought to break with state-centred analysis.

 At the centre of the approach – the active subject.

Decision-making in line with aims of government.

Not a “find the lady” trick

 A shift away from punishment and control

as the imposition of government authority

on individual citizens

 Also concerned with how individuals

are involved in their own governance.

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 “Advanced liberalism”

 Recasting the ideal role of the state from a guarantor of

security to ‘at a distance’ governance.

 Changing the formal architecture of the state – emphasising

the importance of citizen engagement.

 Prudentalism – where individuals and organisations take

upon themselves responsibility for security and protection
(O’Malley, 1992, 2000)

 Responsibilisation – encouraging citizens to consider crime

prevention, risk, loss and security
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(Garland, 2001)
 Responsibilisation

“It involves a way of thinking and a variety of techniques

designed to change the manner in which governments act upon
crime. Instead of addressing crime in a direct fashion by means
of the police, the courts and the prisons, this approach promotes a
new kind of indirect action in which state agencies activate action
by non-state organisations and actors. The intended result is an
enhanced network of more or less directed, more or less informal
crime control, contemplating and extending the formal controls
of the criminal justice state.”
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(Garland, 2001: 124)
The discipline of Disney world

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(Shearing & Stenning, 1987)
 Control in modern society is:

 Embedded  Non-coercive

 Preventive  Consensual

 Subtle  Employing surveillance

 Co-operative  …

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 The culture of control

 From economic equality to

distribution and control of risks

 Risks not diminished by wealth.

 Politics less about creating ‘good

society’ and more about avoiding

catastrophe.’
 What are the implications of the

risk society for crime and criminal

(Garland, 2001)
justice?
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12 indices of changes (1-4)

2. The re-emergence of
1. The decline of the
punitive sanctions and
rehabilitative ideal
expressive justice

3. Changes in the emotional

4. The return of the victim
tone of crime and policy
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12 indices of changes (5-8)

5. Above all, the public 6. Politicisation and the

must be protected new populism

7. The reinvention of the 8. The transformation of

prison criminological thought
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12 indices of changes (9-12)

9. The expanding infrastructure of 10. Civil society and the

crime prevention and community commercialisation of crime
safety control

11. New management styles and

12. A perpetual sense of crisis
working practises
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Gated communities

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Crime and victimisation
Lecture 5
Part 2

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 Introduction

 The victim – from obscurity into the limelight.

 Crimes and criminals (and victims)

 The nature of victimisation

 Under what circumstances are peopled treated and or

labelled as victims and what are the consequences thereof?

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 Victim-ology

 VICTIM -The United Nations defines victims as “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… “ (United Nations, 1985)

 OLOGY – Greek and Latin roots and means the “study of…”.

 Criminology – The study of crime, the causes of crime, and its

consequences.

 Victimology – The study of victims, the causes of victimisation, and its

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consequences.
 Victimology

 Victimology is is the scientific study of crime victims, a

subfield of criminology, that:

1. Analyses the causes of victimisation

2. Examines the consequences of victimisation

3. Looks at the role of the criminal justice system in

accommodating and helping victims

4. Analyses influential elements of society (e.g. the media) to

show how they deal with crime victims.
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Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power

 ‘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 familiar 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 victimisation.

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(United Nations, 1985)
 What is a victim?

 Christie (1986) suggests that “victims” are a socially

constructed concept.

 The “ideal” victim is promoted via media channels and

reflects the “victim ideal” of the police and the CJS.

 Can you describe the characteristics of a victim?

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Six major attributes of the ideal victim

1. The victim is weaker than the offender.

2. The victim is virtuous or going about their everyday business.

3. The victim is blameless for what has happened to them.

4. The victim is unrelated to and does not know the offender.

5. The offender is unquestionably wicked.

6. The victim has requisite power, influence or sympathy to achieve victim status

uncontroversially.
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(Christie, 1986)
 1. The victim is weak

 Difficult to ascertain if the victim is actually ‘weaker’ than

the offender.

 Perceived relationship between stronger offender-weaker

victim (e.g. male-female; young-infirm; adult-child)

 Does not always stand-up against the empirical evidence.

 Just world theory (Learner & Miller, 1978)

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 2. The victim is virtuous

 Routine activity theory argues that attention should be focused

on the situation in which the offence takes place.

 A motivated offender
 A suitable target
 The absence of a capable guardian (Felson, 1979)

 However crimes committed by corporations against workers

(e.g. Health and safety violations) or civilians (e.g.

environmental damage) do not31 easily fit into this structure.
 3. The victim is blameless

 Controversies around the question of victim-precipitation (the degree to

which a victim ‘encourages’ their own victimisation).

 “the identification of factors which contribute to a non-random pattern of

victimisation, a focus on interpersonal crimes of violence, and a concern to

identify victims who may have contributed to their own victimisation.”

Miers (1989: 3)

 Defensive attribution hypothesis (Shaver, 1970)

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 4. The victim is unrelated

 Nearly 50% of all cases of violent crime the perpetrator and the

victim know each other.

 33% of violent incidents reported are classified as ‘acquaintance

violence’

 15% were incidents of domestic violence.

 44% of victims of domestic violence were the most likely to suffer

repeat victimisation.
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 5. The offender is wicked

Research discovered the following characteristics in the 180 male convicted

murderers interviewed in England and Scotland:

 61% had problems at school

 39% were from ‘broken homes’

 24% came from families in which the father used violence against the mother.

 26% had been in care.

 25% had problems with alcohol as children.

 10% had learning disabilities.

 25% had mental health problems

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(Dobash et al., 2002)
 6. The victim has victim status

 Feminists have highlighted that some women have been so poorly treated by the

criminal justice system when reporting rape and sexual assault that they have

suffered secondary victimisation- the experience of being victimised all over again.

 In a 1982 fly-on-the-wall BBC documentary called Police, one officer responds to

a woman who claimed that she had been raped stating, ‘This is the biggest bollocks

I’ve ever heard’.

 Although the above quote was in 1982 many reported rape cases do not end in

prosecution.

 In 2013-14 in England and Wales, about 16,000 rapes were recorded by police, but

only a third of these cases were sent to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Approximately 15% of the recorded offences

35 resulted in a charge.
 Victimisation and offending

 Criminals are more frequently victimised than non criminals.

 Victims of violent crime themselves have criminal involvements.

 Likelihood of being murder as a function of number of arrests.

 Important to not overstate these links.

 ‘Victim’ and ‘offender’ not always different types of people.

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(Fattah, 1991; Dobrin, 2001; Bottoms & Costell, 2001)
 Sixfold typology of victim-proneness

 Precipitation – Where one may precipitate or encourage one’s own victimisation

 Facilitation – Putting oneself, deliberately or otherwise, at risk of crime.

 Vulnerability – Physical attributes which increase risk. 

 Opportunity – One cannot be victimised if there is no opportunity.

 Attractiveness – Display of wealth may draw attention.

 Impunity – Where one is perceived as an easy target that will not seek retribution.

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(Sparks, 1982)
 Information on victims?

 Victim data is collected by undertaking victims surveys.

 The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) formerly known as the

British Crime Survey (BCS).

 The data is both an alternative to and supplementary to police statistics.

 Provides more information about the nature of crime and can help identify

and measure trends.

 Assists in identifying increased risks associated with sociological factors.

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 Victim survey disadvantages

 Knowledge of Incidents – household knowledge will be limited as only one person in the

household is interviewed.

 Not telling – some respondents fail to reveal everything for reasons previously explained.

 Memory decay – respondents may forget.

 Telescoping – some events, particularly those perceived to be more serious may feel as though

they have occurred more recently than is actually the case.

 Education – the level the respondent is educated to may affect their ability to deal with the

questions or the interviewer.

 Multiple and serial incidents – victimisation surveys divide the respondents experiences into

discrete events, which may not be how these are experienced.

 Interview conditions – factors such as who the interviewer was, time of day, whether

computer-aided questioning is used may affect39the outcome of the interview.

(Hope, 2005)
 Factors of victimisation

1.Socio-Economic Status
2.Age

3.Race
4.Gender
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 1. Socio-Economic Status

 The risk of most crime are greater for those living in the most deprived areas.

 Unemployed people are twice as likely to be victims of violence than employed

people.

 20% of communities with highest rates of crime have a higher proportion of poor

than affluent.

A study demonstrated high levels of victimisation of the homeless. This included:

 67 % of respondents experiencing a theft (compared with 1 % of adults in England

and Wales)

 8 % suffering sexual assault (compared with too few to count in the BCS)

 10 %had suffered someone urinating on 41them (Newburn and Rock, 2006)

 2. Age

 More than 35% of young people aged 10 to 15 were victims of at least one

personal attack compared with 14% for those aged 26 to 65 (Wood 2005).

 According to the Crime and Justice Survey (2003) theft from the person was

highest for 18 and 19 year olds; and robbery for 16 to 19 year olds.

 More than 10% of homicides in Britain each year are carried out by parents

against their children with children under one year of age at risk more than any

other age group (Muncie 2009).

 According to UNICEF (2006) an estimated 275 million children worldwide are

routinely exposed to domestic violence including more than 900,000 in the UK.

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 3. Race

 According to the 2009/10 BCS the adult group that experienced the highest

level of personal crimes were those who classified themselves as mixed

ethnicity (9.1%).

 Asian and mixed ethnicity respondents were more likely to report that

crime had risen in their local area (44 and 42 % respectively) than Whites

and Blacks (30 % for both).

 In London Asians reported ten times more incidents of victimisation than

did Whites (Ignaski 2008).

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 4. Gender

 According to the national victim surveys carried out in the United

Kingdom, men are twice as likely to experience violence than women

(Croall 2011).

 The 2007/08 BCS indicates that women are three times more likely to

suffer domestic violence than men, whereas men are three times more

likely to be victims of stranger violence than women.

 In England and Wales for 2006/07 approximately three-quarters of the

homicide victims were male.

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 Impact of victimisation

 Physical

Rape an act of violence with sex as a weapon (Burgess & Holmstrom, 1974).

 Behavioural

Problems of ‘social functioning’.

 Emotional and psychological

Depression and anxiety.

 Financial

Direct and indirect costs.

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 Secondary victimisation

 Not to confuse with the terms ‘repeat’ and ‘multiple’ victimisation, often used

interchangeably.

1. Repeat victimisation - a person who experiences the same type of offence more

than once within a 12 month period (e.g., two or more burglaries).

2. Multiple victimisation - a person who experiences more than one offence within a

12 month period, regardless of the type of offence. (New Zealand Crime and Safety

Survey, 2009)

3. Secondary victimisation - the victim-blaming attitudes, behaviours, and practices

engaged in by community service providers, which results in additional trauma for
sexual assault survivors. (Campbell & Raja, 2005)

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Thank you for listening!

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