Comparative study

Criminology and victimology

Criminology refers to the scientific study that focuses on non-legal facets of crime, and emerged during the 18^th century, due to many concerns about the use of what was regarded as subjective and cruel means of justice. It involves the studying criminal behavior of an individual, crime and its major forms, the causation of the crime and how to respond it through the criminal justice system (McShane & Williams, 2013).   

Victimology is a study that focuses on the victim in a crime, the offender and the society. The study views the law and the crime, victim and the criminal in a social-structural way. The study also involves the aspects of victim participation and facilitation in relation to the degree to which a victim is responsible for victimization, in which case the offender and the victim share responsibility for a crime between them (McShane & Williams, 2013). A basic notion in the study of facilitation and participation is the belief that a crime may be totally understood after analyzing the behavior of both the victim of the perpetrator of the crime, so as to determine the possibility of the victim’s behavior partially causing the victimization (McShane & Williams, 2013).

Victim participation theory

The theory focuses on the notion that injury or death may have resulted from a confrontation that was actually initiated by the victim.  It explores the thin line between the victim and the offender, which is perceived to be mostly blurred since the victim has partially participated in the crime (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2010).  There are two types of this theory; active participation and passive precipitation. Active participation means that a person has an offensive behavior, is provocative and aggressive and this lead to their victimization. Passive participation means that a person has some attractive social characteristics that make him or her to be targeted by criminals and thus m can unintentionally contribute the victimization.  A major weakness in this theory is that an individual may be victim while they did not actually participate in the event leading up to a crime (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2010).

Lifestyle theory

This theory attributes some the likelihood of being victimized to a person’s lifestyle. Therefore, a person can be a victim of a crime because their high risks lifestyles leaves him or her more exposed to offenders. A person who stays alone late in the night in public places may exposes them to high risks of being victimized.  Moreover, belonging to groups whose life is extremely risky such as drug dealers increases the risks of a person to be victimized (McShane & Williams, 2013).  However, a person that undergoes good transition in their life is likely to avoid lifestyles that expose them to high risks.  A major strength of this theory is that a person can chose a lifestyle that reduces their chances of being a victim of crime.

Routine Activities theory

The perspective of this theory focuses on how routine activity patters in a conventional society increases the chances for a crime to be carried out. In this theory a crime may be explained by the presence of probable targets, lack of able guardians and the presence of aggravated offenders (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2010).  The development of this theory was with an aim of accounting for crime rate changes over time and has been applied studying the various forms of crime. A major strength of this theory is that it can be used in exploring the trends and rates of crime. It can explain how the behavior of a victim can provide an opportunity for victimization. Also, the risk of a victim can be minimized through improved guardianship and reduction in target vulnerability.  The major weakness in this theory is that it downplays the role of offender’s motivation and criminality facets while trying to understand a person’s risks of victimization and the crime’s social ecology (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2010).  

 The death of family members through murder can be a traumatic experience, which leads to psychological and physical challenges.  High levels of psychological distress have been associated with these crimes including depression and complicated grief and even Posttraumatic Stress Disorder among the family members of the victims (van Denderen et. al 2016).  The crime meted on the victim is usually a family affair, where members of the family or survivors are normally overwhelmed with practical matters m emotional pain, so that their comprehension and concentration are at times impaired. Like the majority of violent crime victims, the normal response to any cases of homicide by these individuals involves a crisis (van Denderen et. al 2016).  During the process of death notification, a crisis response is elicited among the families of vitims, which involves an emotional and physical response.  The physical response is normally the first reaction and involves people’s attempt towards physical protecting themselves from the resulting trauma, and this may comprise disorientation, panic attacks or constant crying.  The psychological impact can be associated with the emotional response which may be depicted by rage, fear, confusion of frustration as the person’s brain become overwhelmed. The financial impacts of the murder crimes may involve the need to cater for expenses related to seeking for justices like the coronial or criminal court proceedings, preparation of victims for travel and preparing statements (van Denderen et. al 2016). This may also include legal fees required in the process.

The data on the rate of intentional homicides can indicate the cases of violent crimes between United States and other major economies including United Kingdom, Japan, South Africa and Australia. In general the rate of violent crimes in US is higher than the other countries other than South Africa which has the highest rate of intentional homicides rates.  The America lifestyles is  not the particular reason that put US ahead of other developed countries , but other social challenges including policies related to undocumented immigrants and  a sense of reduced respect for law enforcement officers.   Other factors that acts as motivation for violent crimes includes hate and racial, sexual orientation and religion biases.  Crime compensation in US works through various programs, where the victims are expected to apply for various payouts in the various states. All the compensation programs operate under the same basic principles of determining eligibility, but there are programs from different states may have distinct requirements.  The victims have to report the crime quickly to law enforcement, submit compensation on time and the loss must not have any other cover including insurance and governments cover (National Association of Crime Victim Compensation Boards, n.d).

References

McShane, M. D., & Williams, F. P. (2013). Victims of crime and the victimization process. Taylor & Francis. (Vol. 6).

Burgess, A. W., Regehr, C., & Roberts, A. R. (2010). Victimology: Theories and applications. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. 22-28

van Denderen, M., de Keijser, J., Huisman, M., & Boelen, P. A. (2016). Prevalence and correlates of self-rated posttraumatic stress disorder and complicated grief in a community-based sample of homicidally bereaved individuals. Journal of interpersonal violence, 31(2), 207-227.