Steven Briggs - Criminology For Dummies

If the cost of crime in the aggregate is too overwhelming, consider the cost to an individual such as a victim in a convenience store robbery who takes a bullet in the chest. He may not have health insurance to cover the hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. He probably doesn’t have disability insurance to keep providing an income while he’s in the hospital, either. If his wife has a job, she may have to take time off to care for him, which means they’ll lose some, if not all, of her income, too. Because of crime, a family can quickly suffer economic disaster through no fault of their own.

In Part 3, I discuss theories about why offenders commit crime, but criminologists also study why some people are more likely to become victims. Not surprisingly, who you are, where you live, and what kinds of activities you engage in play a huge part in whether you’re likely to become a crime victim.

The following personal characteristics have been linked to victimization in some way or another:

Age: Your age is a significant factor primarily because so many crimes are committed by young men (see Chapter 11for more on the link between age and criminality). Thus, people who hang out in the same places that young men do are much more likely to be victimized. Someone between the ages of 20 and 24 is more than twice as likely to be the victim of a violent crime as a person older than 65. Generally speaking, the older you get, the safer you are.However, as people become elderly, they do become more susceptible to property crimes, such as fraud and theft. Scam artists throughout the world focus their energy on identifying older folks whom they can easily confuse and defraud. (For a more detailed discussion of property crimes, turn to Chapter 6.)

Race: Does a person’s race play a role in victimization? Here are some facts about the link between race and victimization in 2019:For all violent crimes in 2019, African Americans were slightly less likely to be victimized than whites.Asian Americans were the least likely to suffer violence.Considering all types of serious crimes, including property crimes, Hispanics were the most likely to be victimized. However, between blacks, Hispanics, and whites, the difference in victimization was small, less than .3 percent in 2019.Most criminologists agree that these race victimization stats reflect a number of complicated factors. For example, each community where certain racial or ethnic groups are more likely to live has its own characteristics. And each racial and ethnic group experiences its own cultural trends regarding two-parent homes, income disparities, identification with gangs, and so on.In Chapter 13, I discuss societal factors that can lead to greater crime.

Gender: Although the crime victim movement often emphasizes crimes that mostly affect women, such as rape and domestic violence, the truth is that except for sex crimes, men are much more likely to become crime victims than women. Also, men are more likely to be victimized by strangers, while women are more likely to be victimized by people they know.

Income: As you may expect, the lower your household income, the greater your chances of being the victim of a crime. Again, this link between income and victimization is partly a reflection of the community you live in. As I discuss in Chapter 13, the poorer the neighborhood, the higher the crime rate generally is.

Some criminologists have turned their focus toward developing theories about why people become victims (as opposed to why people commit crimes). These new theories of victimization may help explain why groups of people are targeted more than others:

Lifestyle Theory: The way you live your life impacts your vulnerability to crime. Hanging out with street gangs, drug dealers, or even heavy-drinking sorority sisters creates a greater risk of victimization.

Precipitation Theory: Sometimes a person does something that leads to his assault. For example, a white supremacist may issue a racial slur and get punched in the face. But sometimes the victim doesn’t do anything explicit. A woman walking down the street holding her purse loosely may spark the interest of a nearby thief. Her passive act nonetheless may have precipated the crime. (This does not in any way excuse the criminal for the crime or place any blame on the victim. This theory is merely intended as an aid to understanding victimization.)

Routine Activities Theory: First put forth by criminologists Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson, this theory holds that what determines whether a person is victimized results from that person’s routine activity, made up of these three factors:The presence of motivated offenders: For example, a large number of unemployed young males in the vicinity may increase the chance of being victimized. (Young, unemployed males are more likely to commit crime. See Chapter 3for a discussion of crime statistics.)The absence of police or others who can deter crime (such as a neighborhood watch).The victim as a worthwhile target: In other words, the criminal stands to gain something from attacking the victim.

You probably see that Routine Activities Theory shares much in common with Lifestyle Theory. Both theories argue that a person’s environment can increase the risk of becoming a victim. Throughout this book you see that there is often significant overlap between different criminological theories that attempt to explain crime or crime victimization.

Today most communities provide a variety of services to victims of crime, including some or all of the ones I discuss in this section. Note that although far more people are victims of property crime than violent crime, the majority of crime victim services are set up primarily to provide help to the victims of violent crime.

After a convenience store clerk is shot during a robbery, how does he pay his medical bills? Today every state has a crime victim compensation program that helps victims pay their bills and cope with the aftermath of the crime. Typically, victim compensation programs are payers of last resort, meaning that a victim must exhaust his own personal health insurance first. Here are just a few of the expenses victim compensation programs can reimburse victims for:

Medical care

Lost wages

Grief counseling

Funeral expenses

Injury rehabilitation

Counseling for kids who witness crime

To be eligible for compensation, a person must be an innocent victim, meaning that he didn’t contribute to the criminal activity in any way. Also, he must fully cooperate with law enforcement. Victim service providers employ compensation officers to make sure victims’ claims are valid. (You may not be surprised to learn that people try to defraud the victim compensation system — which is about as low as stealing from an offering plate.)

Because the amount of funds in these programs is limited, so too is the amount of compensation a victim can get. And the type of compensation varies by state. For example, Texas excludes compensation for property crimes and limits the total amount to $50,000. Reimbursement for pain and suffering and emotional distress is also excluded.

Money to support compensation programs comes from a variety of sources. One of those sources is the criminals themselves: Federal and state governments collect fines and fees from all criminal defendants when they’re found guilty. In addition, if a defendant causes a victim’s injury and that victim receives some compensation from the state’s victim compensation program, the judge can make the defendant pay back the costs to the program.