Criticism of Victim Typologies
All of these victim typologies figure out some way to quantify or categorize the victims’ responsibility in their own victimization, with some criticism.
1. Victim’s level of responsibility is important because it influences both the response of the criminal justice system and society. However, the issue with the concept of victim responsibility is that it results in victim blaming, drawing attention away from the role of the offender in the crime.
2. Eigenberg and Garland (2008) point out that most victim typologies rely on victims and do not account for all those who were not victimized in the general population, which creates a circular logic. It makes it impossible to research whether there are differences between victims and the general population that truly lead to victimization.
3. Victim typologies assume there was more that victims could have done to ensure they were not victimized (Eigenberg & Garland, 2008), which ignores the risks people face in society and that it is impossible to fully protect oneself from victimization. It also puts an unwarranted level of responsibility on victims to change their lifestyles to prevent their victimization. Furthermore, it ignores that fact that many people are victims within their home or workplace. People are often not in a position to change where they live or work to reduce their risk. It creates a false impression that individuals can and should be doing more to prevent their own victimization.
4. Blaming victims for even some of their victimization creates a social narrative around victims being somehow different from non-victims, thus warranting different treatment by society. This can lead to secondary victimization, or the experience of being punished by society for being a victim, which is one of the more common reasons why people do not seek help when they are victimized: Their silence ensures that they are not socially punished.
These early victim researchers, regardless of the flaws in their work, led to the academic study of victimization. The field has branched into both academic studies as well as activism and advocacy work, which inform each other to craft the current field. The next section in this module looks at how social movements have played a role in crafting narratives around victimization as well as creating legal and social changes to help victims.