Concerning courtroom strategies:
■ A news magazine columnist (Leo, 2002) took a swipe at certain lawsuits: “Yes, everybody is a victim now, but some breakthroughs in victimology are more noteworthy than others. The year’s best example was the trio of supersize teens who sued McDonald’s, claiming the burger chain made them fat by enticing them to eat its meals nearly every day for five years.”
■ In a critique of several jury verdicts that found defen- dants “not guilty,” a news magazine commentator (Leo, 1994) complained, “We are deep into the era of the abuse excuse. The doctrine of victimology—claiming
(Continued)
W H A T I S V I CT I M O LO G Y ? 15
9781337027786, Crime Victims: An Introduction to Victimology, Ninth Edition, Karmen – © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. No distribution allowed without express authorization.
F O S T E R , C E D R I C 1 6 9 2 T S
murders; how Klan terror often went unpunished; and how injustices within the criminal justice pro- cess such as police brutality and racial profiling con- tinue right up to the present.
Similarly, a leading figure in the women’s liberation movement of the late 1960s analyzed “sexual politics” in a victimist way (Millet, 1970): “Oppressed groups have been denied education, economic independence, the power of office, representation, an image of dignity and self- respect, equality of status, and recognition as human beings. Throughout history women have been consistently denied all of these, and their denial today, while attenuated and partial, is never- theless consistent.” A victimist perspective about the history of female oppression would point out how in the past girls and young women who testi- fied that they had been raped felt as if they were put on trial; how battered women’s pleas for help were ignored by the men at the helm of the criminal justice system; and how females were barred from serving on juries and were strongly discouraged from pursuing various careers, such as becoming a police officer, lawyer, or judge.
Staunch critics of current conditions often connect the dots by tracing the roots of today’s
social problems back through centuries of system- atic subjugation. Activists believe that the unfair practices of the past persist right up to the present. But the commentators cited in Box 1.2 claim that adopting this kind of victimist orientation leads to an unhealthy preoccupation of dwelling on past wrongs that impedes efforts to make prog- ress today.
This debate over who or what is to blame for persisting injustices surrounding sex, class, and race is part of an ongoing political battle for the hearts and minds of the American people—a continuing ideological struggle that is often categorized as “identity politics,” which is part of the “culture wars.” Unfortunately, victimology has become confused with victimism and as a result has been caught up in the cross fire between partisans of the Right and Left. But victimology, as an “-ology” and not an “-ism,” is an objective, neu- tral, open-minded, and evenhanded scientific endeavor that does not take sides, play favorites, or speak with just one voice in these political debates. So there is no reason to condemn the whole scholarly enterprise of victimology and dis- miss it as flawed, distorted, or slanted, as the com- mentators quoted in Box 1.2 did. To put it bluntly,
victim status means you are not responsible for your actions—is beginning to warp the legal system.…. The irony of this seems to escape victimologists. A move- ment that began with the slogan, ‘Don’t blame the victim’ now strives to blame murder victims for their own deaths.”
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