Investigate How Victims Are Faring
Zero in on the criminal justice system’s response. Motor vehicle collisions are a major cause of injury,
disability, and death, especially of young people. On a soci- etal level, vehicle crashes are a major source of shattered lives, emotional damage (including phobias, and in extreme cases, post-traumatic stress disorder), truncated opportu- nities, missed work, and other losses and expenses. Since some unknown proportion of highway carnage is attributable to road rage, this societal problem may impose serious unrecognized consequences for public safety and social well- being. How are the police, courts, and insurance companies addressing these issues of?
Criminologists and criminal justice officials debate whether offenders might need to be punished (through stiff fines and time behind bars) to teach them a lesson not to drive recklessly again (specific deterrence), and to hold them up as negative role models to serve as a warning to other would-be road warriors (general deterrence). Incapacitation (through license suspensions and incarceration) will serve to protect other motorists by removing them from the driver’s seat. Treatment (such as anger management, time manage- ment, and stress management) might be called for if that is the source of their dangerously aggressive behavior behind the wheel. But what could and should be done for the objects of their wrath? If the homogamy thesis is correct, then vic- tims might be negatively stereotyped as potential perpetra- tors themselves. The authorities might automatically handle the “ostensible targets” of road rage differently than other innocent victims of physical violence because these
individuals might bear some responsibility for the breaking of laws this time—and the next time, they could be the offenders.
Victim-centered questions that researchers need to address include these: What happens in police stations, courtrooms, and in insurance offices when the authorities believe that both parties are partially to blame? Are charges against the defendant reduced or dismissed if it appears that the injured party contributed in some way to the escalation of the confrontation? Do insurance companies reduce the amounts of reimbursement for damages or medical treatment, or deny the applications entirely, in cases of mutual combat? In contrast, in cases where the injured parties are blameless, are the sentences harsher on those convicted of highway mayhem than of comparable street brawls? Do innocent tar- gets of road rage get the same assistance and exercise the same rights as innocent victims of violent street crimes? How these victims’ cases actually are handled ought to be a prime concern of victimologists.