SOURCES OF BIAS THAT THWART OBJECTIVITY
To sum up the arguments presented in earlier sec- tions, when choosing projects to research and when gathering and interpreting data, victimologists must put aside their personal political orientations toward
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criminal justice policies (such as conservatism or liberalism); their allegiances to causes (such as pre- serving civil liberties or advancing women’s rights or outlawing abortion); and any positive or negative feelings toward entire groups (such as being pro- police or hostile to gun owners). Advocacy, whether for or against some policy or practice, should be kept separate from assessing the facts or drawing conclusions based on the available data. Scientific skepticism in the face of claims (“Prove it! Where is the evidence?”)—not self-interest or preconceived notions—must prevail when evaluat- ing whether victims’ rights legislation, prevention strategies, antitheft hardware, and recovery pro- grams genuinely work or are ineffective or even counterproductive in reaching their stated goals. Expert opinion, in reports, in court testimony, or in the classroom, must be based on facts, not faith. Research, policy analyses, and program evaluations must tell the whole truth, no matter who is disap- pointed or insulted.
Three types of biases undermine the ability of any social scientists (not just victimologists) to achieve objectivity and draw conclusions based on solid evidence (see Myrdal, 1944). The first may arise from personal experiences, taking the form of individual preferences and prejudices. For example, victimologists who have been personally harmed in some way (beaten by a lover, robbed, or raped, for example) might become so sensitized to the plight of their fellow victims that they can see issues only from that point of view. Conversely, those who have never been through such an ordeal might be unable to truly grasp what the injured parties must endure. In either case, the victimologist may develop a bias, whether it be oversensitivity and overidentification or insensitivity and lack of identification.
A second type of bias derives from the legacy of the discipline itself. The language, concepts, theories, and research priorities can reflect the collective preferences and priorities of its founders and their followers. For instance, it is widely acknowledged that the pioneers in this field of study introduced a victim-blaming orientation into the new discipline, but over the decades the tide has decisively turned. Today, the vast majority
of victimologists make no secret of their opposite commitments: not to find fault with those who are suffering but rather to devise more effective means of aid, support, and recovery.
Although subtle, a third type of bias can be traced back to the mood of the times. Victimolo- gists, like all other members of a society, are influ- enced by their social environment. The events that shape public opinion during different periods of time can also affect scientific thought. During the 1960s and early 1970s, for example, many people demanded that the government devise ways to help victims get back on their feet financially, medically, and emotionally. This insistence about expanding the social safety net to cushion the blows inflicted not only by corporations laying off workers and hospitals and doctors charging exorbitant fees for medical treatments but also by criminals reflected the spirit of egalitarianism and mutual aid of this stage in American history. The belief that society—through the instrument of the government—could and should do more to help out inspired a great deal of research and policy advocacy. But these ambitious goals have been voiced less often ever since the 1980s, when the themes of “strive for self-reliance,” “reduce social spending by government,” and “cut taxes” gained popularity. This emphasis on individuals taking responsibility for their own well-being as opposed to holding the socioeconomic system accountable for its shortcomings and failings (especially chroni- cally high rates of unemployment and a growing gap between the super rich and the desperately poor) has become the dominant ideology since the financial meltdown of 2008 and the onset of the “Great Recession.” Consequently, research projects and proposals about government-funded victim assistance programs have shifted their focus to matters such as only providing seed money for demonstration projects, imposing “sunset provi- sions” (to phase out efforts that don’t rapidly produce results), stressing cost effectiveness, and exploring the feasibility of self-help, privately financed, or faith-based charitable alternatives.
Clearly, inquiries into how victims suffer at the hands of criminals as well as other groups such as
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journalists and criminal justice officials is unavoid- ably a value-laden pursuit that arouses intense pas- sions and sharply dissenting views. As a result, some have argued that objectivity is an impossible and unrealistic goal that should be abandoned in favor of a forthright affirmation of values and allegiances. They say that victimologists (and other social scien- tists) should acknowledge their biases at the outset to alert their audiences to the slant that their analy- ses and policy recommendations will take. Others argue that objectivity is worth striving for because subjectivity thwarts attempts to accurately describe, understand, and explain what is happening, why it came about, and how conditions can be improved.
For the purposes of a textbook, the best course of action is to present all sides of controversial issues. Nevertheless, space limitations impose hard choices. This book focuses almost entirely on victims of inter- personal violence and theft (street crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, assault, kidnapping, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft). There are many other categories of lawbreaking: crimes in the suites involving a betrayal of trust and an abuse of power by high government officials against their rivals or to the detriment of the general public, and by corporate executives who can illegally inflict massive losses and injuries upon their company’s workers, custo- mers, stock owners, or competitors. White-collar crimes such as embezzlement by employees against their employers or fraud by citizens against govern- ment programs also impose much greater financial costs than street crimes. Organized rackets run by mobsters (drug smuggling, gun trafficking, counter- feiting of documents and currency, gambling, extor- tion) generate millions of dollars, undermine everyday life, and stimulate official corruption (bribes to look the other way). Crimes without complainants—victimless activities to some, vice to others—are controversial because the social reaction and criminal justice response might be worse than the original deviant behavior involving transactions between consenting adults (such as prostitution, ille- gal wagering, and street-level drug selling and buy- ing). Clearly these other categories of crimes are as serious and merit attention from scholars, law enforcement agencies, and concerned citizens.
But they are not the types of lawless deeds that come to mind when people talk about “the crime problem” or express fears about being harmed. Street crime scares the public, preoccupies the media, keeps police departments busy, and captures the notice of politicians. These conventional, ordinary, depress- ingly familiar, and all-too-common predatory acts have tangible, visible, and readily identifiable victims who are directly affected and immediately aware of their injuries and losses.
In contrast, in the other categories of crime, especially white-collar crime and crime in the suites, the deleterious consequences are experienced by abstractions (such as “a competitive economy” or “national security”), impersonal entities (such as the U.S. Treasury or multinational corporations), or vaguely defined collectivities (such as voters, tax- payers, investors, shareholders, or consumers). It is difficult to grasp precisely who has suffered in these cases, and it is nearly impossible to describe or mea- sure the background characteristics or reactions of the injured parties. It is extremely tough to establish in court specifically who the flesh-and-blood vic- tims are in cases of drug smuggling, money laun- dering, insurance scams, false advertising, bribe taking, software piracy, counterfeiting of trade- marked goods, dumping of toxic wastes, insider trading, electoral fraud, illegal campaign contribu- tions, and income tax evasion. But individuals hurt by assailants, robbers, and rapists can be easily iden- tified, observed, contacted, interviewed, studied, counseled, assisted legally, and treated medically. As a result, a wealth of statistical data has accumu- lated about their wounds, losses, and emotional reactions. For these reasons, victims of interpersonal violence and theft will be the primary focus of attention and concern throughout this text, even though many of the illegal activities cited above inflict much more severe social and economic dam- age (see Naim, 2005). But note that this decision immediately introduces a bias into this introduction to the field of victimology, one that reflects the experiences of authors of articles and textbooks, the collective priorities of the discipline’s founders and most prolific researchers, and the mood of the times!
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Victimology’s Undeserved “Bad Reputation”
Not very long after the term entered mainstream culture, victimology (undeservedly!) became a “dirty word.” Some prominent and insightful people who ought to know better misuse “victimology” as an epithet spit out through clenched teeth. This dis- turbing trend emerged during the 1990s and unfor- tunately is becoming even more entrenched and pronounced during the twenty-first century. For example, in an article condemning a speech deliv- ered by President Obama, an editor of a political journal used the term victimology in a negative way four times (such as “Obama has now put the presi- dential imprimatur on the crudest kind of racial victimology.…”) (MacDonald, 2013). Similarly, a former speechwriter for President Bush wrote an editorial headlined, “The Victimology of Hillary Clinton” (Frum, 2014). And a nationally syndicated radio talk show host, responding to a caller who characterized “victimology” as a mindset about feeling guilty for being privileged, responded, “But this whole notion of victimology, I totally get it” (Limbaugh, 2014)—but does he really? Some dramatic illustrations of how victimology has been bad-mouthed in the media as muddled thinking or even denounced as a contemptible point of view over the years appear in Box 1.2.
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