Victim Typology - Essay Example

Victim Sellin and Wolfgang have offered a typology of victimization that lists 5 categories and focuses more on situations instead of victim associations. (Hall2010). They are 1) Primary Victimization-person or faction selects a specific individual or specific type of victim to mark for persecution 2) Secondary Victimization- victims are not personal objectives for the actor(s) 3) Tertiary Victimization-the general public is the injured party 4) Mutual Victimization-when a crime has multiple perpetrators, one criminal victimizes another and 55) No Victimization- where the actual victim of the crime is not easily distinguishable.

Hall in her article argues thathate crimes where victims are chosen on the basis of ethnicity, race appearance, religion or sexual preference fall into category one. I would postulate that such crimes could fall into more than one category. An example would be the 9/11 attacks. Presumably Al Qaeda flew airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon because they were representative of hated American economic and military power. This is primary victimization in the sense that it was an assault on American institutions.

It was also secondary victimization in that the people that were killed and injured were likely not personal objectives for Al Qaeda because they probably didn’t even know them. Furthermore not only were many victims not capitalists or military personnel many were not even Americans, possibly some Arab allies of the terrorist organization. It was also tertiary victimization because even those not physically injured or financially hurt were intended to be emotionally victimized into being too fearful to respond.

While this obviously did not happen I am sure it was intended by Al Qaeda as is the case for all terrorist attacks. Finally an argument for mutual victimization could be made as no doubt Al Qaeda supporters would argue the attacks were payback fo American crimes of exploitation of their resources and mistreatment of their citizens. The only category not involved is 5-no victimization. Not only can one event or series of events from similar causes result in multiple categories of victimization, but there is also a ripple effect because there are victims impacted far beyond those directly affected by a major crime.

For example spouses and children of men killed and injured in the 9/11 attacks are victimized by the trauma of the loss of emotional and financial support. Reference1).Hall, Elizabeth Kaplan University “Victim Typologies in Relation to Hate Crimes” Deviance and Violence CJ266 Melissa Amaya Jan.19, 2010 retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net?ElizabethHall198/hallelizabethunittwowrittenassignment/