The Effects and Cost of Crime on Its Victims - Essay Example

That grave damage arising as a result of wrongful conduct and various crimes in most of its forms was and remains one of the main factors in explaining why the fight against crime is regarded as one of the most important social problems.

The social consequences of a crime can quickly penetrate and manifest themselves in various spheres of life of society. Anyway, they apply to all citizens. In the public mind, the consequences of crime are accumulated as a danger, a real threat to everyone, but because they are sometimes recognized as more important than crime itself and because the consequences of crimes can be very different, and they all are more or less have more psychological and often psychic sense. Many consequences because of their "insignificance", for example, murder, grievous bodily harm, rape, etc., or maybe just a simple theft, do not fall within the scope of accounting, and not all of them, in principle, can be taken into account. However, they all are harmful and have negative impacts on interpersonal and social relations. Again, not only the individual but also the society in every way incurs costs in connection with the crime.

The impact of crimes is not only applied to material damage. Damage is often emphasized (which is most often the case), and the damage to people's health. Sometimes it not only affects the human psyche, but it leads to disability, making a disabled cripple. Damage is associated with violence and deprivation of life. There are various emotional imbalances as well that disturbs the victims such as frustration, confusion, the feeling of denial, and the feeling of terror.

Real harm can occur immediately after a criminal act or many years later thereafter. For example, if a close relative is murdered mental illness may occur after a considerable period of time after the murder; child abuse can lead to very secluded situations. The greatest example of the deep effects of a crime on its victims and their related ones can be taken from the event of September 11, 2001. It was the day when a lot of people witnessed the terrifying feeling of what kind of huge loss they had faced. Even though a lot of people were not directly related to the event but still the images haunted a number of people for quite a long period.

Victims of a crime are often found to be in a state of unreality in which they just keep thinking about the point that is this really happening to them. And the shock of the crime also just astonishes them.