Preconditions for the Growth of Victimology and the Implementation of Victim Theories - Research Paper Example

Abstract

Many mainstream criminological analyses consider a criminal case to be a series of factors based on the perpetrator's role in committing a crime. Nevertheless, victim precipitation focuses on the victim's role in the victimization of his or her own. Marvin Wolfgang invented that word. Many interpretations of the idea of victim precipitation include two main categories: that perhaps the victim was the first one to engage in the violent event's temporal order; and also that the victim had facilitated the incident. Precipitation of victims is an obvious component of various forms of crime, most commonly murder, assault, rape, and robbery. This report aims to research the victim precipitation concept in Dallas city's violent offenses of homicides.

Introduction

The idea of victimizing crime that has persisted has put abuse victims as precipitators of their very own afflictions. Hans Von Hentig, known as one of the victimology's founding fathers, prepared the path by incorporating some characteristics found in victims that illustrate why crime victims become abused (Hentig, 1948). In Hentig 's research on homicide victims, he articulated how many victims are targeted based on particular characteristics that can be identified as inactive characters played by victims precipitating violence. Hentig classifies these thirteen characteristics as the adolescent; the aged; the weak; the depressed; the lonely and devastated; the mentally deficient and mentally disturbed; the migrant workers; the minority communities; the tedious; the ordinary; the rapacious; the excluded and the tormentor obstructed (Hentig, 1948). The research of Hans Von Hentig was the basis of what was then termed the theory of victim precipitation. Wolfgang initially used this definition and officially presented it in 1958 after his subsequent analysis of murder victims (Dussich, 2006). Evaluation by Wolfgang showed that a large proportion of homicides arose from an altercation between victim and perpetrator that ultimately started with violent behavior by the alleged victim.

Consequently, Wolfgang suggested that the behavior of the victim is supposed to give the perpetrator criminal motive. The principle of victim precipitation has worked its way into views of crime victims by individuals and communities. Working and living in a healthy atmosphere increases efficiency and maintains a stable society. Mitigation of crimes is considered a key priority of government agencies for achieving it. Nevertheless, it has generally been disregarded that the victim himself or herself could be the factor that contributes to the wrongful conviction. The solution to these issues resides in educating the public on the preventive steps that can be done to minimize individual victimhood. These recommendations are based on the ideals of law enforcement. This contributes to community welfare and a secure environment framework. Hence, this research reviews factors that lead to victim precipitation homicides in Dallas.

Literature Review

Once it comes to violence, the blame is often concentrated more on the suspect than the complainant. This is because it is assumed that they are instigators of the offense. In modern times, though, an inquiry into the crimes has also turned to the complainant. A victim is often indirectly or directly involved in offending to target someone, such as murder, homicide, and burglary. This is termed precipitation of the victim (Fisher & Test, 2010). Aggressive actions in this situation apply to the victim as a trigger to violence or offer the first assault to the crime occurring. Throughout the 20th century, the term was coined by the social scientist Marvin Wolfgang. Through his article titled " Victim Precipitated Criminal Homicide," this argument is also in efforts to mitigate blame where it belongs and increase criminal guilt as a source of crimes. Wolfgang characterized the theory as referring to certain homicides in which the victim has been confirmed as the first to use lethal violence towards his eventual slayer in the homicides tragedy. Some also disputed the theory of victim precipitation as providing a weak technique for detecting offenses. It's tough to tell to what point one would be liable for wrongdoing at the moment (Fisher & Lab, 2010).

An outline of victimology's background growth and the implementation of victim theories on precipitation is important. Particularly, authors and playwrights who were considered literature victimologists formed the initial conceptions of victimology (Dussich, 2006). The idea of victimology as a research discipline was established in 1947 by a Roman defence lawyer Benjamin Mendelsohn, who advocated the definition of "victimology" as the analysis of all casualties. In 1976, with his definition of "general victimology," Mendelsohn suggested a specific interpretation of the victims, that regarded the cause of victimization. In further investigating victim and perpetrator interplay, Mendelsohn subsequently accepted the possibility that victims were virtually overlooked, belittled and even mistreated by the structure and pursued strategies to help victims by advocating the establishment of victim assistance health centers, international bodies and specific research organizations (Dussich, 2006).

It is not to suggest that this hypothesis has indeed been commonly acknowledged like in the history, and the victim precipitation argument has also been presented in most early projects as a subtle effort to blame the victim (Smith & Bouffard, 2014). Victimology was introduced into this framework and gradually developed by numerous victimologists such as Stephen Schafer, who expanded Von Hentig ‘s research and also created a categorization on the practical liability of the victim for crimes wherein he categorized one as an irrelevant victim; aggressive, precipitative, genetically vulnerable; psychologically vulnerable; personality-victimizing and socially vulnerable casualty. On the other side, by reflecting on the effect of the victim's environment on crime precipitation, HL Dietrich developed upon concept. Between the 1960s and 1970s, it was this array of conceptual changes, scientific developments and sociopolitical movements that formed the context where the victimization concepts originated. This research, nevertheless, asserts that the hypothesis of victim precipitation does have the limitation of determining human or cultural conceptions in the view of a victim precipitating the criminal acts.

Location Description

In 2019, Dallas homicides skyrocket to the highest possible level in over a decade. In this document we are monitoring the homicides of the city, evaluating the potential causes of the increase in violence. Nearly every major area in Dallas was struck by an uncommon homicide rates upsurge in 2019, leaving the people feeling uncomfortable and frightened (Allen et al., 2020). With far more than 200 murders, the town finished the year, a record level since 2007. A spike of 40 people murdered was seen in the month of May alone. Eighteen people were killed in January according to tally from The media coverage.The factors are nuanced and extend across the broad range of societal problems, including domestic violence , poverty and disinvestment, gangs and access to weapons that can contribute to a deadly conflict. A year earlier, the city recorded 15 murders (Allen et al., 2020). Other factors could be the repeat offenders in a cycle of recurrence, or the number of Beat Patrol Officers in 2019, according to a report of the Major Cities Chiefs Association in the top ten cities, which showed that Dallas experienced a higher increase in violence than Houston or San Antonio in 2019. The study further indicates that declines have occured in Chicago and Phoenix.The most hit part of Dallas by homicides is the Northern part of the city. The factors that lead to victim precipiation in Dallas are race,sex, methods of killing, location and intent, relationships between victim and offender, alcohol and prior arrest history.

Race. Since african americans and men have been demonstrated to be more criminally violent than whites and females from their elevated homicide rates, attacks against the individual, it can be concluded that there are more african americans and males among VP victims than those of non-VP victims. The blacks are found in nearly 80 percent of VP cases compared to 70 percent of non-VP incidents, a substantial disparity that results in substantial correlation between ethnicity and VP homicide in Dallas(Allen et al., 2020).

Sex. While perpetrators, males account for 94 percent of VP homicides, but just 72 percent of non-VP homicides, indicating a strong correlation between victim sex and VP homicide. Since females have been found to be less criminally violent than males since of their low murder levels, assaults against the individual, etc., and since females are less prone to precipitate their own victimization than males.It is the case, because the quantitative evidence shows that females are twice as often criminals in VP slayings than they are in non-VP slayings - a relative disparity which is also extremely significant. The amount of white female offenders in this sample is too limited to warrant statistical analysis, yet the trend between Negro and White females as distinct categories is for a far higher propo. The study of Negro and White Women as a single category contributes to the discovery of a strong correlation between female criminals and the murder of VP (Allen et al., 2020).

Age. The age ranges of casualties and suspects in murders between VP and non-VP are remarkably similar; data shows that age has little significant impact on homicide at VP. The median age of perpetrators with VP is 33.3 years, although that with offenders who are not VP is 31.2 years.

Methods. There is a strong correlation, in fact, between the procedure used to cause death and the murder of the VP. Since african - americans and females compensate for a greater percentage of perpetrators in VP instances, and since prior analyzes have found that stabbing happened more often than all of the other forms of causing death, it is assumed that the prevalence of stabbing killings among VPs is greater than in non-VP situations. The statistics confirm such an inference and show that stabbing murders constitute 54 per cent of VP cases but just 34 per cent of non-VP incidents, a substantial gap.The distribution of shootings, beatings, and "other"methods of inflicting death among the VP and non-VP cases shows no significant differences (Allen et al., 2020). The high frequency of stabbings among VP homicides appears to result from an almost equal reduction in each of the remaining methods; yet the lower proportions in each of these three other categories among VP cases are not separately very different from the proportions among non-VP cases.

Location and intent. There is no substantial disparity regarding VP and non-VP homicides in regards to home / non-home dichotomy, nor in regards to police-listed reasons. Just more than half of all VP and non-VP homicides happened at home. Particular confrontations and household squabbles take hold in VP instances, as they do in non-VP situations, albeit at lower frequency (Allen et al., 2020). These two factors together reflect a significantly higher proportion of VP cases than non-VP cases.

Relationships between victim and offender. Intra-racial killings occur in all communities, but inter-racial killings require a larger percentage of VP incidents than non-VP incidents (Allen et al., 2020). Although VP crimes constitute one-fourth of all violent murders, they compensate for more than one-third of all inter-racial killings. So it seems like a murder like crosses racial lines is more likely to be one in which the perpetrator prompted the slayer to strike. Nevertheless, the correlation of inter-racial slayings with VP murders is not statistically important.

Alcohol.The previous finding of an correlation between the involvement of alcohol in the homicidal circumstance and Black male offenders, coupled with awareness of the significant contribution Negro males bring to their own victimization, indicates an connection (by transitivity) between VP homicide and existence of alcohol in the broader research of which this analysis is a member. In fact, if alcohol is evident in the victim or abuser, lowering inhibitions due to alcohol consumption that cause an individual to give more free rein to complaints, pressures, and traumatic experiences that either have developed over a long period of time or that occur in an immediate emotional crisis.

Prior arrest history. The victim-precipitator is the first character in the murder drama to show and touse a lethal weapon; and the portrayal of him so far infers that he is in certain ways an attacker in reverse. Since he is the first to play an offensive position, he has possibly participated in specific yet less extreme physical assaults beforehand. Many significant theories were formed and tested on the basis of certain assumptions. The hypothesis is accompanied by empirical evidence, some of which exceed the degree of statistical significance acknowledged by this study; and in other cases show significant correlations in the directions proposed by the hypotheses.

Application

The statistics used in this report came from 10 years of reports of homicide kept by the DPD from 2010 to 2018. There were 3,084 homicidal events recorded throughout that time frame. While this study focused primarily on mature crime and victimization, occurrences were omitted wherein the age of the perpetrator and/or victim was less than 18 years or the victim and/or perpetrator age was uncertain. Declassification from records of minors and uncertainties produced an overall population of 1,712 murder cases. Fatalities were labeled dichotomically as victim precipitated by officer on the scene given the description recorded in the report of the incident. According to the original context of Wolfgang (1967), if the victim undertook the actual violent exercise that contributed to his or her victimhood, a murder was deemed victim precipitated. Meticulous consideration must be given for drawing no conclusions from what has been reported in the report of the case. Instead, it was resolved to use incidents where there could be evidently inferences of victim precipitation. Evaluating the scenario under that assumption, it was found that 438 were explicitly precipitated victims. In relation, it was evaluated that 457 cases also weren't precipitated by the victim. The subsequent 817 cases could not or could not be identified as precipitated victims. These 817 events were omitted from the information source for the intent of this study.

The ultimate report contains 895 murder cases involving 895 casualties and 1,004 suspects.4 Precipitated killings accounted for 48.9 per cent of the crimes reported for review. As proposed in their review of homicide victimization by Mustaine and Tewksbury (2020) and repeated by Broidy et al . ( 2020), victim-offender correlation interventions were developed based on victim’s official criminal background. If individuals were a victim of murder without an officially reported criminal background, they were categorized as a suspect. People were deemed an accuser-offender if they're a casualty of violent crime with an officially acknowledged criminal background. It should be stated that an accused can not be regarded for the victim-offender bracket since there were no prior victimization metrics within the given data. The first set of variables taken from the electronic files of the DPD 's Murder Unit reflect the victim's demographic characteristics and the suspect(s) involved in each murder, including age , gender , ethnicity and criminal record.

The second collection of parameters were regarding details of the incident of murder of the concern, such as whether homicide happened during a fight or confrontation, if weapons had been the primary weapon used to commit the murder or whether homicide that happened was precipitated. Additionally, male and nonwhite were also the large proportion of violent crime assailants. Suspects for murder, nevertheless, were 29.5 years younger than median-aged murder victims. Overall, there was a public record of fewer than one percent of the perpetrators and offenders. Around one third of the people who had been killed and a fifth of the suspects used alcohol at the time of the murder. Substance use was less common among 26.0% of those who died, and 19.6% of people who were accused of drugs when the murder occurred. The overwhelming majority of victims were murdered with a weapon in this study. Around 4 out of 10 cases of homicide contained a conflict between the victim and the perpetrator(s). Lastly, approximately half of the murders examined were precipitated.

Recommendations

The DPD has dedicated itself to rising crime rates. The Data and intelligence-led Violent Crime Reduction Plan 2020 addresses the core factors driving criminal act and offers short to medium term techniques for prompt and lengthy-term prevention and viable community policing initiatives in all areas. The plan was implemented with measurable, critical success measurements and oversight for the outcomes. In 2019, the City of Dallas reported an average 3.9 per cent increase in violent crime during the same time in 2018. In addition, violence had skyrocketed by 15 percent by mid-December (Dallas Police, 2019) As a consequence, Mayor Eric Johnson directed the DPD to create a Violent Crime Prevention Strategy for 2020. In order to better direction and guide the department’s initiatives to stop crime, this plan was developed. The Violent Crime Reduction Plan 2020 sets measurable goals , strategies and targets for achievement.

The Strategy is a multidisciplinary, multi-district and inter-agency process which uses both short-term 2020 violence strategy and long-term strategies to support full and sustainable outcomes past 2020. The Plan includes the following key goals and strategies. Take into consideration violence reduction targets 2019, detailed comparison and concrete expectations are developed for 2020. The specific guidelines during the next 12 months have been established with this information:

• Decreased homicides and sexual attacks in the East, Southwestern and South Central Regions by 10 per cent
• 10 percent decrease in the Northeast and Southwest Divisions of individual and company robberies
• An average 5 percent drop in the classification of violent crimes in all categories

The department intends to reach the above-mentioned targets for reducing violence using the stated objectives which will represent as the total core values for this strategy:

• Incorporate a systematic, data-driven approach to resolving individuals, locations and activities affecting violent crime
• Enhance clearance rates and brutal crime solvency
• Improving departmental cooperation and contact with external stakeholders
• Using technology to maximize departmental capital and enhance important organization’s operational improvements

The 2020 Violent Crime Reduction Plan makes use of recently founded intellect Led law enforcement Division information and criminal activity knowledge. The unit is charged with DPD as well as other police agencies providing relevant and predictive information for investigations that concentrate on individuals, locations and activities that result in violence activity. The agency will use a variety of strategies and procedures with this information, such as implementing focused operations, setting up a new gun homicide task force, performing tailored warrants searches, and introducing a structured deterrence system. The DPD is able to recognize the environmental factors that lead to crime, which other city dedications that directly tackle, community engagement programs , social service agencies , and private interests through the use of risk terrain modelling. In addition , the plan extends the use and in real time data analysis to contribute to the efficacy of the unit and enhances collaboration with local , state and federal police departments and community organizations. The foundations for this program are responsibility and openness. Periodic updates will assist to establish achievements, highlight areas of advancement and develop responsive, alternate solution strategy for coping with evolving and temporary homicide alterations. Ultimately, the strategy incorporates maps of the study area for each of the seven districts of the patrol and criminal tables. The only thing that shows in each section for 2019 is the criminal activity (burglaries, increased attacks and gun deaths). It reflects the most common felony and is used for tactical distribution and crime reduction measures during the day and week.

Some of the recommendations to address this problem in Dallas are based on the ideas below. Dallas must use promotional activities and innovations to approach all children and families. They must build these tools to ensure that through educational interventions, household initiatives, well-being programs, and early education everybody else feels special and loved. There is empirical proof that that an emphasis on ‘hot people’ and hotspots can deter or reduce crime. However and they also have to complement this with other measures , especially childhood development involvement – urban upgrading, better urban planning, situational prevention. There are no gun killings where there are no guns. Trying to curb the supply of illegal weapons is a easy and realistic way of beginning to do away with armed crime. They have to tackle economic disparity which is assumed to be a key in the long-term reduction of crime and abuse. Dallas requires standardized, affordable , high-quality childcare, and to reduce the gap between edge-to-bottom income and reconstruct the connection between economic success and wage rates.

Conclusion

Research has shown that focus not just in the physical environment is necessary to ensure a secure community. The role of the criminal has long been highlighted by criminologists. But over the years the position of the victim has been found to be important as it can affect the fate or inspire a criminal directly or indirectly. It is therefore necessary for everyone to understand how victims can play their part in defending themselves against being attacked. Research teams have been concerned about this problem for a long time, and they have taken an unusual approach to preventing crime. This can be extracted from the prevention and detection of crime which mainly depends on the principle of avoiding ideas, statements, activities, circumstances or even locations that render an individual an obvious prey for crimes. We also need to strengthen the role of an observant society, in which each individual seeks the value of everyone else. Although the privacy of people is highly appreciated, people are also accountable for their relatives, their neighbors and then the whole social system. Prevention of crime can be done by ensuring that the government enables the society to have a substantial understanding of the Dallas community as an entire community and its conscious practice. In addition , the government should play an active role in the political acceptance of these concepts.