Hello everyone and welcome to the lecture. This week we're going to discuss impact of victimization. On the influence of the women's movement and later the victims movement, victimological research gradually shifted in focus from a victim's role in crime to consequences of victimization. Research on the impact of victimization began to emerge in the 1960s and 1970s. Early studies on the impact of victimization looked at various violent crimes such as terrorism and rape.
The introduction of victimization surveys provided insight for the first time into the consequences of a wide variety of victimizations, including common crimes such as theft and burglary. This was further complemented by research that documented the strong impact of crimes generally considered less serious, such as burglary, on the entire household. By the 1990s, the first longitudinal studies on the effects of crime began to emerge.
In this module, we will present research on the impact of victimization. However, before doing so, it is important to understand who is affected by crime. As we saw in Module 1, much of the work in victimology has focused on the direct victims of crime. While this definition may work from a legal perspective, from a victimological perspective, it is far too narrow. Earlier, we described victimology as a scientific study of victimizations attributable to violation of human rights, including crime, and reactions to both victimization and victims.
The effects of crime especially serious crimes that include mass victimization, can reach far beyond the direct victims and impact their family and friends as well as their community. Hence, the word victim can include many different groups and therefore we need to identify different categories or types of crime. We need a typology of victims.
This will allow us to better understand the breadth of the consequence of crime for victims. As we saw in Module 2, typologies of victims were popular until the late 1970s, when focus shifted from explaining crime to helping victims. Earlier typologies were limited in that they focused exclusively on direct victims or on victimizations and failed to take into account the impact of victimization on others outside of the offender diet. Unlike typologies we had before, which focus on the cause of crime, a victim-centered framework focuses on the effect of crime on victims.
Once we understand the consequences of victimization, we can begin to identify and prioritize victims'needs. Using a victim-centered approach, four categories of victims can be identified based on one's emotional or psychological proximity to victimization. Direct victims.
indirect victims, secondary victims, and tertiary victims. The direct victim is the object of victimization. This is a person who is unlawfully killed, disappeared, injured, assaulted, robbed, tortured, and so on.
These individuals have directly suffered the effect of crime, either by death, by undergoing physical or psychological harm, by otherwise being unlawfully arrested or detained, or by undergoing discriminatory action. other violations of their human rights. Indirect victims are those who are linked to direct victim in such a way that they too suffer a result of that relationship.
They're often the family members of a direct victim who experience extreme hardship and pain because of the suffering of a family member or by being penalized because of their connection to that person through serious socioeconomic deprivation, grievment, the loss of a breadwinner, missed educational opportunities, family breakdown, police intimidation, or humiliation. For example, a mother can suffer moral damages from the loss of a son, as well as material damage if she was economically dependent on him. Elsewhere in the literature, they're referred to as loved ones or co-victims.
Secondary victims are individuals who suffer harm in intervening to assist victims in distress or who witness the victimizations. They are sometimes referred to as third level victims. This group can be further subdivided into two groups, those who are exposed to trauma directly, such as witnesses or bystanders who may have been traumatized because of what they witnessed, and two professionals who are repeatedly exposed to traumatic situations, including first responders such as police and paramedics, as well as secondary care providers such as therapists whose exposure is indirect but repeated because of their work assisting victims. Torture victims refer to community members. A community is a social unit of any size that shares certain values and characteristics.
This could be the geographic area where the crime took place, for example, the cities of New York City following the attacks on the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, or it could be a social group, such as ethnic or religious group. The broader community can also be viewed as society, which, as we have seen, is represented by public prosecutors in a criminal justice process. Exactly which community or communities are affected will vary depending on the nature of the victimization and the extent in which it occurs.
Less serious crimes will often have relatively little impact on society, while more serious crimes, and in particular crimes involving multiple victims, will have a greater impact on society. Hence, from a victimological standpoint, society is not always affected by crime, although it is from a legal standpoint. Another group that can be identified are the family members of the offenders. They are sometimes referred to as collateral victims.
Depending on the circumstances, their lives can be profoundly affected by the crime, as they experience feelings of guilt, shame, and even financial loss as a result of the crime. It is important to keep in mind that victims of violence often know their offender. Hence, it is not unusual for an...
indirect victim to be the family or friend of the direct victim as well as the offender. However, for the time being, our focus is on the direct victims of crime and the people related to them and therefore collateral victims will not be discussed further here. It is important to note that these categories are not mutually exclusive and a person may fall under different categories simultaneously. For example, a person who experienced a violent attack in which he or she was injured and loved ones who were with the person at the time of the attack were murdered would be a direct victim, assaulted, and indirect victim, loss of family, as well as secondary victim, witness to violence.
Similarly, secondary victims may well include neighbors, friends, and family of direct victims who witnessed the attack. Furthermore, any one person may experience multiple victimization and each time fall under different categories. As we saw before, victimization surveys have consistently revealed that a relatively small portion of the population experienced a lot of crime. Research on multiple victimization shows that the effects of each discrete victimization are cumulative. Compared to one-time victims, individuals who experience multiple victimization more often report experiencing health issues following victimization, such as the sleeping problems, and taking medication to help them sleep and calm down.
In the rest of this module, we will use this typology to discuss the consequence of victimization for these four groups. This typology will show that the consequences of victimization are more pervasive than one might think, and when we focus exclusively on a direct victim of crime, we miss a vast array of victims and victimizations. The psychological effects of crime often remain invisible.
You do not see them. But unlike a stolen property that can be replaced or broken bones that can heal, the psychological scars of victimization can last for years. In the following section, we will consider the short and long-term psychological effect of victimization for these different types of victims, taking into account that this is not a psychology class. but it's important to discuss it nonetheless.
Let's start with direct victims. Victimization surveys inform us about the short-term effects of criminal victimization on direct victims. Most victims, approximately four out of five, report being emotionally impacted by the victimization.
One of the most common emotional responses to crime is anger. Examining different waves of the Canadian victimization survey from 1999 to present, the percent of victims experiencing anger has remained relatively stable at around 1 in 3 victims. Other common emotions reported by victims include feeling upset or confused.
Fear is another common reaction among victims. One in 10 victims in Canada said that their victimization made them fearful and reported becoming more cautious or vigilant following the incident. In particular, victims of violence are more likely than victims of nonviolent crimes to report feeling fearful following the victimization.
Victims of sexual assault and robbery are more likely to worry about their safety than victims of other types of crime. Compared to non-victims, victims of crime also tend to be more fearful about future victimization, and their fear is not confined to the particular offense experienced, but is a generalized high level of fear. Emotional stress can also impact victims physically.
While both victims of violent and non-violent crimes sometimes experience sleeping problems, It is more common among victims of violent crimes. Difficulty sleeping may extend well beyond the first few days after the victimization. As many as 47% of victims of violence report experiencing trouble sleeping for a month or more following their victimization.
Victims'reactions may vary depending on the characteristics of the offense. While victims of household crimes are just as likely as victims of violent crimes to be affected emotionally, the reactions may differ. Overall, victims of violence are slightly more prone to shock than anger compared with victims of household crimes. The relationship between the victim and the offender can also affect how the individual reacts to the victimization.
Survey data showed that for violent incidents, those victimized by a family member were more likely to report feeling upset and confused, 42%. compared to victims who had been assaulted by a stranger, 19%, or a friend, 23%. Similarly, Langton and Truman found that nearly twice the proportion of victims of serious violence, defined as rape, sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated assault, committed by an intimate or relative, indicated that their victimization was severely distressing compared to victims of serious violence by a stranger. The percentages were about 6 and 65 percent compared to 31 percent.
Being victimized by someone you know and trust is more upsetting, distressing, and confusing than being victimized by someone you don't know. Furthermore, victims'reactions may vary in relation to victims'characteristics. Females are more likely to report emotional effects as a result of violence than of female victims of violent victimization reported experiencing sleeping problems relative to their male counterparts. Females are more likely to experience socioeconomic problems than males, regardless of the victim-offender relationship.
Emotional reactions such as anger and fear are common short-term responses of victimization, and in most cases, symptoms resolve rapidly. However, for some, these emotions may turn into long-term depressive reactions. depressive effects that include the sleepiness and anxiety, and occasionally they will turn into a stress disorder which can significantly limit the functioning of the individual, including their capacity to work and engage in social interactions.
Acute stress disorder, or ASD, and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, are psychological reactions that can develop after traumatic events such as victimization. An event is considered traumatic if the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with one or a series of events that involve actual or threatened death, serious injury, or threat of physical integrity of self or others. The main difference between ASD and PTSD is the duration of symptoms.
In the case of ASD, the symptoms last from two days to less than one month. If symptoms last one month or more, it is considered to be PTSD. ASD and PTSD symptoms fall into four main categories.
Intrusion, avoidance, negative alterations in cognition and mood, and alteration, erosal, and reactivity. Intrusion symptoms consist of continually reliving the traumatic event day and night through intrusive memories, flashbacks, episodes of nightmares, and sort of dreaming about the event. The avoidance symptoms consist of avoiding any reminder of the traumatic event. Victims may go to great lengths and develop elaborate strategies to avoid thinking about the event.
speaking about the event, or being with people and objects that can awaken traumatic memories. This avoidance can be close to phobic avoidance. Negative alteration in cognition and mood represent a multitude of feelings. This includes a persistent and distorted sense of blame of self or others, feeling of alienation or isolation, a marked diminished interest in typical activities, and an inability to remember key aspects of the event.
Finally, the arousal symptoms mean that victims experience physical and emotional tensions. This often manifests in a fight reaction. It is marked by aggressive, reckless, self-destructive behavior.
For example, victims may be constantly on guard or even in absence of any imminent risk. Victims can also suffer from sleep disorders, irritability, and concentration problems. PTSD may be experienced together with dissociative symptoms. The new DSM introduced a new dissociative subtype of PTSD where the person both meets the character for PTSD and experiences high levels of depersonalization or derealization.
The introduction of PTSD standardized the research on the impact of victimization, which up until then had used various measures to assay the different effects of victimization. Since the 1980s, there has been tremendous growth in research on PTSD, and this standardization has allowed researchers to compare findings across the studies and advance our understanding of the effects of victimization. Advances in research have led to PTSD undergoing several modifications over the years. However, the balance of work on the effects of victimization has swung so far towards work on PTSD that Shaplin and Hall warn that researchers have neglected other emotional effects of victimization and types of victimization not associated with PTSD.
It is important to remember that while most victims are emotionally affected by victimizations, most do not develop PTSD. Findings from victimization survey indicate that one in seven victims experience symptoms consistent with PTSD, certain characteristics of the victimization such as extreme violence and thinking you're going to die. increase the risk of developing mental health problems.
Exposure to criminal victimization, and in particular, interpersonal violence, is more strongly related to the development of PTSD than exposure to an accident. Prevalence rates range from 35% to 70% of rape victims, from 2% to 58% of victims of physical assault, and from 18% to 28% for victims of robbery. The victim's relationship to perpetrators is also a factor, and victims who share a close relationship with the offender are more at risk of developing PTSD symptoms than victims who are not close to the offender. While PTSD is more likely when victimization is particularly serious, just because a victim does not develop PTSD does not mean that they have not, that he or she was not negatively impacted by the experience. Depression is frequently observed in chronic trauma and is well known to be a comorbid mental health disorder that can occur simultaneously with ASD or PTSD.
Depression symptoms include daily fatigue or loss of energy and feeling of worthlessness or guilt. People who suffer from depression also present impaired concentration and indecisiveness and they suffer from insomnia or hypersomnia almost every day. These are marked reduction in interest or pleasure and almost all of the symptoms are associated with depression. all activities nearly every day.
People feel restless or slowed down and there is a significant weight loss or gain. Many times they also suffer from recurring thoughts of death or suicide. Prevalence rates provide some insight into how often victims suffer depression.
For example, a study in the United States found that women with life histories of physical assault were three times as likely to show life histories of depression and recently assaulted women were five and a half times as likely to present with depression as women who were not recently assaulted. Specifically, they found that 12.6% of assaulted women versus 2.6% of non-assaulted women met character for active depression. Research also reveals a high comorbidity between assault-related PTSD and substance abuse.
In their study on traumatic events, Broslow and colleagues found that 45% of those with PTSD also met character for substance use or abuse, with 31% meeting character for alcohol abuse or dependence. Very few studies have looked at the origin of substance abuse. By using law-neutral survey data, we found that evidence that rape and physical assault may lead to substance abuse and abuse in previously non-using women.
Specifically, they found that the likelihood of progression to substance use or abuse following assault in previously non-using women was double that of non-assault of women. This suggests that following a traumatic event, victims will sometimes self-medicate and effort to avoid trauma-related thoughts or feelings. First introduced in 1973 following a dramatic hostage taking at a bank in Stockholm, Sweden, the term Stockholm Syndrome is a credit to American psychiatrist Frank Oshberg. In this particular case, one of the hostages developed a profound attachment to one of the hostage takers and she became outright hostile towards authorities.
One year later, in February of 74, Patty Hearst, granddaughter of U.S. multimillionaire William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped by the SLA, an urban guerrilla group. A few months later, in April of 74, Patty was photographed wielding an assault rifle among other SLA members while robbing a San Francisco bank. The case captured the public's attention and made people ask how someone could side with the captor and adopt the same negative attitude.
blaming authorities. The term continues to be used to explain sometimes surprising reactions of victims in case of extreme violence and terror such as battered women syndrome and rape trauma syndrome. According to Simon, Stockholm syndrome can appear in cases where victims have had prolonged contact with their offender.
Concretely, the victim remains in a state of frozen fright and cooperates with the offender, seemingly of his or her own. own free will because the victim is terrified. Stranz explains that the victim's need to survive is stronger than the drive to hate the person who put them in the situation.
Hence, victims can do things that can be perceived as a sign of complicity and appear odd or inexplicable to an outsider, but there are logical actions for the victim. Stockholm Syndrome is not a recognized condition including the DSM. Nevertheless, it is discussed here to remind us that victims can sometimes react unexpectedly to extreme stress and drama. When working with victims, it is important to bear this in mind and not judge their behavior.
Compared to direct victims, little research has been done on the effect of victimization on indirect victims. Yet, indirect victims may undergo even greater stress than direct victims themselves by virtue of the fact that the latter's coping mechanisms have been fully activated to deal with the situations, while the former feel totally helpless and useless. Fear can be contagious, and family and friends of the direct victim may experience increased fear and become mistrusting of others following victimization.
Breedman and Culling thought that 80% of people comforted a victim after victimization and felt an increase in their own level of fear. Particular types of victimization that target a social group, such as hate crimes, can trigger fear among victims'family members as they worry about the safety of other family members. Much of the available research on indirect victims centers on the family members of homicide victims. For family members, the murder of a loved one is a different experience than death caused by illness, suicide, or accident. As many as 9% of adults in the United States have lost a loved one to homicide.
These victims are not included in the crime statistics and remain hidden. They are left to struggle with the fact that their loved one was caused intentionally by a willful act of violence by another person. In addition, media coverage of the crime and criminal justice process can throw them into the public arena and strip them of their privacy at a time of great personal distress and sadness.
Complicated grief is a clinically significant grief reaction that occurs following the death of a loved one. While grief is a normal, healthy reaction to death, complicated grief obstructs a normal grieving process. The principal symptom of complicated grief is that the normal process is not occurring and the bereaved person is stuck in the grieving process.
Loved ones often report difficulty moving on. while the criminal justice process is ongoing. Complicated grief can be diagnosed when these symptoms persist for six months or more after a loss. These symptoms can cause substantial distress for the individual and have been associated with impaired quality of life, social isolation, maladaptive thoughts and behavior, and increased suicide rates. Unable to move on with their lives, these individuals may be unable to work or to function socially, which may add to their distress or isolation.
This disorder affects 10 to 20% of people suffering from the loss of a loved one in the United States. The prevalence rate increases in the case of traumatic deaths. People who are dealing with PTSD or dealing with complicated grief can suffer from depression, PTSD, severe anxiety, disbelief, longing, anger, guilt, withdrawal avoidance, and preoccupation with disease.
They may also deal with overthinking and over-involvement with those who have been killed. Moreover, violent crimes are more likely to be committed by someone known to the victim than by a stranger. In Canada, police statistics on soft homicide cases indicate that 35% of victims were suspected to have been killed by a family member. This percentage is much higher for female homicide victims than for male victims.
63% of female victims were thought to have been killed by a family member versus 21% of male victims. This means that indirect victims will sometimes be a family member of both the victim and the offender. How these different and sometimes conflicting rules affect people in the case of an intra-familiar homicide has not yet been sufficiently studied. In the DSM-5, the definition of PTSD was modified to include indirect victims who do not actually witness the violence but learn about it after the fact.
This significant development will respect the recognition of indirect victims as victims. In fact, one in five family members and friends of homicide victims have been found to have developed PTSD. Family members of victims who have survived atrocities such as the Holocaust and other gross violations of human rights are also at risk of developing PTSD. This is also referred to as secondary traumatization.
intergenerational transmission of trauma. In Canada, the residential school system had a devastating impact on generations of Indigenous family. Introduced in the 1880s, residential schools forcibly separated children from their families for extended periods and forbade them to acknowledge their Indigenous heritage and culture or to speak their own language.
Children lived in substandard conditions and many experienced emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. While the last residential school in Canada finally closes its doors in 1996, the trauma created by the schools continues to impact Indigenous people through the intergenerational transmission of trauma. We will return to this topic later when we discuss tertiary victims. Witnessing crime that victimized others may cause traumatic stress, anger, sadness, and grief.
According to the DSM-5, witnessing violence can be a source of stress and lead to ASD and PTSD. Among these secondary victims, 19% reported problems with sleep. Children and youth who witness violence have been found to suffer from PTSD symptoms as well as depression and anxiety. In a situation of mass victimization and gross violation of human rights, A large segment of the population will have indirect experience of witness violence, and this can result in high levels of stress or anxiety. For example, research in Rwanda following the 1994 genocide found that five years after the event, the prevalence rate of depression among a sample of 368 Rwandans was 15.5%.
In comparison, the prevalence rate of depression with the adult population in the United States is 6.7%. Another study found that 25% of adult Rwandans still suffered from PTSD eight years after the event. In contrast, the prevalence rate of PTSD in the general population in Canada is 2% and the lifetime prevalence rate is 9%. According to DSM-5, repeated exposure to the aversive details of the traumatic event can be a source of stress and can lead to ASD and PTSD. Trauma among first responders and other professionals who are in regular contact or a professional relationship with victims is often referred to as vicarious victimization, secondary trauma, compassion fatigue, or burnout.
For those who work in the criminal justice system or in health services, exposure to trauma can be repetitive. Since the 1970s, there has been extensive research on the effect of repeated exposure to secondary trauma among those working with victims. We will return to this topic in module eight when we discuss interventions with crime victims. Finally, we want to discuss tertiary victims. Research shows that indirect exposure to crime can impact feeling of insecurity within entire communities and may create fear of crime.
Studying the relationship between neighborhoods and crime levels, Fitzgerald reports that 12% of the variance in people's fear is explained by neighborhood factors. Lee, 2011, examined the impact of regional crime rates on people who had not directly experienced victimization and found that the mental well-being of non-victims of crime is significantly affected by violent crime in the area of residence. For communities, fear of crime is a detriment of the quality of life in the neighborhood, which is related to economic activity, the amount of pedestrian and automobile traffic, and ultimately the health of the community. While there has been relatively little research done on the impact of victimization on social groups, one exception is hate crime.
By its nature, hate crime targets the individual and the ethnic, religious, or social group. Hate crimes convey a message of fear to all members of the community to which the specific individual belongs. Being a member of a target group may result in symptoms caused by awareness of potential victimization. and necessity of guarding against it.
When victimization is hate-motivated, it enhances the impact of crime and increases trauma on community members. Much of the research on the impact of racial victimization on the group looks at fear of victimization. Visible minorities are more likely to be fearful of racial victimization than non-visible minorities. This would seem logical given that visible minorities have a greater risk of racial victimization. However, as with victimization in general, fear of victimization is unnecessarily related to one's risk of victimization.
For example, women tend to be more fearful of racial victimization than men, while men are at a higher risk of racial victimization. However, survey data failed to capture the full range of possible ways in which racial victimization can happen. affect the community.
An underestimated aspect of racial victimization is how the ripple effect of racial victimization manifests themselves. Waste gives an example of how community members socially isolated a victim in the hope that by not associating with the victim, they will reduce their own risk of victimization. Wider spread and systematic violent victimization, such as genocide and war crimes, generates mass trauma.
In mass trauma, the effects are not only experienced at the individual level, but also by families and other community members, generating high levels of collective distress among members of the victimized community. Research with 286 refugees following their flight from their country of origin found that although most of them had not directly been victimized or experienced any direct threat in their home country, more than 70% of them, 72.4% of them, were suffering from severe trauma. According to the authors, fear of harm or threat was the basis of trauma. Hence, entire communities can be traumatized as a result of widespread victimization. When mass trauma is part of a group's shared history, it is sometimes referred to as historical trauma.
Canada's residential schools are an example of historical trauma. Research suggests that historically, traumatic events can continue to undermine the well-being of contemporary group members and that the effects of traumatic experiences are not only transferred across generation into generational transmission, but these effects accumulate. Studying the longitudinal effect of residential schools, Bombi and her colleagues found that the more generations that attend a residential school, the poorer the psychological well-being of the next generation.
A common secondary and associated response to trauma includes difficulties in interpersonal relationships. Victimization survey data revealed that 21% of direct victims of violence reported relationship problems with family or friends. Moreover, 80% of the direct victims who experienced moderate to severe distress. also experience relationship problems. Experiencing difficulties in their relationship with others can compound the negative effect of victimization, contributing to victims'feelings of isolation.
Similarly, indirect victims who experience many of the same affective and cognitive consequences of victimization may also go through difficulties in their interpersonal relationships. Research with family members of homicide victims shows that they sometimes feel socially stigmatized by having a loved one murdered or maybe shunned or blamed by others for the way the victim died or even for the way the victim lived. Fear of crime has important implications at both the individual and community level.
Victimization can impact one's sense of safety and security, making people feel that they are no longer safe in their homes or their communities. Using data from the National Crime Survey, a longitudinal panel survey of U.S. dwelling units and their occupants, Z.M. McDowell found that direct victims of violent property crimes are more likely to move following their victimization, and the impact of violent crime is larger than the impact of property crime.
He also examined the number of victimizations reported in one's neighborhood, which they referred to as indirect victimization, and found that it too is associated with a higher likelihood of victimization. of moving. According to the authors, victimization experienced by one household signals to others who live in the enclosed proximity that a neighborhood is not safe.
In other words, when people experience victimization, either directly or indirectly, they will often decide to move away in an effort to restore their sense of security. Hence, at the community level, fear creates instability. This deteriorates social cohesion and breaks on informal social control mechanism. which in turn funnels crime. Unlike the emotional consequences of victimization, most victims of crime suffer either no physical injury or very minor ones.
In Canada, less than one in five victims of violent incidents suffer injuries. Among those who do, most are relatively minor. One in four injured victims requires medical attention and 20% require bed rest. Similar findings are reported in England and Wales, where around 80% of victims suffer little to no physical injuries.
Physical injuries are limited to the direct victims of crime and first responders or witnesses who are injured when intervening or helping the victim. Indirect victims do not suffer physical injuries, but they may suffer... for the physical effects of emotional trauma such as sleepiness or loss of appetite. Victimization can also bring financial costs for the victim, their family and society.
When considering the financial costs of victimization, we can differentiate between tangible losses such as loss or damaged property and medical expenses. and intangible losses such as psychological pain and suffering. Victims of property crime, particularly motor vehicle theft, often report tangible losses. However, the actual amount of losses resulting from property crime is relatively small.
Sixty percent of household and property related incidents in Canada result in loss of under $500. One in three victims of property crime suffered losses valued at over $500, and 15 percent suffered a loss of more than $1,000. For motor vehicle theft, the value of the stolen or damaged property is often much higher. In 91% of such incidents, losses of more than $500 were reported.
Often, stolen or damaged property is not recovered, leaving the victim with net losses. Insurance will sometimes provide full or partial recovery, but not all Canadians have insurance. In particular, victims with a low income are often uninsured. However, such figures are limited in that they only take account of direct losses arising from theft and damage to items. They ignore many consequential costs offered by victims and their families, such as time spent cleaning up, time spent off work, and time spent assisting the criminal justice system or going to court.
They also fail to include funeral costs, in case of homicide, obviously, medical expenses, and fees paid to a mental health professional, such as a psychologist. These expenses may or may not be covered by private or public insurance, depending on the individual or where they live. In Canada, health care is public for permanent residents and citizens. However, not all medical fees are covered by public insurance. Health care programs are run by the provinces, so what they cover differs across the country.
In Quebec, for example, besides the deductible required by many insurance programs, certain medication and services are not covered, such as psychological counseling. It is estimated that average murder puts one and a half to two and a half people into counseling. However, as we have seen, it is not only serious violent crimes that can impact victim psychological well-being.
Many provinces have compensation programs for victims of violence, which will cover some of these expenses for some victims. These will be discussed in Module 9. However, when victims are not eligible for compensation and are left to carry the financial burden themselves, the costs can add up quite quickly. Victimization can also entail loss of income, caused by the inability to work. Beside the loss of wages for the direct, indirect, or secondary victim who is unable to work because of trauma, Miller, Cohen, and Wisserman argued that the costs of crime also include productivity loss by co-workers and supervisors who need to recruit and train replacement workers.
Based on a two-year multidisciplinary research effort to estimate the costs and consequences of personal crimes for Americans, They calculated that personal crime costs Americans $105 billion annually in medical costs, lost earnings, and public program costs related to victim assistance. Due to inflation, this value would be even higher today. The study was done in 1996. Beside the tangible cost of victimization, there is also a social cost of crime. But how do you put a dollar value on the cost of pain and suffering?
It's not... It's not... easy to quantify something as subjective and tangible as emotional pain.
While it might seem cold and callous to try to put a dollar value on pain and suffering, such information is useful at the aggregated level. Without it, it is difficult to understand the value of victim support services. Monetary estimates of lost quality of life caused by fatalities can, for example, be based on the amount of people routinely spend to reduce their risk of death. This concept referred to as contingent evaluation and is derived from economics where it is used in relation to the labor market data on wages for risky jobs. Long used contingent evaluation to get a victimization survey data on a number of victimizations and the proportion of victims feeling worried about their safety to calculate the cost of pain and suffering from crime in Canada.
He estimated that the cost for all crimes was approximately $35 billion. When pain and suffering aren't taken into consideration, violent crimes are found to cost victims and society more than nonviolent crimes. $20 billion for violent crimes versus $15 billion for property crimes.
There are very few longitudinal studies on the effect of victimization. Reaction to crime are influenced by social factors, which is a limitation of retroactive studies such as victimization survey. Prospective longitudinal studies with control groups are, however, rare because of their organizational complexity and cost.
Determining whether crime victimization causally affects mental health is further complicated by the contribution of environment, family background, and behavioral factors. Failure to control important risk factors such as past victimization, stressful life events, age, employment status, and financial straits when examining the relationship between crime victimization and mental health could lead us to draw error-risk conclusions about the impact of victimization. One of the few longitudinal studies on victims was conducted by Adrian Denkers and Frans Willem Winkel in the Netherlands. Based on a large sample from a general population telephone survey panel of 5,218 respondents, the objective of this study was to examine the impact of victimization on a person's well-being. This study is unique because it not only used longitudinal data on a control group, but it also included pre-victimization data on individuals'well-being.
The sample included victims of all types of crime, regardless of whether or not they reported the crime to police. so the survey tended to include many less serious offenses. Denkels and Winkle found that, as in other studies, victims reported lower levels of well-being and higher levels of fear than non-victims, and the effect of crime were more pronounced among victims of violent crimes than among victims of property crimes. However, when controlled for the measurement of satisfaction with life, victims hardly seemed to suffer a deterioration of well-being.
Victims appeared to be unhappy. happier than non-victims, but to some extent they were already so before the crime took place. Differences in well-being between victims and non-victims appear to be a function of pre-crime factors. The authors argue that crime does not seem to shatter assumptions about the world and the self, but rather those who are depicted by shattered assumptions seem to be liable to be victims of crime. These findings raise the question of whether As some early victimologists argued, there is something about the victim that makes them prone to victimization.
The only dependent measure that remains significant after controlling for pre-crime measurement was perceived vulnerability. Those who experienced violent crime reported higher levels of perceived vulnerability than those who experienced property crime or those who had not experienced any crime. After two months, victims of violent crimes appear to have readjusted their perceived vulnerability. It is possible that those who felt especially vulnerable had previously experienced victimization.
This study did not control for prior victimization, so it is impossible to exclude either possible explanation. Norris and Keenstein, in the mid-1990s, undertook a longitudinal panel study of victims in Kentucky, examining levels of psychological distress following victimization. They drew a probability sample from a telephone crime survey of Kentucky residents in 1980. Respondents were classified as victims of violent crime in the past six months, victims of property crimes in the past six months, and non-victims in the past six months. Each respondent was interviewed a second time six months later and again after another six months. In all, 522 people participated in all three waves.
The researchers found that crime victims had greater psychological distress than non-victims at the time of the first interview. and victims of violent crimes suffered more distress than victims of property crime. Moreover, they find a significant crime-by-time interaction effects. Victims got better over time, while non-victims remained stable.
Most change occurred between interviews 1 and 2. However, the authors did have to take into consideration possible re-victimization of respondents over the 12-month period of their data collection. Using regression analysis, they found that when demographic variables as well as prior victimization were controlled for, experiencing a new subsequent victimization was found to have significant effect on victims'distress symptoms. They also found that prior victimization was the best predictor of subsequent victimization. In addition, they examined various types of precautionary behavior and found that victims were neither more nor less cautious than others.
Hence, they concluded that victims are not to blame for their increased risk and that it is wrong to develop prevention policies based on the assumption that victims control their risk. In Australia, Cornigley and Lee examined the mental health of crime victims and non-victims in metropolitan areas using data from a large household-based panel survey, the Household and Labor Dynamic in Australia survey, which follows households over time since it began in 2001. They examined data from the period of 2001 to 2006. Mental health was measured in terms of nervousness, depression, difficulties with daily activities because of emotional problems and tiredness. The authors found that when they controlled for time-stable individual risk factor, as well as dynamic variables, victimization did affect mental health, but this effect was only significant for violent victimization.
In another Australian study, Freeman Smith also used the data from HILDA, the Household Income and Labor Dynamic in Australia. The sample used records from 16,187 individuals with between 2 and 10 years of annual survey data across the period of 2002 to 2011. Mental health measured based on responses to questions resulting to nervousness and emotional state in the preceding four weeks. Besides having longitudinal information about victimization and mental health, the authors were able to control for stable background variables, example, gender, past victimization, and numerous dynamic variables, such as partner status, employment status, financial prosperity, alcohol consumption, and so on.
They report that victims of violence suffered significant alterations in the mental health following the experience of crime that could not be attributed to pre-existing time stable factors, such as history of child abuse, or the dynamic factors included in the model. However, For victims of property crime, there was no statistically significant change in the mental health following the experience of crime once other relevant time-stable and dynamic factors were controlled for. Examining gender differences, they found that becoming a victim of violent crime has a significant negative impact on the mental health of both men and women, but the effect of victimization is more pronounced on women. However, these large panel studies do have shortcomings, as we saw victims are more likely to move than non-victims, which in this case could mean that only victims who did not move remained in some of these studies.
Hence, these samples may be biased, including only victims who reacted differently than most other victims by deciding not to move away. These longitudinal studies illustrate the complexity of isolating the impact of crime from other factors that affect people's life. Past traumatization predicts future victimization.
Studies that control for prior victimization find that violent victimization lead to a significant decline in mental health, and violent crime has a more severe and persistent impact on victims'mental health and property. While both men and women are emotionally affected by crime, women appear to be more strongly affected. Are people who have previously experienced victimization more vulnerable and thus at greater risk of victimization? We will return to this question when we discuss polyvictimization in Module 5. Victimization does not take place in a vacuum.
And as Longitool's studies presented before show, to understand the effect of victimization, we need to take into consideration the victim's estate before the victimization. Building on the work of Levison, Hill presented a model of victimization and recovery consists of four stages. Pre-victimization, in which the victim's life has a certain order.
The actual victimization, which throws the victim into a state of disorganization. Transition, in which the victim tries to adjust to long-term emotions and other effects and starts to give meaning to his or her victimization. And full reorganization, in which the individual finds a new balance. In the case of multiple or repeat victimization, victims do not have a chance to reach stage four and integrate the experience into their lives before they are thrown back into the emotional turmoil of a new victimization experience.
Stage three is vital for the successful recovery of the victim, and it is at this stage that the victim is likely to need the most help. Help can come from the victim's informal network of support, as well as professionals. For example, victim support services. Interaction with victims is discussed in detail in Module 8. Victims who report their victimization to police are likely to come into contact with authorities in Stage 2 and possibly 3. The police officer who arrives on a crime scene will likely be confronted by a victim who is confused and disoriented as they try to figure out what just happened. Victims are very susceptible to reaction from...
others at these stages. We will return to this issue in module six when we discuss secondary victimization. Apology. Victimization surveys have helped us understand the short-term effect of victimization on direct victims.
Surveys reveal that effects of crime vary considerably across victims and victimization. While the majority of victims are emotionally impacted by the event, in most cases the effects dissipate within a few days, while others suffer serious, long-lasting effects. However, the limitations of the victimization survey apply equally when they are used to measure the effects of crime.
They do not include all victims of all crime, and they do not capture long-term effects of crime or change over time. Longitude-long studies support the conclusion that victimization is not only distributed within the population and that prior victimization is a risk factor. They also show that when prior victimization is controlled for, violent victimizations lead to a decline in mental health.
Compared to property crime, violent crimes have a more severe and persistent effect on mental health. The concept of PTSD is important for victims and victimology. PTSD recognizes the traumatic impact that victimization can have on direct, indirect, and secondary victims. This validation and recognition of the experience is important. However, most victims do not develop PTSD.
And by focusing on PTSD, researchers risk neglecting other emotional effects of victimization and types of victimization not associated with PTSD. There is a growing awareness that the effects of crime are felt beyond the direct victim. The indirect victims, secondary victims, and tertiary victims may all be impacted by victimization.
With the exception of physical injury, which is experienced only by a direct victim, and possibly secondary victims who are injured during the crime, all types of victims may experience psychological, social, and financial consequences as a result of a crime. All victims need to be considered when we think about the impact of victimization. Hope you've enjoyed this module, and I will see you shortly.
Bye-bye.