Week 8

So, classical victimology tended to blame the victim and treat victims as part of the problem of crime; the image of the "ideal victim" represented those few people who were entitled to be considered as 'true' victims, and it was a very limited and disempowering role to occupy (not real, and not really an ideal either). Feminist and radical victimology suggested that we should sympathise with victims, and that a lot of victims were going unseen: women and other oppressed or excluded groups were victims of systematic injustices within society, and suffering from crime was just part of this situation.

So far, so theoretical. We left theory behind this week and looked at some data: which groups of people are really victims of crime? (And how do we know? There are big question marks over the data from even the British Crime Survey, but it's the best we have - it's certainly much more reliable and valid than police figures.) The results were, perhaps, not very surprising: as far as the British Crime Survey can tell, people in poor neighbourhoods are the main victims of property crime; young men, and in particularly young Black men, are the main victims of street violence; and older, White, women are the 'safest' group in society.

Which theoretical perspective, if any, do you think the figures support?