Victimization is a concept that in some psychological modalities is interpreted as the process of becoming a victim. According to one of the founders of the doctrine of positivist victimology, B. Mendelssohn, the concept of “victim” is the opposite of the concept of “criminal”.
The very term “victim” and the theory that a person, unconsciously or consciously, by his behavior provokes a criminal to commit violent acts, causes a lot of controversy among psychologists.
The concept of victimization in psychology
Some psychologists express the opinion that there is a special victim behavior. This behavioral model implies that a person constantly finds himself in the position of a victim, attracting rapists, maniacs and other people who like to make fun of him.
The concept of “victimization” first appeared in criminology. There is even a corresponding branch of criminology - victimology, which studies the process of becoming a victim of a crime. Subsequently, some psychotherapists armed themselves with this concept, who began to view victimization as a complex of pathological properties of a person who constantly finds himself in the position of a victim. Nowadays, this phenomenon is studied in various spheres of human life, but most of all in family relationships.
A person suffering from this “pathology” constantly finds himself in unpleasant situations in which he is harmed in some way. In this case, the cause of harm can be not only another person, but also anything: an animal, bad weather, a natural disaster, any unfortunate combination of circumstances.
Proponents of the existence of victimization may encounter objections, because it seems that they are blaming the victims for the misfortunes that happen to them: the notorious “it’s your own fault” argument. In reality this is not the case. The guilt of the criminal in the crime has not yet been canceled, as well as the accident in circumstances and the existence of natural disasters. It's just that some researchers have noticed certain patterns in terms of, for example, how criminals choose their victims or why some people attract the unhealthy attention of villains, while others do not.
Proponents of this phenomenon point out that victimization behavior is especially characteristic of adolescents. A person at this age is endowed with enormous ambitions and qualities - such as youthful maximalism; however, insufficient knowledge of life leads to the fact that, under the influence of his ambitions, he constantly finds himself in unpleasant situations. Dissatisfaction with the result gives rise to the desire to “take revenge,” which leads to new troubles - and so on.
It has been noticed that some people tend to enter into conflicts over the slightest issue, even when disagreements can be avoided. On the other hand, no one doubts that school hooligans choose a special type of classmates for their atrocities - physically weak, naive, vulnerable, stupid, stooped, with a mincing gait, etc. Such people behave “funny” and cannot give back.
How does victimization manifest itself?
Victim behavior , according to some experts, is reflected in the fact that a person often finds himself in situations where he finds himself in the position of the victim. In criminal psychology, victimization is considered as the ability to “attract” and attract the attention of antisocial individuals - rapists, maniacs.
According to victimization theory, the victim behaves in a certain way. His behavior arouses increased interest and awakens the desire to show aggression in the criminal.
Victim behavior from a psychological point of view
According to supporters of the victimization theory, it is especially often demonstrated by adolescents who:
- very ambitious;
- tend to defend their point of view;
- maximalistic;
- have insufficient life experience.
All of these factors cause teenagers to often find themselves in unpleasant, and often dangerous, situations. It’s not the result they hoped to get that forces them to “go for a second round” and achieve their goal. This again turns into trouble.
Some people tend to conflict even when there are no objective reasons for a clash. But it is known that those who offend their peers direct aggression towards children and demonstrate special behavior. They do not enter into conflicts even if their personal interests are affected; they try to avoid confrontation and hide from troubles.
“Victims” are vulnerable, naive, and physically weaker than their offenders. The appearance of those who more often than others fall into the “victim” position also attracts attention. Teenagers often have an absent-minded look, a rustic expression on their faces, stoop, their gait is uncertain, mincing.
Here we cannot help but emphasize that legal experts and the vast majority of psychologists believe that such “signs of a victim” in no way justify the criminal and do not reduce the degree of his guilt for the violence committed.
Two types of victimization behavior
People who tend to exhibit victimized behavior can take the place not only of a potential victim, but also of a rapist. Therefore, there are 2 very different types of behavior.
Compromising or conforming - people take on the role of a victim, expect violent actions against them, deception, and insults. They show timidity, easily submit to the will of others, and often not only justify the behavior of their rapist, but also consider it correct. The reason for such “worship” of the aggressor is that the victim sees in him a stronger personality who is capable of committing actions that she herself does not dare to do.
People with a conformist position have low self-esteem; they are confident in their insignificance and inability to decide or be responsible for anything. They shift the blame for their failures onto external circumstances or other people, like to complain, and do not hide their position: “What about me? I'm just a victim."
Demonstrative or emotionally unstable behavior is typical for people who themselves show aggression and provoke others. The form of provocation can be open or implicit. This behavior manifests itself in bullying of the weaker and psychological violence.
Victimization and its types
Since victimization is a complex set of behavioral acts, researchers identify a number of its types according to different parameters:
- According to the behavior of the victim: guilty and innocent. In the first case, the victim actually provokes the aggressor or deliberately ends up in a dangerous situation; in the second case, a person falls into the victim state by accident or does not deliberately provoke the aggressor. Example: in the first case, a group of people beat up a gopnik who himself threatened to attack them. In the second case, the gopnik himself “runs into” a person who looks physically weak.
- By number of victims: individual and mass. In the first case, one person becomes the victim; in the second - some kind of social group (for example, representatives of a certain nationality).
What is victimization behavior
We said above that the behavior of the victim may or may not provoke the criminal. Criminologists, however, distinguish two types of active victim behavior. In the first case, she actually provokes the attacker to commit a crime: she threatens, robs, strikes, etc. In the second case, the victim does not want to provoke anyone, but her actions somehow contribute to the activities of the criminal. For example, an incompetent doctor only aggravated the patient’s illness, and the patient (or one of his relatives) begins to take revenge.
Psychologists also distinguish such types of victim behavior as comfortable and emotionally unstable. In the first case, the person seems to consciously choose the role of the victim; often he even admires the presence of the rapist next to him, because he sees in him a “strong personality.” Such victims are usually timid, fearful and insecure people with low self-esteem; with all this, they are characterized by resentment towards the entire world around them, they constantly complain.
In the second case, a person tries to be a rapist himself: he starts a conflict, gets into a fight; Such people tend to offend and humiliate the weak. When they encounter a stronger opponent, they take on the role of the victim. It is about such people that the proverb says: “A daredevil is among sheep, but before a daredevil there is a sheep.”
Sometimes it happens that people who are physically and psychologically strong and self-confident find themselves in the role of a victim; they consciously choose sacrifice to defend their principles or protect someone from injustice. Such actions may outwardly resemble victimized behavior, but they are not pathological and are justified in a moral and psychological sense.
What is victimization behavior
The concept of victimization was introduced in the science of victimology, which studies the behavior of victims and criminals. Special behavior, at the verbal and non-verbal level, forces criminals to almost unmistakably choose certain individuals for their victims. For example, if a rapist shows aggression towards several women, then he will continue his actions only with the one who cowers in fear, remains silent, tolerates inappropriate behavior, tries not to attract attention, and at the same time looks scared. Those who immediately fight back, engage the public in interaction and make it clear that such actions are unacceptable are most likely to be left alone.
Currently, the concept of victimization implies not only a greater likelihood of being attacked by another person, but also verbal abuse, humiliation and the frequency of exposure to unpleasant and traumatic situations such as accidents, accidents, choking doors or frequently breaking appliances. Suffering from military operations and natural disasters fits here; a person looks like a magnet that attracts failures.
Like any concept, victimization has its own distinctive features and characteristics. Such people are characterized by unstable emotional reactions and a distorted perception of their own feelings, which ultimately leads to the formation of an external locus of control.
A victimized person will take a passive position in his decisions and will largely seek guidance, taking a subordinate position. Submissiveness, combined with suggestibility and low self-esteem, creates favorable conditions for gradually becoming a chronic victim in the future, even if such episodes have not happened in a person’s life before.
Peculiarities of upbringing that do not imply the development of caution form a frivolous style of behavior, the inability to distinguish between dangerous situations, and, accordingly, the ability to stand up for oneself or leave the area of unfavorable developments in time.
The socially approved qualities of diligence and conscientiousness, in their extreme manifestation, form a position always ready for submission. Moreover, the more a person has to obey others in life, the more difficult it is to refuse and resist him when there is a real need, thanks to the developed strategy of behavior. Such people argue that it is easier to submit to the rapist and avoid beatings, to withstand beatings from your husband and thereby allow him to calm down, to complete a week's work quota in two days to the detriment of health, but to maintain the favor of colleagues. There are many rationalizations, but the result is the same - a person suffers and continues to suffer.
Victimization comes in different directions and degrees of severity. In general, such a couple is inherent in any person, and in a healthy version it is responsible for the opportunity to sacrifice one’s interests for the sake of further gain. However, being a personal characteristic, victimization is considered a pathological trait and requires psychological and sometimes psychiatric correction.
Causes of victimization
Why does a person choose “victim behavior”? After all, it is known that every healthy individual strives not to show his weaknesses, including to potential enemies, to avoid conflicts and dangerous situations. The well-known “instinct of self-preservation” is at work here (which, however, is not an instinct, since such a category does not exist in the human psyche).
There are several reasons why a person begins to behave “unconventionally” and take on the role of a victim.
:
- Uncertainty, low self-esteem, anxiety, emotional instability;
- Domestic violence, as well as victim syndrome in parents;
- Unfavorable environment in which the person grew up or is located;
- Mental disorders and diseases;
- Excessive parental care in childhood;
- Maximalism, high self-esteem, the desire to prove that one is right by any means, as well as an attempt to “test one’s strength”; This is particularly true during adolescence.
There are also some factors that somehow cause “victim behavior”. For example
:
- Being in a state of submission. In this case, the person fulfills the demands of the attacker, but does it uncertainly and sluggishly, which causes aggression from the rapist.
- Explicit and defiant behavior by a person in the presence of the abuser, or habitual behavior that the abuser finds “offensive” to himself.
Victimization, how to get rid of it.
Severe victimization is considered a deviation that requires treatment. Therapy for people exhibiting victimized behavior is carried out comprehensively. A person whose victim behavior was formed in childhood needs the help of a team of specialists - a psychologist, a psychotherapist (psychiatrist).
Medications prescribed by a specialist can reduce the intensity of depression, ease anxiety, and normalize sleep. All this provides a resource for further psychological and psychotherapeutic study of problematic topics.
The work of a psychotherapist or psychologist with a victimized client is aimed at:
- revision of the attitude towards the events of the past, the formation of a strong feeling that something that happened before does not affect the situation today;
- formation of a stable, positive self-perception, increasing the degree of self-esteem, developing a sense of independence;
- correction of views, attitudes, changes in behavior patterns, revision of the value system;
- developing the ability to understand your emotions and feelings, control, analyze thoughts and actions;
- developing the ability to adequately communicate with others, interact productively, and correctly assess the attitude of other people and their intentions.
All of the listed areas of psychological work are very important, but they must be complemented by the formation of an environmentally friendly, friendly environment in which a person lives. It is important to reconsider your immediate environment, stop communicating or minimize contact with people who make you feel fear and feelings of inferiority. It is necessary to direct energy to those activities in which you can get good results and achieve success. All this is not avoidance or an attempt to hide from danger, but necessary measures of mental hygiene.
Examples
Each of us could observe examples of victimization in everyday life. Here, let's say, is the situation when a girl returning home from a party late at night walks instead of calling a taxi. Consciously or unconsciously, it provokes an attack by intruders, especially if the action takes place in a disadvantaged area.
Another common situation is when a person gets involved in a conflict with a drunken hooligan, rowdy, while he could have walked by.
As already mentioned, when a person finds himself in a victim situation, many illiterate people cause such a speculative reaction as justifying the rapist. This is also common in many traditional societies, including Islamic ones. There, for example, no one stands up for a raped woman, since it is believed that she dressed and behaved too “provocatively” - she was on the street without a burqa, without a man accompanying her, wore open clothes, trousers, etc. In some countries (as in In Saudi Arabia, a raped woman is officially brought before a Sharia court as the culprit because she “provoked the sinful behavior” of her attacker.
In Russian society, of course, such legislation does not exist; however, victim blaming is widespread. This is facilitated by the extremely low level of education and culture of Russians, outdated ideas about “rules of decency,” as well as a criminal gang mentality, a tendency to live “by convention” and extol villains.
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Victimization is the probability of an individual being, under certain objective conditions, in the role of a victim.
Individual victimization is the properties (of a social, biophysical or psychological nature) of an individual that, in a certain life situation, contribute to the creation of conditions for committing a crime with causing him certain harm.
Species victimization is the predisposition of individuals to become, due to a number of circumstances, victims of certain types of crimes (for example, robbery, rape, etc.).
Group victimization is common for certain categories of people who have similar social, demographic, psychological, biophysical and other qualities of “increased ability” to become victims of crime (collectors, watchmen, taxi drivers, etc.).
Mass victimization is an objectively existing possibility for a certain part of people, due to their subjective qualities, to suffer physical, moral and material damage from crimes.
When determining “victimization”, the decisive and only criterion is the characteristics of the victim. However, an individual may be a victim not simply and purely due to his “personal” characteristics, but due to their combination or relationship with other factors.
Two other main types: general (depending on age, gender, occupation, social status, etc.) and special (depending on mental instability, characteristics of the will of alcohol intoxication, characteristics of the will and emotional instability, etc.). As some analysis shows, when these two types of victimization are layered, the degree of victimization increases significantly.
Research shows that women are characterized by increased victimization - in cases of committing crimes such as fraud, torture; men – in cases of murder and grievous bodily harm. This circumstance is apparently related to the nature of the social roles performed by men and women in the formal and informal spheres, and to their way of life in everyday life.
The choice of a crime victim by a criminal is an important, but not the only factor that determines victimization. Another circumstance is also significant – the type of behavior of the victim. So, before committing a crime, behavior can be:
1. Provoking, when a person, through his actions, creates a criminogenic situation.
2. Active, when a person does not create a criminogenic situation, but through his actions significantly contributes to its occurrence.
3. Passive, when the role of the victim in creating a criminogenic situation is insignificant or absent altogether, i.e. a person becomes a victim, as a rule, without connection with his behavior before the crime was committed.
The behavior of the victim after the commission of the crime deserves special attention. In practice, situations often occur when victims of a crime do not report this to the relevant authorities. From a criminological point of view, such behavior is one of the conditions conducive to the continuation of criminal behavior. Therefore, it is important to establish the reasons for the victims’ refusal to report what happened. Analysis of empirical material shows that such behavior of victims is explained by: friendly relations with the criminal, reluctance to deal with formal criminal procedural relations, reluctance to “compromise oneself” before the laws, friends and illnesses, fear of disclosing the fact of the assault, reluctance to destroy the family, the desire to “ deal" with the perpetrator, disbelief in the ability of law enforcement agencies to solve the crime, the pressure of related feelings, fear of the offender, a kind of self-sacrifice, taking the blame for what happened upon oneself, misconception regarding the nature of the guilty actions committed, etc. Provide their analysis for each type of crime and classification Accordingly, developing a system of victimological forecasting and prevention is a great task for the science of criminology.
Criminological victimization is the increased ability of a person, due to a number of subjective and objective circumstances, to become an object of criminal attacks.
Quantitative signs of victimization:
- Volume – the number of crimes expressed in absolute numbers that resulted in harm to individuals and legal entities; the number of victims of these crimes in a certain territory for a certain period;
- Level – the total number of recorded crimes that resulted in harm to individuals and legal entities; the number of victims of these crimes, as well as cases of harm caused by crimes in a certain territory for a certain period.
The essence of victimization is determined by the number of victims of the most dangerous crimes in the structure of victimization, as well as by the characteristics of the personalities of those against whom crimes are committed.
Text of the book “Criminology. Cribs"
Structure of criminological victimology
Criminological victimology is
an independent branch of criminology that studies the character and behavior of a crime victim, her connections and relationships with the criminal before, during and after the commission of a crime.
Criminological victimology studies:
1) social, psychological, legal, moral and other characteristics of crime victims, that is, creates a victimological portrait that makes it possible to understand for what reason and because of what emotional, volitional, moral qualities and socially conditioned orientation a person fell into the position of a victim;
2) the relationship connecting the criminal and the victim in their development, which makes it possible to understand how important or necessary the relationship that arose between them was to create the preconditions for the crime, how they influenced the initiation of the crime, its course, and to identify the underlying motives of the criminal’s actions;
3) situations preceding the crime and situations that arose directly during the crime, which helps to clarify how in these situations the behavior (action or inaction) of the victim (victim) is manifested and how this behavior is consistent with the behavior of the offender;
4) post-criminal behavior of the victim (victim), since involvement in a crime causes mental, moral, and physical trauma to the victim; the answer to this question helps to understand what the victim does to restore his rights, how willingly he resorts to the protection of law enforcement agencies, the court, or obstructs the administration of justice; this helps to develop a system of preventive measures that take into account or use the protection of potential victims at risk or victims;
5) ways, possibilities and methods of compensation for damage caused by the crime; emphasis is placed on the physical rehabilitation of the victim as a primary goal, but without limiting it to cases of crimes committed; Victimology predicts the onset of certain consequences along with the complex of overcoming them for persons whose psychological or moral qualities and behavioral characteristics turn out to be the determining factor for committing criminal acts or creating criminogenic situations that threaten to cause violence.
Personal victimization
Personal, or anthropological, victimization is called
a person’s special predisposition to become, due to certain circumstances, a victim of a crime or his inability to avoid danger in cases where this is quite possible.
Victimization consists of two components – personality and situation: the nature of the situation reveals certain special traits in the victim. Personal victimization is usually defined as a state of vulnerability during a person’s interaction with external factors, the realization (non-realization) of characteristic personal qualities by him at the time of the crime. This includes motives, goals, intent or negligence that aggravate (relieve) the harm caused, as well as perceptions, awareness and attitudes towards the results of victimization.
Personal victimization is determined by subjective and objective factors of victim predisposition;
they manifest themselves in extreme situations as an inability to resist the criminal.
The nature of victimization is determined by: 1) the number of victims as a result of crimes; 2) characteristics of the persons against whom the crimes were committed. Victim of a crime
considered an individual who has suffered physical, moral or material harm. In the structure of a crime victim, it is possible to identify common qualities that made her vulnerable, and to create victimological portraits and typing, the personal qualities and behavior of victims are studied.
According to the generally accepted classification of crime victims, they can be divided into groups according to:
1) the content of the subjective side: from intentional or careless crime;
2) the direction of the criminal offense (certain types of crimes);
3) the nature of the harm caused: material, moral or physical;
4) the degree of awareness of the onset of consequences: conscious or unaware;
5) types of relationships with the criminal: random, uncertain or definite;
6) roles of the victim: neutral, accomplices, provocateurs;
7) psychological criteria: with pronounced moral and psychological characteristics or with mental deviations;
biophysical characteristics;
9) involvement in a crime.
Types of victimization behavior
Victim behavior is called
such behavior of a person that can, as a result of the actions he commits, cause a crime.
In criminology, it is customary to distinguish three types of victim behavior:
careless, risky, or objectively dangerous for the victim. In many cases, the criminal initially has no desire to kill or maim another person, but the behavior of this person (often a random passer-by) is perceived by him as obviously dangerous. The criminal kills not because he wanted to kill from the very beginning, but because the victim aroused fear or aggression in him in response to aggression, insult, ridicule, threats, etc.
Many crimes occur as a result of the victimized behavior of the victims themselves; they are caused by the characteristics of the mental or physical state, inappropriate actions, provocative behavior, careless or frivolous attitude towards one’s own or someone else’s personality, honor and dignity, and the property of the criminal; or is associated with an unwillingness to cooperate with law enforcement authorities; entering into an illegal transaction with a criminal; and with prolonged contact with a criminal (usually as a hostage) - with the emergence of the so-called “Stockholm syndrome” (that is, accepting the point of view of the criminal and developing sympathy for him).
Types of victimization behavior can be divided into:
1) active – the behavior of the victim, which provoked the crime;
2) intensive – the victim commits positive actions, which nevertheless led to a crime;
3) passive - inaction when the victim does not resist.
Depending on the behavior of the victim, criminal situations can be of the following nature:
1) push, in which the victim provokes the criminal (by attack, insult, offense, humiliation, incitement, threats);
2) push, in which the victim does not provoke the criminal with his behavior, but he directs violent actions towards her;
3) non-push, in which the victim’s behavior creates the possibility of committing a crime, although it does not act as a push;
4) closed, in which the victim’s actions are aimed at causing harm to himself without the intervention of another person.
Signs of criminological victimization
Criminological victimization is called
the increased ability of a person, due to a number of subjective and objective circumstances, to become an object of criminal attacks or to be involved in a crime. Many illegal actions directed against the victim were due to the behavior of the crime victim herself, which provoked the offender to violence. Victim behavior is often associated with the characteristics of the situational state (for example, drug or alcohol intoxication), health status (defects of the sensory organs), provocative behavior and very often with a special mental state associated with inappropriate actions in a normal situation, which the offender perceives as aggression or threat .
People who are careless about the safety of their person, honor, dignity and safety of property easily become victims; usually these are sociable people who easily make acquaintances, or people whose professions involve such communication (prostitution, gambling, journalism, etc.), or people with harmful tendencies (drug addiction, alcoholism, etc.).
A frivolous attitude towards the rules of maintaining public order and safety leads to similar situations; entering into an illegal transaction; in the case of an already existing danger, an unwillingness to inform law enforcement about threats or (after a crime) about a violent crime that has taken place.
To calculate victimization, the concepts of quantitative signs of victimization and the nature of victimization are used.
Quantitative signs of victimization include:
1) volume – expressed in absolute numbers, the number of crimes that caused harm to individuals and legal entities, and the number of victims of similar crimes in a certain territory for a certain period;
2) level - the total number of recorded crimes that caused harm to individuals and legal entities, the number of victims of these crimes, the number of cases of harm caused by such crimes in a certain territory for a certain period.
The nature of victimization is understood as
the number of victims of the most dangerous crimes in the structure of victimization, as well as the victimological characteristics of the personality of crime victims.
Types of criminological victimization
Two types of criminological victimization can be identified:
1) individual
– the potential or realized increased ability of a person to become a victim of a criminal attack in a situation where the danger can be avoided. It includes personal and situational components, and it is the latter that causes the victim to display certain personal qualities that lead to the commission of a crime. Personal (individual) victimization is defined as a state of vulnerability during a person’s interaction with external factors that make it possible to realize characteristic personal qualities at the time of the crime. Vulnerability depends on subjective and objective factors, but is most often associated with victim predisposition - the mental properties and character of the victim that do not allow her to resist the criminal;
2) massive
- a certain community of people who have similar, similar or different moral, psychological, biophysical and social qualities that determine the degree of vulnerability from crimes of each individual person, but in the represented general mass, individuals with individual victimization act as a single element of the totality.
Depending on the implementation of certain personal and situational factors, mass victimization can be divided into three types:
a) group – victimization of certain groups of the population, categories of people similar in parameters of victimization;
b) object-specific – victimization, which is a prerequisite and consequence of various types of crimes;
c) subjective-specific – victimization, which is a prerequisite and consequence of crimes committed by different categories of criminals.
Quantitative indicators of mass victimization
expressed in: 1) volume (the totality of all victims and acts of harm to individuals in a certain territory in a certain period of time); 2) vulnerability potentials (common for the population and its individual groups of opportunities to become a victim of a crime, which are realized in the mass of individual victimization manifestations, have a different nature and different degrees of determination to commit a crime and cause harm).
The concept of victimological prevention
Victimology studies the character and behavior of a crime victim, examining step by step the characteristics of the victim’s behavior from the moment before the crime was committed, during the crime and after the crime. According to the findings of victimologists, the types of development of conflict situations that develop into a crime, the types of victim behavior that provoke a crime, and the types of criminals who can commit such crimes have been identified. The task of victimology is not only to analyze the crimes committed, but also to prevent them. For this purpose, a victimological forecast and classification of criminogenic situations with a victimization component are used.
For a number of typical situations, an algorithm of preventive actions
in relation to both the potential harm-doer and the possible victim:
a) a conflict situation between two or more persons is known, in which the possible cause of harm and the victim (victims) are identified, a change of roles between them is excluded;
b) there is a known conflict situation in which there is a high probability of changing roles in the “criminal-victim” system;
c) the potential cause of harm and the situations in which he can act are known, only the possible victim has not been identified;
d) the potential victim and the situations in which the victim behaves in a certain way are known, only the possible cause of harm is unknown;
e) situations are known that are obviously dangerous for a wide range of people, based on the possibility of being the cause of harm or the victim of a crime.
In practical terms, victimological prevention can be divided into two groups:
1) measures aimed at eliminating situations in which harm may be caused (informing citizens about dangerous places, persons and situations, about the best methods of behavior; patrolling by law enforcement agencies in crime-prone places and public places); 2) measures aimed at ensuring personal safety (premises security, weapons training, self-defense techniques, psychological assistance).
The concept of criminological personality of a criminal
The personality of the criminal in criminology is called
a set of individual properties inherent in a person who commits or has committed an unlawful act (crime), in which the antisocial orientation of his behavior is manifested. The nature of criminal behavior consists of objective and subjective factors, forming in the criminal certain reactions to certain life circumstances.
By studying the personal characteristics of a criminal, it is possible to identify the characteristics of this behavior and predict how he will act in a particular case, which greatly helps when investigating specific crimes, searching for escaped criminals, choosing a preventive measure or preventive measures for the criminal.
The doctrine of the identity of a criminal is most useful when searching for and neutralizing persons who have committed a crime, as an element of the investigation of a criminal case, its consideration in court, and when creating the foundations and methods of individual prevention. The personality of a criminal is distinguished by the deformation of his idea of human morality and law, and the deeper this deformation, the greater the social danger such a person poses.
For a better understanding of intrapersonal strain
In criminology, various types of classifications of criminals have been developed, they are based on different grounds. The personality structure of a criminal includes biophysiological, socio-demographic, psychological, moral, social-role, criminal-legal and criminological characteristics, which can be divided into two large groups:
1) sociological (socio-demographic): gender, age, level of education, level of material security, social status, presence of a family, etc.;
2) legal: nature, severity of crimes committed, commission of crimes for the first time or repeatedly, in a group or alone, duration of criminal activity, object of criminal attack, form of guilt, etc.
The sociological group of characteristics determines the position of the criminal in society, his status. However, understanding the personality of a criminal is impossible without considering legal characteristics; it is they that give him the criminal individuality of consciousness.
Criminal Personality Types
There are many classifications of types of criminals, each of them is built on a specific basis. In criminology, one of the most important is the classification according to the leading personal motive,
since it is precisely this that accurately shows
the most dangerous criminal types:
1) selfish - unites all persons who have committed crimes based on personal enrichment (thefts, robberies, robberies, thefts, fraud, a number of official crimes);
2) violent – unites all persons who have committed violent crimes (murder, bodily harm, rape and hooliganism); differs in sufficient diversity, in its pure form, violence is not a motivation for this kind of action, the concept of violence itself largely reflects the external nature of the action, and not just its internal content, but at the same time, the commission of violent crimes shows that in certain situations the criminal will resort to to violence as a way to solve problems.
This classification allows, roughly speaking, to separate thieves from a more aggressive contingent.
Persons united in committing illegal actions can be subjected to another classification,
divide them into smaller groups - according to the degree of their social danger, criminal contamination, its severity and activity:
especially dangerous (active antisocial): repeat offenders with multiple convictions, whose persistent criminal activity is in the nature of active opposition to society;
desocialized dangerous (passive, asocial): persons who have fallen out of the system of normal connections and communication, who have been leading a parasitic, often homeless, existence for a long time (vagrants, beggars, alcoholics);
unstable: persons who commit crimes not due to persistent antisocial tendencies, but due to their involvement in the life of certain groups with a negative orientation;
situational: persons whose social danger to their personality is expressed insignificantly in behavior, but nevertheless exists and manifests itself in appropriate situations.
This classification allows us to identify groups of especially dangerous criminals in order to monitor them.
Criminological characteristics of the criminal’s personality
The personality traits of a criminal are reflected by the personality structure of the criminal. The personality structure of the criminal is called
the totality of its socially significant properties that have developed in the process of various interactions with other people, institutions, and the state.
Signs of a criminal’s personality structure:
1) biophysiological
– gender, age, state of health, features of the physical constitution, natural properties of the nervous system, etc.;
2) socio-demographic -
education, social origin and status, occupation, national and professional affiliation, marital status, level of material security, belonging to an urban or rural population, etc.;
3) moral and psychological -
worldview position, which determines the general orientation of the individual, his sense of purpose, characteristics of behavior and actions, habits and inclinations; intellectual properties (level of mental development, amount of knowledge, breadth of views, content and variety of interests and aspirations, life experience, etc.), emotional (strength, balance or mobility of nervous processes, dynamism of feelings, degree of emotional excitability, nature of response to various manifestations of the external environment, etc.), volitional (the ability to make and implement decisions, the ability to regulate one’s activities and the direction of one’s actions, possession of endurance, resilience, firmness, perseverance);
4) social-role
– social role and social status;
5) criminal law and criminology
– qualities that reflect the degree of social deformation of an individual, its special properties, which make it possible to identify the most significant characteristics of persons who have committed crimes.
Criminal personality structure
One of the classifications of the structure of a criminal personality
identifies several sublevels within the criminal’s personality that determine a certain area of development and personality formation:
1) material security;
2) mental development;
3) moral orientation and aspirations of the individual.
These substructures are interconnected: if the structure is based on moral orientation, it will determine both the mental level and material situation; if the basis is financial situation, then a different type of personality will be formed; if intelligence turns out to be the basis, then we will get a dangerous and elusive criminal.
There is another variant of the personality structure of the criminal,
including the following elements:
1) socio-demographic: a) gender; b) age; c) social status and occupation; d) marital status; e) place of residence (city, rural area); f) material and living conditions. Age grouping shows the age groups of offenders; social status and occupation (worker, peasant, student, unemployed, pensioner, etc.) gives an idea of the social groups where crime is most common and allows us to establish its causes;
2) educational and cultural: indicate the interests and needs of the criminal;
3) functional-relational: they relate the criminal to a specific social group, show interaction and relationships with other people and institutions, his internal attitude to these functions and life plans;
4) moral and psychological: a) value orientation of the individual (shows the attitude towards social and moral values); b) attitude to law enforcement norms and requirements; c) a system of needs, interests, claims; d) chosen ways to satisfy them.
Types of criminological victimization
1. Individual is the potential, as well as realized, increased ability of a person to become a victim of a criminal attack, provided that objectively this could have been avoided.
Individual victimization consists of personal and situational components, and the qualitative characteristics of the first are systemically dependent on the second. Individual victimization is a state of vulnerability of an individual due to the presence of crime, resulting from his interaction with external factors and consisting in the possibility of realizing (or not realizing) the qualities inherent in him during the commission of a crime against him;
2. Mass – lies in the fact that people who have similar, similar or different moral, psychological, biophysical and social qualities that determine the degree of vulnerability from crime constitute a mass in which an individual with his individual victimization acts only as an element of the aggregate.
Prevention of victimization
It is possible to prevent the development of victim behavior in a child, adolescent, and later in an adult if the family, society, and law enforcement agencies are ready for this. Preventing violence is the main direction that contributes to the formation of a personality that knows how to protect its physical and psychological boundaries and has adequate self-esteem.
Ideally, preventive work should be carried out at several levels at once:
- family - developing in parents a high level of empathy, the ability to understand the psychological and physiological needs of children and satisfy them;
- identification of families where violence is used against children, work of psychologists, social workers and law enforcement officers with parents;
- creating a friendly, supportive and accepting environment in preschool institutions and schools;
- creating conditions in educational institutions for the psychological development of children, as well as for the environmentally friendly processing of their negative emotions (work with a psychologist, sports clubs, creative studios);
- teaching children and adolescents the rules of psychological and physical self-defense;
- clarification of the legal consequences of violent actions.
Another very important factor in preventing victimization is not blaming the victim for what happened to them and trying to shift responsibility for the violence from the perpetrator to the victim. The latter needs the support of the law enforcement system, family, and environment.
Irina Sherbul
Types of mass victimization
- Group – victimization of certain groups of the population, categories of people similar in parameters of victimization;
- Object-specific – victimization as a prerequisite and consequence of various types of crimes;
- Subjective-specific – victimization as a prerequisite and consequence of crimes committed by various categories of criminals.
Mass victimization is expressed in the totality of all victims and acts of harm caused by crimes to individuals in a certain territory in a certain period of time and common vulnerability potentials for the population and its individual groups, realized in a mass of diverse individual victimization manifestations, to varying degrees determining the commission of crimes and causing harm.
January 27, 2021
Victimization in psychology implies sacrifice. A very large number of modern people are inclined to sacrifice themselves. If an adult does this consciously, then the child is most often a hostage to a situation that significantly influences the formation of personality.
Reasons for the development of pathology
If a person is adequate, then she will not even have the thought of causing any harm to herself. That is why the victimological nature of behavior is a psychological phenomenon, the cause of which is experienced psychological trauma. Today, there are several main reasons that can lead to victimization:
- Most often this happens in single-parent families or families with low income. In both cases, the child does not feel equal to his peers and feels inferior.
- Improper upbringing also leaves its mark and can cause mental disorders. A child tends to trust his parents, but if they lead an immoral lifestyle and also oppress the child, then in adulthood this will lead to victimization.
- In addition to the family, the social environment influences the development of a child’s personality.
Types of victimization
Individuals with an unstable psyche, pseudo-provoking and pseudo-subordinate people are most susceptible to victim behavior. The temperament of the person himself plays an important role. People of the pseudo-provoking type very often themselves do not understand that their actions can work against themselves. Thus, if a young lady behaves defiantly and accepts signs of attention from an unfamiliar man, her resistance to the advances of this man can be perceived as a kind of game. Pseudo-subordinate people cannot provide adequate resistance to the criminal even when it is necessary to do so.
