Thinking About Victimization

Bringing together cutting-edge theory and research that bridges academic disciplines from criminology and criminal justice, to developmental psychology, sociology, and political science, Thinking About Victimization offers an authoritative, comprehensive, and refreshingly accessible overview of scholarship on the nature, sources, and consequences of victimization. Written in a lively style with sharp storytelling and an appreciation of international research on victimization, this book is rooted in a healthy respect for criminological history and the foundational works in victimization studies. It provides a detailed account of how different data sources can influence our understanding of victimization; of how the sources of victimization—individual, situational, and contextual—are complicated and varied; and of how the consequences of victimization—personal, legal, and political—are just as complex. This book also engages with contemporary issues such as cybervictimization, intimate partner violence and sexual victimization, prison violence and victimization, and terrorism and state-sponsored violence. Thinking About Victimization is essential reading for advanced courses in victimization offered in criminology, criminal justice, sociology, social work, and public policy departments. With its unapologetic reliance on theory and research combined with its easy readability, undergraduate and graduate students alike will find much to learn in these pages.

Publisher's description: What are the effects that violent crime has on our everyday lives, both in terms of the individual victims and their larger community? This unique text draws from both the fields of criminology and psychology to provide a comprehensive examination of the two major areas that are most significantly effected by violent crime - the crime victims themselves and the larger sphere of their families, friends, neighborhoods, and communities. Beginning with a discussion of the how we measure and study violent victimization, the authors R. Barry Ruback and Martie P. Thompson, look at the immediate and long-term impact violent acts has upon the direct victims. Social and Psychological Consequences of Violent Victimization examines "secondary victims"--Family members, neighbors, friends, and the professional involved with investigating and prosecuting the crime and helping the victim, and also impacts of violent crime on neighborhoods and communities. The authors conclude with recommendations of effective interventions that can be made at the levels of the individual, the community, and the criminal justice and mental health systems. This book's one-of-a kind focus on both the psychological and social impact of crime makes it an invaluable supplementary text for criminal justice and criminology courses dealing with victimization, violent crimes, and the criminal justice process. The book will also interest professionals in victim services, crime prevention, criminal justice, and social work.

Revitalizing Victimization Theory: Revisions, Applications, and New Directions revises some of the major perspectives in victimization theory, applies theoretical perspectives to the victimization of vulnerable populations, and carves out new theoretical territory that is clearly needed but has yet to be developed. With the exception of a handful of isolated works in the mid-twentieth century, theory and research on victimization did not come into its own until the late 1970s with the articulation of lifestyle and routine activity theories. Research conducted within this tradition continues to be an important part of the overall criminological enterprise, and a large body of empirical knowledge has been generated. Nevertheless, theoretical advances in the study of victimization have largely stalled within the field of criminology. Indeed, little in the way of new theoretical headway has been made in well over a decade. This is an ideal time to revitalize victimization theory, and this volume does just that. It is an ambitious project that will hopefully reignite the kinds of theoretical discussions that once held the attention of the field. The work included here will shape the future of victimization theory and research in years to come. This volume should be of interest to a wide range of criminologists and have the potential to be used in graduate seminars and upper-level undergraduate courses.

David Finkelhor presents a comprehensive vision to encompass the prevention, treatment and study of juvenile victims, unifying conventional subdivisions like child molestation, child abuse, bullying and exposure to community violence.

This book provides a rich analysis of the history of Swedish victim support. With the majority of research on victim support centering on the Anglosphere, this book offers a unique case study for considering the role of the victim in the criminal justice system. While Sweden has enacted many laws to support victims, and victim assistance programs have grown rapidly, welfare policy has become more restrictive and crime policy, to some degree, more punitive. Drawing on archival material and interviews with key representatives for the Swedish Association for Victim Support (BOJ), this book examines what role the victim movement has played in a changing welfare state. It argues that BOJ filled a function in the decentralization and privatization of the Swedish welfare state and explores distinctive features of the Swedish victim movement and the form it has taken, as compared to that in other countries. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of criminology, sociology, social policy, civil society studies, and social work, and those engaged in studies of victims and victimology.

This text focuses on the history of criminology, including the major criminological epochs, the most prominent practitioners associated with each, and their contentions and contributions to the discipline. The earliest epochs, which comprise some of the initial concentrations of the text, include the Classical School of Criminology, Positivist Criminology, Sociological Criminology (also known by some as the Chicago School), Conflict Criminology, and Developmental Criminology. The manuscript will also concentrate on the ways by which crime is recorded in the United States and the strengths and weaknesses of each method. The focal point of this crime recording section of the text are on the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and Self Report Surveys. The theories of crime and delinquency that are examined are strain theory, differential association theory, conflict theory, social bonding theory, rational choice theory, social structure theory, social disorganization theory, cultural deviance theory differential association theory, differential reinforcement theory, and labeling theory. In addition, other areas of crime that are explored are gangs and crime, victimless crimes, causes of violent crime, serial killers, mass murderers, and spree killers, sexual assault, mental health and crime, rural criminology, and queer criminology. Finally, the text concludes with chapters on community/police relations and crime, theories of victimization, crime and punishment, using criminological theories to explore crime, and crime in the 21st century.

This book provides insights into such contemporary issues as victimization of children via the Internet, short- and long-term effects of terrorism on children, and applying new technologies to understanding spatial distribution of child abuse.

'Focusing on key issues, themes and concepts within victimology, this edited collection provides an accessible and comprehensive critical analysis of crucial areas within victimisation. The main theories are related to, and integrated with, empirical research in an engaging style.' - Dr Anette Ballinger, Keele University 'This book achieves the rare feat of helping its readers without patronising them. The aids to the reader - tables, boxes, glossaries, questions, and suggestions for further reading - will prove genuinely helpful to students and their teachers, but they appear within a text that is theoretically informed as well as comprehensive and up to date in its coverage. It deserves to be widely read and used in the teaching of criminology, victimology, and criminal justice' - Professor David Smith, University of Lancaster, UK. Organized around the intersecting social divisions of class, race, age and gender, the book provides an engaging and authoritative overview of the nature of victimisation in society. In addition to a review of the major theoretical developments in relation to understanding aspects of victimization in society, individual chapters explore the political and social context of victimisation and the historical, comparative and contemporary research and scholarly work on it. Each chapter includes the following: - Background and glossary - Theory, research and policy review - `Thinking critically about...' sections - Reflections and future research directions - Summary and conclusions - Annotated bibliography Victims, Crime and Society is the essential text on victims for students of criminology, criminal justice, community safety, youth justice and related areas.