Victimization is a person’s predisposition to be a victim. At the same time, there is a difference between social predisposition, where the likelihood of becoming a victim depends on the crime situation in the region, as well as psychological victimization, when characterological and personality traits acquired as a result of upbringing or psychological traumas received contribute to provoking behavior.
The victim's victimization due to psychological factors has been seriously criticized by many authors and is practically discredited in jurisprudence, where only one party bears responsibility for the crime committed. To prove this, facts are cited that the victim’s behavior is perceived as a provocation exclusively by the criminal and is not objective. That is why this concept is not used in court cases of murder and rape, but has a place in practical psychology. It makes sense to talk about victimization when a person has an increased likelihood of getting into trouble, which is caused by various internal reasons.
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
Victimization of the victim is manifested in the commission of actions leading to dangerous or negative consequences. Self-preservation instincts, intended for the reverse function, do not work at the moment or appear conditionally, for example, only at the verbal level, and are absent at the behavioral level. Several main reasons lead to such deformations.
Initially, this is a personality type that outlines a passive-subordinate position. These are the majority of victims, and their behavior looks like fulfilling the demands of the aggressor. Perhaps they will not be fulfilled completely or slowly, but, nevertheless, the person obeys.
The second personality type is the provocative one. Such people unconsciously seek to attract attention to themselves or are not aware of the consequences of their actions. Vivid examples of provocative behavior are counting large sums of money in an unfavorable public place (at a train station or in a crime-prone area in the evening), sexualized behavior that goes beyond the boundaries of flirting, etc.
Upbringing and experiences of childhood psychotrauma contribute to the appearance of a victim complex. The highest risk of developing victimized behavior is in victims of violence who received no help and support, who did not receive psychotherapy, or who were all close to them who took the side of the rapist and blamed the victim for what happened.
Children of victimized or dysfunctional parents (various types of addiction, low level of social culture, high level of aggressiveness, etc.) do not form an adequate assessment of the situation, and they build relationships with the world like their parents’ family. Such a child may be extremely surprised that in other families no one is ever beaten; in addition, the concept of punishment becomes so necessary that, having matured, a person begins to provoke violence from those who were not inclined to do so, due to his own increased level of anxiety.
Involvement in various antisocial groups, oddly enough, also shapes the behavior of the victim. It is worth noting that not only bright groups that violate the general order influence the formation of the victim’s position, but also any society. Teachers with emotional burnout do not teach children to resist aggression, but pour out negativity on children; the peer group may be of a low social level and bully those who are different. The more acts of violence are perceived by the immediate environment as the norm, the greater tolerance is formed in the individual.
Who is most likely to become a victim of crime?
Specific individuals may be destined to become victims of crime due to:
firstly, their psychological and behavioral characteristics,
secondly, role specificity and group affiliation.
A psychological predisposition to become a victim presupposes the presence of the following personality traits:
- excessive gullibility
- indiscretion,
- increased temper and irritability,
- aggressiveness,
- and in behavior - a tendency towards adventurous and unrestrained actions.
This group should also include those who, having a psychological predisposition, also lead a certain lifestyle, moving among those who pose a danger to them. These are tramps, prostitutes, drug addicts, alcoholics, professional criminals.
Types of victimization
Being a multidimensional concept, victimization is divided into types.
Most often in criminology and psychology they talk about individual victimization, which implies a high probability of a particular individual becoming a victim, despite the fact that objectively this could have been avoided.
It is this type that is most associated with personal psychological traits, injuries received and characteristics of upbringing that shape the individual’s inadequate reaction. Such personal victimization is activated under appropriate circumstances, but instead of choosing safe behavior, the future victim unconsciously chooses a provocative line of behavior. In girls, this can manifest itself by staring into the eyes of strangers or trying to catch a car on the highway at night. Men boast about their material savings in the company of criminals or try to sort things out by physically resolving a conflict with a clearly stronger opponent.
A love of extreme sports, an unjustified desire for heroism, returning to the battlefield after being wounded are actions that are consciously chosen by a person, but they initially pose a threat to life. Some explain this by an increased need for adrenaline or a thirst to increase their self-esteem, and indeed such motivation exists, but the scale of sacrifice in this type of people is also increased.
Mass victimization concerns groups of people and has its own gradation, depending on the characteristics of individuals and conditions. Group victimization unites certain categories of the population that have the same characteristics or parameters of victimization (for example, children or disabled people). Object victimization involves the commission of certain types of crimes (theft, murder or rape). Most often, a person is susceptible to one type, that is, someone who is robbed is unlikely to be raped. Subjective victimization attracts various criminals.
The most striking example of mass victimization is Stockholm syndrome, when victims go over to the side of the aggressors. This does not happen immediately; sufficient continuous contact and strong traumatic emotions experienced are necessary, after which, even being held hostage and having received real physical injuries, the victims begin to protect the offenders, sympathize and help them.
Doctrine of the Victim of Crime
Victimology, from lat. victima - a living creature sacrificed to God, and Greek. logos - word, teaching.
This is part of the science of victims not only of crimes, but also of the consequences of accidents, natural and man-made disasters, epidemics, wars and other armed conflicts, and political confrontations. Therefore, we can talk about victimology in a broad and narrow sense.
In broad terms, it covers not only law and criminology (the latter is a general discipline about the victim of a crime), but also a number of other sciences, including psychology and psychiatry.
In a narrow sense, victimology is interested in (in addition to criminology) criminal law, criminal procedure, penal law, criminology, forensic psychology, forensic psychiatry.
How to get rid of victimization
The increased tendency to become a victim is not an innate quality, but accordingly can be corrected. In situations where the frequency and intensity of losses becomes significant, the condition is stabilized with tranquilizers and antidepressants with simultaneous psychotherapeutic correction.
If the situation is not so critical, then only psychotherapy aimed at restoring adequate self-esteem and developing new behavioral strategies is indicated. One of the main tasks is to shift the regulatory role of actions from an external source to an internal one. This means that before you make a decision or follow the advice, request or even order of someone, you need to correlate what is happening with your needs. In a healthy state, a person will not perform actions that cause him harm, no matter who asks for it, even his direct boss. This implies a greater share of responsibility for one’s life and its course. From this perspective, it is no longer possible to blame others for failures that have occurred or to look for excuses for why the misfortune occurred. Finding support in his feelings and decisions, a person himself begins to organize his life in a safe way, calculating the consequences in advance.
The absence of exposure to external manipulation is necessary so that others cannot play on feelings of guilt, pity or inferiority. A girl who knows her strengths and weaknesses is unlikely to agree to the offer “who needs you besides me, sit down.” The ability to refuse in any area of life is excellent training against victimization. The more the skill of tactful confrontation develops, the less chance there is of unknowingly becoming a victim.
It is necessary to start monitoring your own thoughts, because the more an individual feels sorry for himself and appears helpless and unhappy in his own eyes, the more such a state is transmitted to others. In essence, these are also provocations, because if someone complains the first time, they help him, the second time they don’t pay attention, and the third time it can cause very specific aggressive actions.
