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5 The Ongoing Controversy over Shared Responsibility

CHAPTER OUTLINE How Some Victims Contribute to the Crime Problem

Repeat and Chronic Victims: Learning from Past Mistakes?

The Entire Spectrum of Possibilities: Recognizing Complete Innocence and Full Responsibility

Who or What Is to Blame for Specific Incidents?

What Is Victim Blaming? What Is Victim Defending? What Is System Blaming?

Mistakes Individuals Make: Facilitation

How Many Burglaries Were Victim-Facilitated? How Many Vehicle Thefts Were Victim-Facilitated? How Many Identity Thefts Were Victim-Facilitated?

Victim Precipitation and Provocation

How Many Violent Crimes Were Precipitated or Provoked?

Transcending Victim Blaming and Victim Defending: System Blaming

The Importance of Determining Responsibility in the Criminal Justice Process

Applying Deterrence Theory to Victims

Theorizing About Risk Factors: Figuring Out Why Certain Groups Suffer More Often Than Others

Why Various Groups Experience Differential Risks: Routine Activities and Specific Lifestyles

Some Victims Were Criminals: The Equivalent Group Explanation

What’s the Difference Between Crime Prevention and Victimization Prevention?

Reducing Risks: How Safe Is Safe Enough? Ambivalence About Risk Taking

Summary

Key Terms Defined in the Glossary

Questions for Discussion and Debate

Critical Thinking Questions

Suggested Research Projects

LEARNING OBJECTIVES To realize why the concept of shared responsibility is

so controversial.

To recognize victim-blaming, victim-defending, and system-blaming arguments.

continued

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HOW SOME VICTIMS CONTRIBUTE TO THE CRIME PROBLEM

The first few criminologists drawn to the study of victims were enthusiastic about the concept of shared responsibility as a possible explanation for why a particular person was harmed by a certain offender. By raising questions previous researchers had overlooked about victim proneness, individual vulnerability, and personal accountability for one’s misfortunes, they believed they were developing a more complete explanation about why laws are broken and people get hurt. But they also touched off a controversy within victimology as well as in the arena of public opinion that still rages today.

Consider these situations:

■ A motorist shows no concern about where he parks his car, even though he knows that it

ranks high on the list of most frequently stolen vehicles. Sure enough, after he leaves it unlocked on a dark quiet street, it is gone when he comes back the next morning.

■ A college student tosses out bank statements and credit card bills without worrying whether personal information in them will end up in the wrong hands. Her carelessly discarded paperwork enables an identity thief to open up a credit card account and run up a large balance in her name.

■ A man gets drunk at a bar, even though he is among complete strangers, and recklessly begins to stare at a woman who is sitting next to her formidable-looking boyfriend. They exchange insults, and the jealous boyfriend beats him up.

Until victimology emerged, mainstream crimi- nology had consistently ignored the role that injured parties might play in setting the stage for lawless behavior. Victimologists have pledged to correct this imbalance by objectively examining all kinds of situations to determine whether people who were harmed might have played a part in their own downfall.

Thus, victimologists have gone beyond offender-oriented explanations that attribute law- breaking solely to the exercise of free will by the wrongdoer. Victimologists suggest that certain criminal incidents be viewed as the outgrowths of a process of interaction between two parties. What has emerged is a dynamic model that takes into account initiatives and responses, actions and reac- tions, and each participant’s motives and intentions.

Several expressions coined by the pioneers of victimology capture their enthusiasm for examining interactions: the “duet frame of reference” (Von Hentig, 1941), the “penal couple” (Mendelsohn, 1956), and the “doer–sufferer relationship” (Ellenber- ger, 1955). Reconstructing the situation preceding the incident can provide a more balanced and com- plete picture of what happened, who did what to whom and why, and thereby represents an improvement over earlier one-sided, static, perpetrator-centered accounts (Fattah, 1979).

LEARNING OBJECTIVES continued

To understand the distinctions between victim facilita- tion, precipitation, and provocation.

To be able to apply the concepts of victim facilitation, victim blaming, and victim defending to burglary, automobile theft, and identity theft.

To be able to apply the concepts of victim precipitation, victim provocation, victim blaming, victim defending, and system blaming to murder and robbery.

To realize what is at stake in the debate between victim blamers and victim defenders.

To be able to recognize the institutional roots of crime, which overshadow the victim’s role.

To become familiar with the competing theories that attempt to explain why some groups suffer higher victimization rates than others.

To recognize how the issue of shared responsibility impacts the operations of the criminal justice system.

To debate the appropriate role of risk management and risk reduction strategies in everyday life.

To appreciate the difference between crime prevention and victimization prevention.

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A well-known line of inquiry (albeit a controver- sial one) within criminology centers on the differences, if any, between lawbreakers and law-abiding people. Criminologists ask, “What is ‘wrong’ with them? Are there physical, mental, or cultural differences that dis- tinguish offenders from the rest of us?” In a similar vein, victimologists ask, “What distinguishes victims from nonvictims? Do individuals who get targeted think or act differently from those who don’t?”

Just posing these questions immediately raises the possibility of shared responsibility. Victimologists have borrowed the terminology of the legal system, traditionally used to describe criminal behavior, to describe the motives and actions of the injured parties as well. The words responsibility, culpability, guilt, and blame crop up routinely in discussions based on dynamic, situational accounts of the interactions between two people. In the broadest sense, the con- cept of shared responsibility implies that certain persons—not just their offenders—did something “wrong.” Adopting this framework leads to the prop- osition that some—but certainly not all—of the indi- viduals who were hurt or experienced losses did not do all they could have done to limit their exposure to dangerous people or threatening circumstances, or to abort confrontations that were escalating.

REPEAT AND CHRONIC VICTIMS: LEARNING FROM PAST MISTAKES?

One day in October, a woman hears someone banging on her front door. She opens it and sees her neighbor, a 21-year-old man, lying on his back. He pleads, “Call 911, I’m dying.” The ambulance rushes the man to a nearby hospital, but he is dead on arrival. Detectives discover that he had been shot at on two different occasions a few days apart back in July, and briefly hospitalized from the second attack. However, the alleged assassin in those two prior armed assaults was still in jail awaiting trial at the time of the third shooting. (Koehler, 2011)

Researchers looking for clear-cut cases of shared responsibility often focus on individuals who have suffered a series of thefts or attacks.

Offenders seem to set their sights on certain indi- viduals and households more than once during a given period of time. “Repeat victims” are bur- dened twice. Suffering three or more times during a relatively short time span qualifies a person for the dubious distinction of being a “chronic victim.” Having been hurt in the past turns out to be the single best predictor of becoming harmed again in that very same way—or by some other perpetrator or from some other type of offense. Furthermore, the greater the number of prior victimizations, the higher the likelihood will be of trouble in the near future. Revictimization often takes place soon after the initial incident, and then the risks begin to decline as time passes. All these incidents are most likely to break out in very localized high-crime areas, dubbed hot spots. Just as a great many crimes can be traced back to just a few perpetrators, a relatively small number of individuals—termed “hot dots”—often sustain a large proportion of these attacks. If the police can recognize these recurring patterns by applying their knowledge about the suspected offenders, the likely scenes of the crimes, and the probable targets, then they can become effective guardians to head off further trouble (Pease and Laycock, 1996).

Such “series incidents” accounted for about 1 percent of all victimizations and 4 percent of all episodes of violence disclosed to NCVS inter- viewers in 2013 (Truman and Langton, 2014).

Just as criminals have careers in which they offend in various ways over the years, those on the receiving end might also be said to endure “vic- tim careers” over the course of their lifetimes. The career consists of the frequency, duration, and seriousness of the hurtful experiences suffered by a person from childhood until death. The total number of incidents, the date of their onset, their timing (bunching up or spreading out), and the nature of the injuries and losses sustained as they grow older might be gained by interviewing people and asking them to try to recall all their misfortunes retrospectively. Another approach would involve periodically reinterviewing them or an entire birth cohort every few years as part of an ongoing

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longitudinal study. The goal would be to empower these individuals to reduce their risks of future tur- moil, to improve social support programs and police interventions intended to help them, and to further the development of victim-centered the- ories that explain the disproportionate burdens cer- tain persons endure (Farrell et al., 2001).

One implication of this focus on revictimiza- tion and victim careers is that particular individuals might be making the same mistakes over and over again. Maybe they periodically permit their judgment to become clouded by drinking too much, by failing to safeguard their personal property, by allowing themselves to become isolated from bystanders who could intervene in their behalf, or by hanging out with persons known to be armed and dangerous. The most well-documented examples include bank branches suffering holdups frequently, residences being bur- glarized a number of times, cars getting broken into on a regular basis, battered wives getting struck repeatedly, and bullied children being picked on by a series of tormentors. Yet their unfortunate track records may not be entirely their fault, according to crime analysts working on behalf of police departments who look for patterns that may indicate where offenders will strike next and precisely whom they might target. These analysts have come up with two primary reasons to account for repeat victimizations: a boost explanation that focuses on the offender’s abilities, and a flag expla- nation that emphasizes target vulnerability (see Weisel, 2005).

Boost explanations of repeat victimizations point out that career criminals gain important information about the people and places they repeatedly attack based on firsthand knowledge from the successful perpetration of their initial illegal act. They use this inside information to plan their next attack against the same target. Examples of boost explanations would be that burglars learn when a particular home is unoccu- pied or how to circumvent a certain warehouse’s alarm system. Car thieves figure out how to open the door of a specific make and model of car with- out a key. Robbers discover where a storekeeper

hides his cash right before closing time. In con- trast, flag explanations of repeat victimizations are victim-centered. They point out that unusually vulnerable or attractive targets might suffer the depredations of a number of different offenders as opposed to the same criminal over and over. For example, apartments with sliding glass doors are easily broken into, convenience stores that are open around the clock are always accessible to desperate shoplifters and robbers, and taxi drivers and pizza deliverers are particularly easy to rob of the cash they are carrying (Weisel, 2005).

THE ENTIRE SPECTRUM OF POSSIBILITIES: RECOGNIZING COMPLETE INNOCENCE AND FULL RESPONSIBILITY

A typology is a classification system that aids in the understanding of what a group has in common and how it differs from others. Over the decades, victi- mologists have devised many typologies to try to illustrate the degree of shared responsibility, if any, that injured parties might bear in particular incidents. Some of the categories of people identified in typol- ogies include those who are “ideal” (above criticism), “culturally legitimate and appropriate” (seen as fair game, outcasts), “deserving” (asking for trouble), “consenting” (willing), and “recidivist” (chronic) (see Fattah, 1991; also Mendelsohn, 1956; Fattah, 1967; Lamborn, 1968; Schafer, 1977; Sheley, 1979).

Up to this point, the degree of responsibility a victim might share with an offender has ranged from “some” to a “great deal.” But the spectrum of possibilities extends further in each direction. A typology of shared responsibility must include at least two more categories in order to be exhaus- tive. At one extreme is “no shared responsibility at all” or complete innocence. The other endpoint can be labeled as full responsibility.

Several teenagers have a beef with some boys across the street. They go up to the roof of a nearby building and start shooting at the rival group using an auto- matic pistol. A 34-year-old mother, who is waiting to

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pick up her children from school, hears the sounds of gunfire and tries to shield several nearby youngsters by throwing herself on top of them. She is fatally struck in the chest, and two other bystanders are wounded by the stray bullets. (Baker and Maag, 2011) Completely innocent individuals, such as the

mother killed in the tragedy described above, can- not be faulted for what happened to them. In some cases, they were targeted at random and suffered simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Others were crime-conscious peo- ple who tried to avoid trouble. They did what they reasonably could to reduce the risks they faced. To avoid violence, they did nothing to attract the attention of predators and nothing to incite other- wise law-abiding people to attack them. Blameless targets of property crimes took proactive steps to safeguard their possessions in anticipation of the possibility of arson, vandalism, burglary, larceny, or vehicle theft. They did all they could to hinder rather than help any would-be thieves hungry for their possessions.

If taking precautions, keeping a low profile, and minding one’s own business qualify as the basis for blamelessness and complete innocence, then at the other extreme, total complicity becomes the defining characteristic for full responsibility. Logically, a victim can bear sole responsibility only when there is no offender at all. Individuals who are totally responsible for what happened are, by definition, really not victims at all. They suffered no harm from lawbreakers and actually are offenders posing as victims for some ulterior motive. Phony complainants usually seek either reimbursement from private insurance policies or government aid for imaginary losses. They file false claims and thereby commit fraud. For instance, someone who falls down a flight of steps might insist he was pushed by a robber. Fake victims may have motives other than financial gain. Some people may pretend to have been harmed in order to cover up what really occurred. For example, a husband who gambled away his paycheck might tell his wife and detectives that he was held up on the way home.

WHO OR WHAT IS TO BLAME FOR SPECIFIC INCIDENTS?

Since the 1970s, the notion of shared responsibility has become a subject of intense and sometimes bit- ter debate. Some criminologists and victimologists have expressed concern over the implications of studies into mutual interactions and reciprocal influences between the two parties. Those who raised doubts and voiced dissent might be seen as loosely constituting a different school of thought. Just as criminology (with a much longer, richer, and stormier history than victimology) has recog- nizable orientations and ideological camps within it (for example, adherents of conflict models vs. socio- biological explanations for violent behavior), so too does victimology have its rifts and factions. To put it bluntly, a victim-blaming tendency clashes repeatedly with a victim-defending tendency over many specific issues.

Arguments that specific victims bear some responsibility along with their offenders for what hap- pened have been characterized as victim blaming. Countering this approach by challenging whether it is accurate and fair to hold the targeted individual accountable for injuries and losses that a wrongdoer inflicted can be termed victim defending.

Two opposing ideologies might imply that there are two distinct camps, victim blamers and victim defenders. However, victimologists cannot simply be classified as victim blamers and victim defenders. The situation is complex, and people may change sides, depending on the crime or the persons involved. In fact, most individuals are inconsistent when they respond to criminal cases. They criticize specific individuals but defend others, or they find fault with certain groups (for example, viciously abusive husbands who eventually are killed by their battered wives) but not other groups (such as inebriated women who are sexually assaulted by their predatory dates).

What Is Victim Blaming?

Victim blaming assumes that the offender and the victim are somehow partners in crime, and that a

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degree of mutuality, symbiosis, or reciprocity may exist between them (see Von Hentig, 1948). To identify such cases, both parties’ possible motives, reputations, actions, and records of past arrests and convictions must be investigated (Schultz, 1968).

The quest for evidence of shared responsibility captivated the first criminologists who became interested in the behavior of victims before, dur- ing, and after the incident. Leading figures encour- aged their colleagues to focus upon the possibility of shared responsibility in their research and theo- rizing. Some of their statements, excerpted from studies that appeared decades ago, are assembled in Box 5.1.

Victimology, despite its aspirations toward objectivity, may harbor an unavoidable tendency toward victim blaming. It is inevitable that a careful reconstruction of the behavior of a victim before, during, and after a crime will unearth rash decisions, foolish mistakes, errors in judgment, and acts of care- lessness that, with 20–20 hindsight, can be pointed to as having brought about the unfortunate outcome. Step-by-step analyses of actions and reactions are sure to reveal evidence of what injured parties did or failed to do that contributed to their suffering.

Victim blaming follows a three-stage thought process (see Ryan, 1971). First, the assumption is made that there is something wrong with these individuals. They are said to differ significantly from the unaffected majority in their attitudes, their behaviors, or both. Second, these presumed differences are thought to be the source of their plight. If they were like everyone else, the reason- ing goes, they would not have been targeted for attack. And third, victims are warned that if they want to avoid trouble in the future, they must change how they think and act. They must aban- don the careless, rash, or provocative patterns of behaviors that brought about their downfall.

Victim blaming is a widely held view for sev- eral reasons. It provides specific and straightfor- ward answers to troubling questions such as, “Why did it happen?” and “Why him and not me?” Victim blaming also has psychological appeal because it draws upon deep philosophical and even theological beliefs. Fervent believers in a just

world outlook—people get what they deserve before their lives end—find victim blaming a com- forting notion. Bad things happen only to evil characters; good souls are rewarded for following the rules. The alternative—imagining a world governed by random events where senseless and brutal acts might afflict anyone at any time, and where wrongdoers get away unpunished—is unnerving. The belief that victims must have done something neglectful, foolish, or provocative that led to their misfortunes dispels feelings of vul- nerability and powerlessness, and gives the blamer peace of mind about the existence of an orderly and just world (Lerner, 1965; Symonds, 1975; Lambert and Raichle, 2000 and Stromwall, Alfredsson, and Landstrom, 2013).

The doctrine of personal accountability that underlies the legal system also encourages victim- blaming explanations. Just as criminals are con- demned and punished for their wrongdoing, so, too, must victims answer for their behavior before, during, and after an incident. They can and should be faulted for errors in judgment that only made things worse. Such assessments of blame are grounded in the belief that individuals exercise a substantial degree of control over events in their everyday lives. They may not be totally in com- mand, but they are not powerless or helpless pawns and should not be resigned to their fate, waiting passively to become a statistic. Just as cau- tious motorists should implement defensive driving techniques to minimize car accidents, crime- conscious individuals are obliged to review their ways of relating to people and how they behave in stressful situations in order to enhance their per- sonal safety. By following the advice of security experts about how to keep out of trouble, cautious and concerned individuals can find personal solu- tions to the social problem of street crime.

Victim blaming also sounds familiar because it is the view of offenders. According to the crimi- nological theory known as “techniques of neu- tralization,” delinquents frequently disparage their intended targets as having negative traits (“He was asking for it,” or “They are a bunch of crooks themselves”). In extreme cases, youthful

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offenders believe the suffering they inflict is retal- iatory justice that merits praise (“We deserve a medal for doing that”). Their consciences would burden them with pangs of guilt if they saw these same incidents in a more conventional way (see Sykes and Matza, 1957; and also Schwendinger and Schwendinger, 1967). Those offenders who are devoid of empathy and pity are so desensitized that they do not feel the guilt, shame, remorse, or moral inhibitions that otherwise would constrain their behavior. By derogating and denigrating the victim, juvenile delinquents or adult criminals can

validate their hurtful acts as justifiable. Outbursts of stark cruelty and savagery become possible when the injured party is viewed as worthless, less than human, an appropriate object for venting hostility and aggression, or an outcast deserving mistreatment (Fattah, 1976, 1979).

Defense attorneys may persuasively articulate the victim-blaming views of their clients, espe- cially in high-profile murder cases. A “trash- the-reputation” (demonization of the deceased) approach, coupled with a “sympathy” (for the accused) defense, might succeed in swaying a

B O X 5.1 Early Expressions of Support for Inquiries into the Victim’s Role

■ A real mutuality frequently can be observed in the connection between the perpetrator and the victim, the killer and the killed, the duper and the duped. The vic- tim in many instances leads the evildoer into tempta- tion. The predator is, by varying means, prevailed upon to advance against the prey. (Von Hentig, 1941, p. 303)

■ In a sense, the victim shapes and molds the criminal. Although the final outcome may appear to be one-sided, the victim and criminal profoundly work upon each other, right up until the last moment in the drama. Ultimately, the victim can assume the role of determi- nant in the event. (Von Hentig, 1948, p. 384)

■ Criminologists should give as much attention to “victi- mogenesis” as to “criminogenesis.” Every person should know exactly to what dangers he is exposed because of his occupation, social class, and psychological consti- tution. (Ellenberger, 1955, p. 258)

■ The distinction between criminal and victim, which used to be considered as clear-cut as black and white, can become vague and blurred in individual cases. The lon- ger and the more deeply the actions of the persons involved are scrutinized, the more difficult it occasion- ally will be to decide who is to blame for the tragic outcome. (Mannheim, 1965, p. 672)

■ In some cases, the victim initiates the interaction, and sends out signals that the receiver (doer) decodes, triggering or generating criminal behavior in the doer. (Reckless, 1967, p. 142)

■ Probation and parole officers must understand victim– offender relationships. The personality of the victim, as a cause of the offense, is oftentimes more pertinent than that of the offender. (Schultz, 1968, p. 135)

■ Responsibility for one’s conduct is a changing concept, and its interpretation is a true mirror of the social, cultural, and political conditions of a given era … Notions of criminal responsibility most often indicate the nature of societal interrelationships and the ideol- ogy of the ruling group in the power structure. Many crimes don’t just happen to be committed—the victim’s negligence, precipitative actions, or provocations can contribute to the genesis of crime.… The victim’s functional responsibility is to do nothing that will pro- voke others to injure him, and to actively seek to prevent criminals from harming him. (Schafer, 1968, pp. 4, 144, 152)

■ Scholars have begun to see the victim not just as a passive object, as the innocent point of impact of crime on society, but as sometimes playing an active role and possibly contributing to some degree to his own vic- timization. During the last 30 years, there has been considerable debate, speculation, and research into the victim’s role, the criminal–victim relationship, the con- cept of responsibility, and behaviors that could be con- sidered provocative. Thus, the study of crime has taken on a more realistic and more complete outlook. (Viano, 1976, p. 1)

■ There is much to be learned about victimization patterns and the factors that influence them. Associated with the question of relative risk is the more specific question (of considerable importance) of victim participation, since crime is an interactional process. (Parsonage, 1979, p. 10)

■ Victimology also postulates that the roles of victim and victimizer are neither fixed nor assigned, but are

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jury and securing an acquittal or in convincing a judge to hand down a lesser sentence. For example, in cases where children slay their parents, the dead fathers and mothers may be pictured as callous abu- sers and perverse molesters, while their offspring are portrayed as defenseless objects of adult cruelty (see Estrich, 1993b; Hoffman, 1994).

What Is Victim Defending?

Victim defending rejects the premise that those who suffer are partly at fault and challenges the

recommendation that people who were targeted must change their ways to avoid future incidents. First of all, victim blaming is criticized for overstat- ing the extent to which careless habits, foolhardy actions, attention-grabbing behavior, and verbal instigation explains the genesis of an illegal act. Motivated offenders would have struck their cho- sen targets even if the victims had not made their tasks easier, called attention to themselves, or aroused angry reactions. Second, victim blaming is condemned for confusing the exception with the rule and overestimating the actual proportion of

mutable and interchangeable, with continuous move- ment between the two roles.... This position, under- standably, will not be welcomed by those who, for a variety of practical or utilitarian reasons, continue to promote the popular stereotypes of victims and victi- mizers, according to which the two populations are as different as black and white, night and day, wolves and lambs. (Fattah, 1991, p. xiv)

Calls for Research into the Victim’s Role in Specific Crimes

■ Murder: In many crimes, especially criminal homicide, which usually involves intense personal interaction, the victim is often a major contributor to the lawless act.… Except in cases in which the victim is an inno- cent bystander and is killed in lieu of an intended victim, or in cases in which a pure accident is involved, the victim may be one of the major precipitating causes of his own demise. (Wolfgang, 1958, pp. 245, 264)

■ Rape: The offender should not be viewed as the sole “cause” and reason for the offense, and the “virtuous” rape victim is not always the innocent and passive party. The role played by the victim and its contribution to the perpetration of the offense becomes one of the main interests of the emerging discipline of victimol- ogy. Furthermore, if penal justice is to be fair it must be attentive to these problems of degrees of victim responsibility for her own victimization. (Amir, 1971, pp. 275–76)

■ Theft: Careless people set up temptation–opportunity situations when they carry their money or leave their valuables in a manner which virtually invites theft by

pickpocketing, burglary, or robbery. Carelessness in handling cash is so persistently a part of everyday living that it must be deemed almost a national habit.... Because victim behavior today is conducive to crimi- nality, it will be necessary to develop mass educational programs aimed at changing that behavior. (Fooner, 1971, pp. 313, 315) Victims cause crime in the sense that they set up the opportunity for the crime to be committed. By changing the behavior of the victim and potential victim, the crime rate can be reduced. Holders of fire insurance policies must meet fire safety standards, so why not require holders of theft insurance to meet security standards? (Jeffrey, 1971, pp. 208–209)

■ Burglary: In the same way that criminologists compare offenders with nonoffenders to understand why a per- son commits a crime, we examined how the burglary victim and nonvictim differ in an attempt to under- stand the extent to which a victim vicariously contri- butes to or precipitates a break-in. (Waller and Okihiro, 1978, p. 5)

■ Auto theft: Unlike most personal property, which is preserved behind fences and walls, cars are constantly moved from one exposed location to another; and since autos contain their own means of locomotion, potential victims are particularly responsible for varying the degree of theft risk by where they park and by the occasions they provide for starting the engine. The role of the victim is especially conse- quential for this crime; many cases of auto theft appear to be essentially a matter of opportunity. They are victim-facilitated. (McCaghy, Giordano, and Henson, 1977, p. 369)

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cases in which blameworthy conduct took place. Shared responsibility is said to be unusual, not com- mon. A few people’s mistakes don’t justify placing most victims’ attitudes and behaviors under a microscope, or under a cloud of suspicion. Third, exhorting people to be more cautious and vigilant is not an adequate solution. This advice is unrealistic because it overlooks the cultural imperatives and social conditions that largely shape the attitudes and behaviors of both parties in a conflict.

Over the past several decades, many victimolo- gists have embraced the tenets of victim defending, and have sharply denounced crude expressions of victim blaming as examples of muddled thinking and confused reasoning about the issue of shared responsibility. Excerpts of the earliest victim defend- ing arguments condemning victim blaming views appear in Box 5.2.

Victim defending is clear about what it opposes, but it is vague about what it supports. Two tendencies within victim defending can be distinguished concern- ing who or what is to be faulted. The first can be called offender blaming. Offender blaming removes the burden of responsibility from the backs of victims and restores it entirely onto the shoulders of lawbreakers,

“where it belongs.” Victim defending coupled with offender blaming leads to traditional criminological thinking, characterized earlier as “offenderology.” The question once again becomes, “What is ‘wrong’ with the offender? How does he differ from the law- abiding majority?” If the answer is that the offender has physical defects or even genetic predispositions to act violently, then the sociobiological theories of crimi- nology become the focus of attention. If the offender is believed to suffer from mental illness, personality disorders, or other emotional problems, then the the- ories of forensic psychology are relevant. If the offender is said to have knowingly and intentionally chosen to prey upon others, then the explanations center on the classical/rational choice/free-will and deterrence theories about pleasure and pain, benefits and costs, and conclude with the necessity of punishing those who decide to steal and rob.

What Is System Blaming?

The second tendency is to link victim defending with system blaming, wherein neither the offender nor the victim is the real culprit. If the lawbreaker is viewed as largely a product of his or her environment,

B O X 5.2 Early Criticisms of the Notion of Shared Responsibility

■ The concept of victim precipitation has become con- fused because it has been operationalized in too many different, often incompatible ways. As a result, it has lost much of its usefulness as an empirical and explan- atory tool. (Silverman, 1974, p. 99)

■ The study of victim precipitation is the least exact of the sociological approaches; it is part a priori guesswork and part “armchair detective fun and games” because the interpretation rests, in the final analysis, on a set of arbitrary standards. (Brownmiller, 1975, p. 353)

■ A tendency of investigators to assign responsibility for criminal acts to the victims’ behavior reinforces similar beliefs and rationalizations held by most criminals themselves.... Scientific skepticism should be main- tained regarding the concept of victim participation, especially for crimes of sudden, unexpected violence where the offender is a stranger to the victim. (Symonds, 1975, p. 22)

■ Victims of crime, long ignored but now the object of special scholarly attention, had better temper their enthusiasm because they may be more maligned than lauded, and their plight may not receive sympathetic understanding. Some victimologists have departed from the humanitarian, helping orientation of the founders of the field and have turned victimology into the art of blaming the victim. If the impression of a “legitimate victim” is created, then part of the burden of guilt is relieved from the perpetrator, and some crimes, like rape for example, can emerge as without either victims or offenders. (Weis and Borges, 1973, p. 85)

■ Victim precipitation explanations are plagued by the fallacy of circular reasoning about the cause of the crime, suffer from oversimplified stimulus–response models of human interaction, ignore incongruent facts that don’t fit the theory, and inadequately

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and the victim is too, then the actions of both parties have been influenced by the agents of socialization— parental input, peer group pressures, subcultural pre- scriptions about what’s cool and respectable and what’s not, school experiences, media images, reli- gious doctrines—along with criminal justice prac- tices, economic imperatives, and many other social forces. Victim defending coupled with system blam- ing is a more complex and sophisticated outlook than victim defending/offender blaming. According to this more nuanced sociological type of analysis, the roots of the crime problem are to be found in the basic institutions upon which the social system is built. Then the focus of attention moves to the social-economic-political theories in criminology that assert that the causes of criminality are closely connected to other unsolved social problems (debil- itating poverty, chronic unemployment, dysfunc- tional families, failing schools, injustices arising from growing levels of inequality, unreasonable cul- tural pressures to succeed, and subsequent strains between means and goals) (among many others, see Franklin, 1978; and Balkan, Berger, and Schmidt, 1980). To many observers, the explana- tions flowing from the system blaming approach

end up “excusing” the offender from being held accountable in the criminal justice process.

To illustrate the differences between victim blaming and victim defending coupled with system blaming, several types of interpersonal violence and theft will be explored. First, explicit charges of vic- tim facilitation in burglary, automobile theft, and identity theft will be examined. Then the focus will shift to what the injured persons might have done “wrong” in cases of murder and robbery.

MISTAKES INDIVIDUALS MAKE: FACILITATION

Arguments stressing personal accountability focus on the notions of victim facilitation, precipitation, and provocation. All three of these blameworthy behaviors are derived from the broader theme of shared responsibility. Each concept describes the specific, identifiable, and undesirable actions taken by certain individuals immediately before they were harmed. Provocation is the most serious charge that can be leveled at an injured party, while facilitation

explore the victim’s intentions. (Franklin and Franklin, 1976, p. 134)

■ An analytical framework must be found that salvages the positive contributions of the concept of victim pre- cipitation, while avoiding its flaws—its tendency to consider a victim’s provocations as both a necessary and sufficient condition for an offense to occur; its portrayal of some offenders as unrealistically passive; and its questionable moral and legal implications about who is the guilty party. (Sheley, 1979, pp. 126–127)

■ Crime victimization is a neglected social problem in part because victim precipitation studies typically fail to articulate the distress of the victims and instead suggest that some may be to blame for their own plight. The inferences often drawn from these studies—that some individuals can steer clear of trouble by avoiding certain situations—suffer from the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy of treating the victims’ behavior as both

necessary and sufficient to cause the crime. (Teevan, 1979, p. 7)

■ To accept precipitation and provocation as legitimate excuses for attenuating responsibility for violent crime is false, illogical, psychologically harmful to victims, and socially irresponsible.... Victim-blaming has been injected into the literature on crime by well- meaning but offender-oriented professionals. It becomes the basis and excuse for the indifference shown to supposedly “undeserving” victims. (Reiff, 1979, pp. 12, 14)

■ The eager acceptance of arguments about victim responsibility by scholars and the public alike is unde- served; these accounts of why the crime occurred often lack empirical verification, can lead to cruel insensitiv- ity to the suffering of the victim, and tend to exonerate or even justify the acts of the offenders, especially rapists. (Anderson and Renzetti, 1980, p. 325)

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is the least serious. Unfortunately, these three terms have been used somewhat loosely and inconsis- tently by criminologists and victimologists to the point that important distinctions have been blurred or buried.

The term facilitation ought to be reserved for situations in which victims carelessly and inadver- tently make it easier for a thief to steal. Those who negligently and unwittingly assist their offenders share a minor amount of blame. They increase the risks of losing their own property by their thought- less actions. Facilitation is more like a catalyst in a chemical reaction that, given the right ingredients and conditions, speeds up the interaction. Facilitat- ing victims attract criminally inclined people to their poorly guarded possessions and thereby influ- ence the spatial distribution of crime, but not the number of incidents.

Auto theft, burglary, and identity theft are three property crimes where the problem of facili- tation can arise. A motorist who thoughtlessly exits his vehicle but leaves the engine running can be considered blameworthy if a juvenile joyrider seizes the opportunity and impulsively hops behind the wheel and drives off. Similarly, a ransacked home is the price a person might pay for neglecting to observe standard security measures. Those who are careless about protecting their personal informa- tion are highly susceptible to identity theft.

How Many Burglaries Were Victim-Facilitated?

Elderly folks often talk fondly about the “good old days” when they left their doors unlocked. That practice wouldn’t be prudent these days.

A residential burglary can be considered to be facilitated if the offender did not need to break into the premises because a homeowner or apart- ment dweller had left a front door, back door, garage door, or window wide open or unlocked. By definition, these burglaries are not “forcible entries”; they are “unlawful entries”—acts of trespass by intruders seeking to steal valuables. A reasonable implication is that the number of successful burglaries could be cut in half if

residents would take greater care to lock up their homes, garages, and other entrances. If they did, burglars would have to work harder and in some cases would be deterred, thwarted, scared off, or caught red-handed.

Details about victim-facilitated burglaries appear in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) as well as the Uniform Crime Report (UCR).

The NCVS keeps track of three categories of household (not commercial) burglaries: forcible entries (break-ins), attempted forcible entries, and unlawful entries without force. (Attempted, unsuc- cessful no-force invasions are not counted because survey respondents usually would be unaware of these close calls.) Throughout the 1990s and into the early years of the twenty-first century, about 50 percent or more of all completed burglaries reported to NCVS interviewers were unlawful entries without force. But over the decades these facilitated burglaries have dropped sharply, from more than 40 per 1,000 households in the early 1970s down to only 12 per 1,000 in 2008 (the last time the NCVS published such detailed find- ings). More and more people have become crime- conscious about residential security. Apparently, burglars must work harder because fewer people are making it easy for intruders to invade homes and spirit off their possessions.

In recent years, about one-third of all residen- tial and commercial burglaries were unlawful entries in which it was not necessary to use physical force to break down doors or smash locks or win- dows, according to the UCR for 2010 as well as for 2013 (Hardison et al., 2013; and FBI, 2014).

Some kinds of people are more likely to be “guilty” of facilitating a burglary than others, according to the breakdowns about no-force entries presented in recent NCVS annual reports. The age of the head of the household turned out to be an important determinant of whether or not someone would be so thoughtless as to facilitate a burglary. Younger people were much less careful than senior citizens.

The number of people in the household mat- tered a great deal: the more people living under the same roof, the more likely carelessness would take

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its toll. Individuals living alone experienced fewer facilitated burglaries; households with six or more people suffered rates that were much greater. As for the race and ethnicity of the head of the household, black and Hispanic families suffered higher rates of no-force entries. Another key factor was financial: the lower-income families in the survey suffered much higher rates of no-force entries (Hardison et al., 2013). Victims reported 44 percent of all no-force entries to the police, according to the NCVS for 2008 (BJS, 2011). But even the affluent sometimes act thoughtlessly:

Residents of an upscale urban community are jarred when they receive an e-mail from the neighborhood association alerting them that four homes in just five days experienced unlawful entries through open windows or unlocked doors. “This neighborhood is so safe, but not everybody puts on their city smarts and remembers to do the common sense thing and lock their doors,” the e-mail states. Police officers post hundreds of warning fliers and even lock several doors themselves after diamond earrings, bracelets, expen- sive watches, and electronic goods are pilfered during a crime spree by intruders who did not need to use force to enter those premises. (Robbins, 2011)

Leaving a front door, side door, back door, sliding glass door, garage door, or window open makes a trespasser’s tasks easier. Defending against intrusion by installing an alarm system ought to make a would-be burglar’s tasks more difficult. Crime-conscious persons who have already been burglarized once, plus concerned individuals who fear that they might be targeted, have been buying security systems for their residences at a rate of about 1.8 million new systems per year. Security systems cost between $100 and $1200 to install (depending upon their features), and monitoring services charge fees of over $400 a year. About one-fifth of all residences were guarded by alarms early in the twenty-first century (Sampson, 2007).

The problem that arises from the widespread sale and installation of security systems is that a huge number of false alarms occur, which use up limited police resources and therefore waste tax- payers’ money. Police departments across the

country responded to roughly 36 million alarm activations, about 95 percent of which were false alarms, at an annual cost of $1.8 billion in 2002. Nationwide, false burglar alarm calls accounted for 10 to 25 percent of all calls for assistance to police departments in the early 2000s. Each alarm activation that turns out to be false wastes about 20 minutes of police time, usually for two officers. The three main causes of false alarms are user errors, faulty equipment, and improper installation. Bad weather and monitoring-center mistakes by alarm company personnel also contribute to the drain on police time. In most jurisdictions, the financial costs of responding to false alarms that repeatedly emanate from the same residential or commercial premises are not recouped by imposing fines on the crime-conscious but negligent owners. Ironically, although residential burglaries tend to be concentrated in or around poverty-stricken urban neighborhoods, the false alarms tend to come from well-protected, affluent homes in low crime com- munities (Sampson, 2007).

It might be assumed that one reason why the threat of residential burglary has diminished is that more renters and owners have installed security systems—but this explanation would not explain the simultaneous drop in murders, robberies, and vehicle thefts since the start of the 1990s (refer back to the discussion of the big picture in Chapter 3). Some more profound changes in American society must account for the “crime crash.”

Burglary prevention strategies go far beyond installing an alarm or getting a dog and leaving a light on at night. The list of do’s and don’ts has grown much more extensive than that, as the advice from the experts assembled in Box 5.3 shows.

How Many Vehicle Thefts Were Victim-Facilitated?

No intelligent person would put from $1,000 to $5,000 in good money in the street and expect to find it there an hour later, yet that is exactly what a large number of people do when they leave an auto- mobile in the street without locking it. Even more, not only are they leaving money at the curb but they

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are also putting four wheels under it to make it easier for the thief to take it.

AUGUST VOLLMER, POLICE CHIEF, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA (VOLLMER AND PARKER, 1936: 65)

Yet through all this practical, emotional, and mone- tary attachment to the automobile, there emerges convincing evidence that it is one of the motorist’s most carelessly neglected possessions.

J. EDGAR HOOVER, FBI DIRECTOR (HOOVER, 1966)

Use common sense: Lock your car and take your keys. It’s simple enough, but many thefts occur because owners make it easy for thieves to steal their cars.

FRANK SCAFIDI, NATIONAL INSURANCE CRIME BUREAU (2014a)

Who or what is to blame for the theft and attempted theft of roughly 556,000 cars in 2013 (according to the NCVS [BJS, Truman and Langton, 2014]) or the approximately 700,000 vehicles reported as stolen that year (according to the UCR [FBI, 2014])?

As the statements above demonstrate, victim- blamers over the decades have been quick to scold negligent drivers for facilitating thefts by leaving their vehicles unlocked, or, even worse, for leaving keys dangling in the ignition lock. Car stealing seems to be the only crime for which there is an organized victim-blaming lobby, a peculiar situation that devel- oped long ago. Composed of representatives of auto- makers, insurance companies, and law enforcement agencies, this lobby has castigated motorist care- lessness since the dawn of the automobile age.

The problem of car-stealing is certainly not new—it emerged more than 100 years ago, at the dawn of the automobile age. As long ago as 1919, Congress passed the Dyer Act, which autho- rized the FBI to investigate organized theft rings that drove stolen vehicles across state borders to evade local police forces with limited jurisdictions. Then, as now, cars were taken for a number of reasons.

Professional thieves steal cars for profit. These career criminals don’t rely on driver negligence;

B O X 5.3 Advice from Experts About Burglary

What to Do to Safeguard a Residence: Following these tips can greatly reduce the chances of

being burglarized, police officials insist:

1. Never go out and leave a door or window open or unlocked.

2. Check the door and door frame to see if they are sturdy enough or need to be repaired or replaced. Have a licensed locksmith install a heavy duty dead bolt lock with a highly pick resistant cylinder.

3. Secure all windows properly by replacing the inadequate crescent locks that come as standard equipment. Air conditioners should be secured to the window sash so they can’t be pulled out or pushed in.

4. Illuminate the perimeter of the house, especially the door areas with enough light to see a silhouette. Install the floodlight fixture out of reach, in a tamperproof and weather resistant housing. Use timers throughout the house that turn lights in various rooms on and off on a varied schedule. Shrubbery should be trimmed or designed to provide maximum visibility and no oppor- tunities for concealment.

5. It pays to comparison shop for alarm systems. Get estimates from at least three established companies.

6. Make an inventory of all valuable items like jewelry and electronics, and take photos for insurance purposes. Make a list of their serial numbers and ask the local precinct for a tool to engrave each item with a unique number that can be traceable if it gets stolen and then recovered by a police department. Ask the precinct to send out a burglary prevention officer to conduct a confidential home security survey that will identify existing vulnerable points of entry.

What to Do If the Alarm Has Been Set Off or the Home Is Ransacked:

1. Call the police immediately to report the crime but do not enter the premises because the intruder might still be lurking inside. Secure the crime scene until detec- tives arrive to look for clues.

2. Notify the insurance company to begin the paperwork to file a claim for reimbursement.

SOURCE: NYPD, 2014.

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they know how to start a car without a key. It takes them just a few minutes with the right tools to disarm alarm systems and defeat standard security hardware such as door, ignition, and steering wheel locks. If necessary, they can tow away a vehi- cle on a flatbed truck and defeat its security system at their leisure (Hazelbaker, 2011). Working in lea- gue with commercial theft rings, these pros steal cars either to sell or to strip for parts. Steal-to-sell (retagging) operations alter the registration and title documents and vehicle identification number, and then pass off the car as used. Steal-to-strip opera- tions (chop shops) dismantle vehicles and sell the sheet metal crash replacement parts (such as the hood, trunk lid, fenders, and doors) as if they came from legitimate salvage and recycling pipe- lines to auto body repair shops.

Another motive for stealing a vehicle is to use it for temporary or short-term travel, often as a get- away car after committing some other crime, such as a bank robbery.

Joyriders take cars for a spin just for fun. Juve- nile joyriding (which the law calls “unauthorized use of a motor vehicle” and treats as a delinquent act) has been a craze among teenage boys ever since cars were marketed with the message that owning one is a sign of manhood and a basis for indepen- dence. These amateurs—who seek the status, thrills, and challenge of “borrowing” cars to impress their friends—often prey upon careless motorists who leave their keys handy.

Evidence of poor habits is not hard to find, according to a survey of drivers sponsored by the insurance industry in 2007. About 20 percent of all respondents admitted that they did not always lock their vehicles. Seven percent sometimes left spare keys in their vehicle. One-third conceded that they have left their car unattended while it was running (RMIIA, 2011). To counter this mindset of being lax about taking security seriously, edu- cational campaigns advise motorists to follow a number of tips to safeguard their vehicles (see Box 5.4).

The actual contribution of victim facilitation to auto theft usually has been measured as the percentage of recovered stolen cars in which

there was evidence that the thieves had used the owners’ keys. Although this methodology has its limitations, surveys based on it reveal a trend that casts doubt on the continued relevance of negli- gence as an important factor. Data from insurance company records from the 1940s through the 1960s indicate that between 40 percent and 90 percent of all thefts were facilitated by motor- ists’ carelessness. During the 1970s, police, FBI, and insurance industry records showed that facili- tation was a factor in 13 percent to 20 percent of all thefts (Karmen, 1979; National Institute of Justice, 1984). In the early 1990s, an insurance industry publication reported that only 13 percent of all vehicle thefts were still victim facilitated (National Insurance Crime Bureau, 1993). But law enforcement agencies as well as insurance and security companies still emphasize that out- breaks of negligence leading to crimes of oppor- tunity remain a significant problem. The Austin, Texas, police department (2011) estimated that nearly 20 percent of all stolen vehicles were taken using the keys left in them. A 2008 study of vehicle stealing in Texas determined that keys were used in about 50 percent of all thefts. A 2009 study of thefts in Arizona concluded that 20 percent of the vehicles had been taken using keys. A Baltimore study determined that a stun- ning 85 percent had been driven off using keys left inside the cars in 2010 (Egan, 2011).

However, it is likely that most of the recovered vehicles in these studies were taken impulsively by juvenile joyriders who later abandoned them. Vehicles stolen by professionals who dismantled them or else resold them intact are rarely recovered and therefore cannot be examined for evidence of victim facilitation. Furthermore, some of the cars stolen by using keys might not have been victim- facilitated thefts—the keys were bought, not left behind by negligent owners. “Jigglers”—thin pieces of metal shaped like keys—are sold over the Internet in sets as “master keys” that can open most locks, for legitimate purposes—such as by locksmiths and auto repossessors (Gardiner, 2010).

The available statistics support the following conclusion: At one time, when the public was less

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conscious about crime, facilitation may have con- tributed substantially to joyriding escapades. But teenage amateurs are no longer responsible for most car thefts. Professionals—often working for commercial rings that may be affiliated with orga- nized crime syndicates—now represent the greater threat. As the years roll by, key facilitation is declin- ing in significance as a reason for losing a car to thieves.

Facilitating a car theft by leaving keys behind in the ignition could in rare instances lead to a civil judgment against a victim if the thief injures some- one else. Some states now require that a car be locked whenever a motorist leaves it (see Sweet, 2011). Some insurance companies have exclusion clauses in their policies that threaten loss of cover- age and a denial of reimbursement if the owner acts recklessly or even negligently and leaves keys dangling in unattended vehicles.

The clash in outlooks between victim blam- ing and victim defending is an example of a half- empty/half-full debate. Victim blaming focuses on the proportion of motorists who have bad habits. Victim defending emphasizes that the

overwhelming majority of people whose cars were stolen did nothing wrong. These drivers don’t have self-defeating attitudes and didn’t act carelessly. According to victim defenders, the image of the absentminded owner that is frequently conjured up by victim-blaming argu- ments is an outmoded stereotype that no longer fits (Karmen, 1980).

Owners of motorcycles that are stolen also can be subjected to victim-blaming. For example, the insurance industry warned them to follow theft- prevention tips with this slogan: “Be an easy rider—not an easy target!” (Scafidi 2006).

A similar debate surrounds the issue of who or what is to blame for the surge of identity thefts in the twenty-first century.

How Many Identity Thefts Were Victim-Facilitated?

Protect your Social Security number and other per- sonal information. Don’t let identity thieves rob you of your educational future!

B O X 5.4 Advice to Motorists About Vehicle Theft

What the Insurance Industry Recommends in Order to Safeguard the Vehicle:

The insurance industry advises it customers to take a “layered approach” that involves four sets of precautions

1. Use Common Sense:

2. Park in well-lit areas. Be aware of surroundings and avoid parking near suspicious looking people. Always lock the car’s doors and close all windows completely. Remove the keys from the car. Never leave the engine running unattended—not even for a minute. Take all valuable items from the car or hide them from view.

3. Install Visible or Audible Anti-Theft Devices: 4. Activate a car alarm system; steering wheel locks;

steering column collars; and wheel locks. Get the vehi- cle identification number (VIN) etched on all windows and attach a theft deterrent decal to them.

5. Add a vehicle immobilizer:

6. Purchase smart keys which have computer chips that must be present to start the car; fuse cut-offs; hidden kill-switches; and starter, ignition, and fuel disablers.

7. Buy a transmitter for a tracking system so a stolen vehicle can be quickly located and recovered (Scafidi, 2014b).

What to Do If the Vehicle Is Stolen:

1. Call the police immediately to report the crime so that they won’t assume the owner is behind the wheel if the vehicle is used as a getaway car or is involved in a hit- and-run accident. The police might be able to recover the vehicle if it is abandoned.

2. Call the tracking system company to alert them so they can seek to locate the vehicle.

3. Notify the insurance company to begin the paperwork to file a claim for a temporary replacement and eventual reimbursement.

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INSPECTOR GENERAL JOHN HIGGINS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION [ADDRESSING COLLEGE STUDENTS] , (2005)

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We’re all vulnerable to identity theft—that’s the bad news. The good news is that you can protect yourself.

FBI AGENT JEFF LANZA, 2006 (FBI, 2008)

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The first line of defense against identity theft often is an aware and motivated consumer who takes rea- sonable precautions to protect his information. Every day unwitting consumers create risks to the security of their personal information. From failing to install firewall protection on a computer hard drive to leaving paid bills in a mail slot, consumers leave the door open to identity thieves. Consumer education is a critical component of any plan to reduce the incidence of identity theft.

PRESIDENT’S TASK FORCE ON IDENTITY THEFT (2007, P. 39)

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Awareness is an effective weapon against many forms of identity theft. Be aware of how information is stolen and what you can do to protect yours, monitor your personal information to detect any problems quickly, and know what to do when you suspect your identity has been stolen. Armed with the knowledge of how to protect yourself and take action, you can make identity thieves’ jobs much more difficult.

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (2008)

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Consumers should remain vigilant and be careful not to expose personally identifiable information over social networks and to acquaintances.

STEVE COX, CEO, COUNCIL OF BETTER BUSINESS BUREAUS (QUOTED IN JAVELIN, 2011)

As the threat of identity theft mushroomed, a victim-blaming versus victim-defending debate emerged. Victim blaming accentuates the many ways careless people can make the thieves’ tasks easier. Victims of identity theft sometimes are

blamed—explicitly or implicitly—for failing to take this threat seriously. They ignored the long and growing lists of dos and don’ts, did something careless, and singled themselves out for trouble (see Kelleher, 2006). Because of thoughtlessness or fool- ishness, they facilitated the ruination of their credit worthiness. This point of view proceeds from the assumption that carelessness is the most frequent cause of the problem, and that conscientiously tak- ing measures to protect personal data is the solution. Victim defending points out the many opportu- nities that thieves can seize to purloin information that are beyond the ability of individuals to control or counter.

College students might be especially vulnerable to identity theft for several reasons. They store per- sonal data in shared, largely unguarded dormitory rooms. Many undergraduates might not take pre- cautions because they do not have much money or assets. They do not realize that they could be tar- geted for their unblemished “good names and repu- tations,” and not the limited amounts of cash in their bank accounts. Surveys document that lax attitudes toward handling personal identifiers persist on some campuses (Office of the Inspector General, 2005). Many universities hold workshops on iden- tity theft awareness (President’s Task Force, 2007, p. 40). One theme is that users of social networking sites are warned not to post bits of information that identity thieves and burglars could exploit. Exam- ples of what should not be revealed online include addresses, dates of vacations, and information about daily routines. Telling the world about one’s place of birth, mother’s maiden name, favorite song, and even pets’ names could be providing thieves with answers to questions that are commonly asked for security purposes to sign in to Internet accounts (Schultz, 2010).

Thieves can resort to a range of methods to get the information they need to become effective impostors. They can employ old-fashioned meth- ods such as grabbing wallets and purses during bur- glaries and robberies or breaking into parked cars to find personal papers and laptops. Identity crooks can commit a federal offense by sorting through a person’s mail for bank and credit card statements,

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preapproved credit card offers, new checkbooks, telephone bills, or tax receipts. Patient criminals can even file a “change of address” form at a post office to physically divert a target’s mail to a location of their choosing. Gutsy thieves can pry loose secrets by “pretexting”: posing as represen- tatives of a government agency or business with a legitimate need to know personal information. They can pilfer records kept by an employer or bribe an employee who has access to confidential files. When desperate, they can stoop to “dump- ster diving” by rummaging through an indivi- dual’s garbage or the trash thrown away by businesses or hospitals, searching for discarded receipts and bank statements.

Besides these low-tech means, some thieves have mastered sophisticated high-tech methods to take advantage of their intended prey. “Shoul- der surfers” find out passwords by watching their marks at ATMs. Corrupt employees can use “skimmers” to scan and capture crucial informa- tion during credit card transactions at restaurants and other stores. Others obtain what they need to know via the Internet by searching agency records (especially about births, marriages, and deaths). Cyberthieves, perhaps operating on some other continent, can engage in “phishing” and “pharming.” “Phishermen” try to fool, entice, or frighten unsophisticated email recipients into disclosing account numbers, user names, and pass- words on authentic-looking yet bogus websites; they pretend that they need to update an existing account or repair a security breach with a bank or other financial institution. Sophisticated cyber- crooks engage in caller ID phone spoofing: the recipient’s phone displays a phone number that seems to originate from a trusted party; conse- quently the naïve person is deceived into divulging confidential information. Pharmers attack legiti- mate websites with malicious codes that steer traf- fic to look-alike fake sites that “harvest” (intercept and decode) encrypted online transactions. “Key- stroke logging” spyware, planted inside a com- puter with a malicious code or virus, betrays everything an unsuspecting user types. “Screen- scrapers” can snatch and transmit whatever is on

a monitor of an infected PC. All of these techni- ques are intended to exploit the weaknesses, vul- nerabilities, and impulsiveness of unsuspecting targets who fail to remain vigilant at all times, and thereby facilitate the scammers’ tasks (FTC, 2002; Slosarik, 2002; Collins and Hoffman, 2004; NCJRS, 2005; Shanahan, 2006 and Acohido, 2014).

As for the victim–offender relationship, the thief is usually but not always a complete stranger. “Friendly fraud” carried out by persons known to their target—such as roommates or relatives— appears to be on the rise, especially against consu- mers between the ages of 25 and 34 (Javelin, 2011). Clearly, the victim–offender relationship can range from trusted employees, former intimate partners, roommates, and estranged relatives to casual acquaintances (like dishonest bank tellers or postal workers), to total strangers like car thieves and elec- tronic intruders who hack into files maintained by supposedly secure websites. It is extremely difficult to guard against all these different lines of attack (Acohido, 2014; and ITRC, 2014a).

Indeed, the implicit victim blaming message underlying theft-prevention educational cam- paigns is that those who don’t conscientiously take precautions will be sorry someday when impostors hijack their identities. If they ignore the long and growing lists of dos and don’ts, they are singling themselves out for trouble (see Kelleher, 2006). Victims who accept blame often obsess over how they inadvertently must have given their secrets away. What they might have done “wrong” appears in Box 5.5.

Victim defenders argue that facilitation is not the heart of the impersonation problem. Consis- tently following theft prevention recommendations would reduce a person’s risks by making a thief’s tasks more difficult to carry out. But even the most scrupulous observance of all these suggestions at all times still might prove ineffective. More and more people have sharpened their “cyber-streetwise” skills. And yet even as they foil attempted scams, ID crooks devise clever new ways to rip them off (Shanahan, 2006). Therefore, it seems unfair to blame most victims because sophisticated identity

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pirates can overcome any obstacles cautious indivi- duals place in their paths. Victim defenders cite observations by experts such as these:

It has been said that the theft of one’s identity and personal information is not a matter of “if” but a matter of “when.”

ELIOT SPITZER, NEW YORK STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL, 2005 (QUOTED IN KATEL, 2005, P. 534)

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Firewalls and virus protection programs are routinely penetrated by sophisticated hackers seeking ID information.

BRUCE HELLMAN, SUPERVISOR OF THE FBI’S NEW YORK COMPUTER HACKING SQUAD (QUOTED IN SHERMAN, 2005, P. 24)

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Even if you take all of these steps, however, it’s still possible that you can become a victim of identity theft.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, FRAUD DIVISION, 2008

Furthermore, many people would consider abiding by the long lists of dos and don’ts recom- mended in Box 5.4 to be unreasonable (such as workers grilling their employers about how well their personnel files are safeguarded); impractical (customers refusing to provide Social Security num- bers to creditors); burdensome (like devising new passwords containing many letters and numbers every few months); or unworkable (emptying home mailboxes at midday). Living this way— always being vigilant and suspicious—is emotion- ally exhausting.

A nagging question is “Why me?” or “How did it happen?” Unfortunately, most victims never figure that out. Several sets of answers from various sources shed light on this issue.

A study commissioned in 2005 focused on the relatively small proportion that did discover how the thieves got their personal identifiers. Lost or stolen wallets, credit cards, and checkbooks were the source of the problem in less than 30 percent of all identity theft cases in which victims thought they knew why it happened to them (Katel, 2005).

Only about 40 percent of all self-identified victims told NCVS interviewers that they thought they knew what caused their problems. The leading reasons were that personal identifiers were com- promised during a purchase or other transaction; fell into the wrong hands because of a lost or sto- len wallet or checkbook; and were lifted from per- sonnel files maintained in offices. But the majority had no clue as to why they were targeted and how the fraud took place (Langton and Planty, 2010). Similarly, “How did it happen?” remained a mys- tery to the majority of respondents in the 2012 NCVS. Nearly 67 percent could not determine how the thief obtained their personal information, and over ninety percent did not know anything about the person who impersonated them (Harrell and Langton, 2013). Tapping into another source of data, only about 30 percent of “verified vic- tims” who used the free services offered by the Identity Theft Assistance Center (ITAC) had fig- ured out how it happened to them. The leading causes were computer hacking/viruses/phishing schemes, followed by lost or stolen wallets, check- books, or credit cards. Other less frequent expla- nations were data breaches beyond their ability to control; betrayals by relatives, friends, and in- home employees; stolen or diverted mail; disclo- sures by corrupt employees; and, lastly, burglaries of their residences—this according to a 2011 study of about 760 persons commissioned by an organi- zation that is funded by the financial services industry and reportedly engages in victim advo- cacy (ITAC, 2011).

But there are many other ways that thieves can steal information from their unsuspecting prey dur- ing a range of everyday activities. Personal identifiers can be intercepted in technologically sophisticated ways while customers are engaged in banking trans- actions online or when they are buying merchandise or tickets over the Internet. Cell phone transmissions can also be intercepted to hijack information. Birth certificates can be obtained under false pretenses from records maintained by county governments. Crooks posing as landlords or employers conducting background checks can get other people’s credit reports (Office of the Inspector General, 2005).

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VICTIM PRECIPITATION AND PROVOCATION

Victim facilitation is a possibility in burglaries, motor vehicle thefts, and identity thefts. Charges of precipitation and provocation are hurled at vic- tims of murder, robbery, assault, and rape (see Chapter 10 for an extensive analysis).

A husband-and-wife team, each with a history of robbery arrests and drug abuse, embark on a dangerous course of action to solve their financial problems. Armed with a submachine gun, they barge into storefront social clubs operated by organized crime families and seize the mob- sters’ ill-gotten gains. After hitting four Mafia social clubs in different neighborhoods over three months, their highly provocative and predictably short-lived crime spree comes

B O X 5.5 The Perils of Identity Theft: What to Do and What Not to Do, According to the Experts

Many identity-theft prevention and self-help guidebooks suggest ways of avoiding trouble (for example, see May, 2001; Vacca, 2002; Frank, 2010; and Kelly, 2011). The recommendations are much more extensive and demanding than the advice given to individuals who want to protect their homes from burglars and their vehicles from car thieves.

Preventive Measures

Government agencies do their part in the campaign against victim facilitation by warning the public to manage personal information “wisely and cautiously.” The Fraud Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (2008) summarizes its advice about four ways to minimize risks by using the acronym SCAM.

■ Be “stingy” about giving out personal information.

■ “Check” your financial records regularly.

■ “Ask” to see a free credit report from one of the three credit bureaus every four months.

■ “Maintain” careful records of financial accounts.

The Federal Trade Commission (2008; 2011) spells out in greater detail the many precautions it recommends:

■ Keep important documents such as bank books and tax returns under lock and key, as well as computers and laptops full of personal information.

■ Stash away personal records so they aren’t readily available to roommates, party guests, domestic employees, or repairmen.

■ Use a paper shredder to destroy unsolicited preapproved credit card invitations, as well as unneeded receipts, bills, applications, forms, and account statements, to thwart thieves who pick through trash and recycling bins for items revealing personal information.

■ While away from home, destroy receipts from financial transactions at banks, ATMs, restaurants, and gasoline stations.

■ Promptly remove incoming letters from a mailbox, and take outgoing bills and checks directly to post office collection boxes.

■ Devise clever (rather than easily remembered but also easily guessed) passwords using a combination of let- ters, numbers, and special characters. Substitute crea- tive alternatives for a birth date or a mother’s maiden name for electronic accounts. Change these unique hard-to-crack passwords on a regular basis for each account.

■ Scrutinize bills and account statements for unautho- rized transactions.

■ Request information about security procedures at doc- tors’ offices, businesses, educational institutions, and workplaces, such as who has access to databases, whether records are kept in a safe location, and how old files are disposed of.

■ Don’t carry a Social Security card in a wallet or write that number on a check. If it is requested in a business transaction, ask: “Why is it needed? How will it be used? What law requires that it be divulged? What measures are taken to protect this number? What will happen if it isn’t provided?” See if a substitute number can be used on a state driver’s license or for a health insurance policy.

■ Go to the trouble of opting out of telephone solicita- tions, direct mail lists, and preapproved credit card offers.

■ If scrupulously abiding by this lengthy list of “dos” and “don’ts” is not sufficiently reassuring, cautious persons intent on avoiding trouble can purchase identity theft insurance package plans.

If state law permits it, a cautious person can place a “freeze” on his or her credit files with each of the three major agencies, so that third parties cannot access the account or open a new one without permission to temporarily lift it.

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to a sudden end on Christmas Eve. As the couple sits in their car at a traffic light on a congested street, a man walks up and shoots each robber in the head several times. Rival mob factions both claim credit for arranging the rubout until the police finally arrest one of their gangsters a dozen years later. (Rashbaum, 2005)

■ ■ ■

Two young women who seem to be intoxicated give a $50 bill to a cashier at a fast food joint. When the cashier questions its authenticity, one of the women leaps over the counter and the other goes around it. The two women curse and cuff the cashier. He grabs a metal rod and savagely beats them. Later, it is dis- covered that he is out on parole for killing a classmate 10 years earlier, and that one of the women may

Concerned customers must pay a fee for this transaction, but the expense is waived for victims of identity theft. Those who have their ID stolen can also impose a “fraud alert” that compels potential creditors to notify victims about any applications for new credit cards or loans in their name.

Red Flags That Indicate a Theft May Have Taken Place

The Federal Trade Commission (2011) emphasizes the impor- tance of early detection as a way to minimize harm. It suggests that consumers monitor their accounts regularly and be on the alert for any suspicious activities, such as the following signs that impostors may have recently stolen their identities:

■ Unfamiliar or suspicious debits, purchases, and cash withdrawals appear on accounts.

■ Inaccurate information appears on credit reports.

■ Bills that were anticipated do not arrive in the mail, signaling that the billing address may have been changed.

■ Credit cards arrive in the mail that were not applied for.

■ Credit is denied, or high rates are imposed on mortgages or car loans, indicating elevated risks and delinquent accounts.

■ Bill collectors call about overdue debts.

■ Notices arrive referring to mysterious houses that were bought, apartments rented, or jobs held in the victim’s name.

Recovery and Restoration After an Impersonation

Individuals who have evidence that their personal accounts have been penetrated and their identities appropriated by impostors should follow these four steps in order to recover from the theft, according to advice provided by the Federal Trade Commission (2011):

■ Place a fraud alert on credit inquiries, applications, and reports with the three major companies. Monitor these accounts carefully for at least one year.

■ Close any accounts that appear to have been fraudu- lently opened or tampered with, and notify the com- pany’s security or fraud department, in writing, about the intrusion. Obtain forms to dispute any fraudulent transactions and debts, and keep records and copies of all correspondence.

■ Notify the local police and file a detailed complaint called an “Identity Theft Report” either in person, over the phone, or online, and get the report’s num- ber. If the local police are reluctant to accept the complaint, ask to file a “Miscellaneous Incident Report” or try another jurisdiction, such as the state police, or ask the state attorney general’s office for assistance. Provide reluctant officers with a copy of the FTC’s “Law Enforcement Cover Letter” that explains the impact of this type of crime on victims and the finance industry, as well as the FTC’s “Remedying the Effects of Identity Theft” that underscores the necessity of police reports as a way to ensure victim’s rights.

■ Contact the Federal Trade Commission, file a complaint using its online form or the hotline, and obtain an “ID Theft Affidavit,” which can be circulated to law enforcement agencies (such as the FBI, the Secret Service, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service).

■ Also, notify the IRS, U.S. Passport Office, and the state department of motor vehicles. Speak to counselors at an FTC hotline who offer advice about the steps to be fol- lowed and how to use their standard ID Theft Affidavit to simplify the process of settling disputed charges with defrauded creditors. Persons who continue to suffer lingering consequences and repeated intrusions may appeal to the Social Security Administration for a new identification number, but this step still may not resolve all their problems (FTC, 2011; U.S. General Accounting Office, 2002; Slosarik, 2002; and Lee, 2003a and Albrecht, Albrecht, and Tzafrir, 2011).

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suffer permanent brain damage from being bludgeoned on the head. The cashier is fired and held on charges of felonious assault, and the two unruly customers are arrested for menacing, criminal trespass, and disor- derly conduct. (Sandoval, 2011)

The accusation embedded in the term precip- itation is that the individual who gets hurt contrib- uted significantly to the outbreak of violence.

A charge of provocation embodies a stronger condemnation than precipitation; it accuses the loser of being more responsible than the victor for the fight that ensued. The injured party insti- gated an attack that would not have taken place otherwise. The person condemned for provoca- tion goaded, challenged, or incited a generally law-abiding person into taking defensive measures in reaction to forceful initiatives. When the battle ended, the aggressor was the one who was wounded or killed.

(Unfortunately, over the years, victimologists and criminologists have used the terms precipitation and provocation loosely, and even interchangeably, obscuring the distinction between lesser responsibil- ity for precipitation and greater responsibility for provocation.)

The first in-depth investigation of what was termed victim precipitation centered on homicides committed in Philadelphia from 1948 to 1952 (Wolfgang, 1958). Precipitation was the label applied to those cases in which the person who was killed had been the first to use force by drawing a weapon, striking the first physical blow during an argument, or in some way initiating violence to settle a dispute. Often, the victim and the offender knew each other; some had quarreled previously. Situations that incited them to violence included charges of infidelity, arguments over money, drunken brawls, and confrontations over insults or “fighting words.”

Victim-precipitated cases differed in a number of statistically significant ways from homicides in which those who were slain did not bring about their own demise. Nearly all the precipitative vic- tims were men; a sizable minority of the innocent victims were women. Conversely, relatively few

women committed homicide, but a substantial pro- portion of those who did so were provoked by violent initiatives by the men they killed. Alcohol was consumed before most killings, especially prior to precipitated slayings—usually, the victim had been drinking, not the offender.

In cases of precipitation, the one who died was more likely to have had a previous run-in with the law than in other murders. More than a third of the precipitative victims had a history of committing at least one violent offense, as opposed to one-fifth of the blameless ones.

Overall, about one murder of every four in Philadelphia from 1948 to 1952 was labeled by the researcher as victim-precipitated. Hence, in a quarter of the cases, widely held images of victims (as weak and passive individuals shrinking from confrontations) and of offenders (as strong, brutal aggressors relentlessly pursuing their prey) didn’t fit the facts as reconstructed from the police depart- ment files. In many of the victim-precipitated homicides, the characteristics of the victims closely resembled those of the offenders. In some cases, two criminally inclined people clashed, and chance alone determined which one would emerge as the winner or the loser in their final showdowns (Wolfgang, 1958).

Petty quarrels escalate into life-and-death struggles through a sequence of stages, or a series of transactions. The initial incident might be a per- sonal affront, perhaps something as minor as a slur or gesture. Both parties then contribute to the unfolding of a “character contest.” As the con- frontation escalates, each person attempts to “save face” at the other’s expense by hurling taunts, insults, and threats, especially if onlookers are pressuring them to fight it out (Luckenbill, 1977).

The term subintentional death has been applied to situations in which those who got killed played contributory roles in their deaths by exercis- ing poor judgment, taking excessive risks, or pursu- ing a self-destructive lifestyle (Allen, 1980). This charge—that some people want to end their emo- tional suffering and consciously or unconsciously enter risky situations or engineer tragic events—is

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leveled most commonly at repeat victims. In homi- cide cases, the argument rests on a record of several “near misses” preceding the final violent outburst. If the deceased person’s outright dares and subliminal invitations are interpreted within this framework, victim-provoked homicide is tantamount to suicide (Mueller, in Edelhertz and Geis, 1974); it is as if a mentally disturbed individual had a death wish but could not quite carry it through without help (Wolfgang, 1959; Reckless, 1967). This assumption of hidden motives is unsympathetic to the deceased who allegedly manipulated others to kill them, and it fosters a tendency to view them in a harsh light— as troublemakers whose demise is really not a tragedy.

Perhaps those who lost their final showdowns didn’t welcome their fate. What might be misinter- preted as a death wish was really an adherence to the norms of street culture that extols the use of force to settle disputes (Singer, 1986). This readiness to resort to combat to resolve arguments is not a sign of psychopathology but is instead learned behavior. Cultural norms that require people to fight it out and not back down are reported to be most prevalent among Southerners (Butterfield, 1999) as well as among young men in poor, urban neighborhoods who conform to a “code of the streets” to prove their manhood and gain their peers’ respect (Anderson, 1999). In many serious assaults, detectives often discover that both the injured party and the victorious assailant were mutual combatants (Lundsgaarde, 1977).

Note that according to the law, not all people wounded or killed by shootings or stabbings are classified as crime victims. For example, an armed robber slain in a gun battle with a bank guard would be categorized as a dead offender, not a pro- vocative victim. His demise would not be a murder but an act of justifiable homicide if the security officer resorted to deadly force in self-defense. Some casualties of justifiable homicides apparently committed “suicide by cop” (see Klinger, 2001) by provoking police officers to shoot them—for example, advancing in a menacing manner while brandishing an unloaded gun, and ignoring urgent warnings of “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

Victims of police brutality often are con- demned for having provoked the officers into using excessive force (beyond the necessary amount allowed by law) to subdue and arrest them. This image of instigating an officer to unleash retaliatory violence is reinforced if the person who was beaten was openly defiant and resisted arrest or even assaulted the officer. The brutality victim’s allega- tions are difficult to prove in criminal court (and in civil lawsuits) if any officers who witnessed key events abide by a “code of silence” and take part in a “blue wall” cover-up of misconduct—unless the incident was videotaped. Also, intense pressures to drop the brutality complaint are brought to bear on the injured person during plea negotiations if he is charged with crimes.

Consequently, it is difficult to assess the extent of the problem of police brutality as well as the problem of victim provocation of officers. Reli- able nationwide data and monitoring systems don’t exist. Yet charges of police brutality and countercharges of arrestee provocation must be taken seriously and investigated carefully because these divisive incidents can polarize the public, strain police–community relations, and even touch off riots.

How Many Violent Crimes Were Precipitated or Provoked?

The issue of the victims’ roles in street crimes was systematically explored in the late 1960s by the National Commission on the Causes and Preven- tion of Violence (NCCPV). As its name suggests, the blue-ribbon panel was searching for the roots of the problem and for practical remedies. If large numbers of people were found to be partly at fault for what happened to them, then changing the behavior of the general public might be a promising crime-prevention strategy. Social scien- tists working for the commission took a definition of victim precipitation derived from previous stud- ies by criminologists and victimologists, and they applied it to four types of crimes: murders, aggra- vated assaults, forcible rapes, and robberies. Then they drew a sample of reports from police files

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from 17 cities and made a judgment in each case about whether the person who was attacked shared any responsibility with the assailant.

Victim-precipitated homicides (defined as situations in which the person who died was the first to resort to force) accounted for 22 percent of all murder cases in the 17 cities: as much as 26 percent in Philadelphia (Wolfgang, 1958; see above), and as high as 38 percent in Chicago (Voss and Hepburn, 1968). About 14 percent of aggravated assaults were deemed to be precipitated (in which the seriously injured person was the first to use physical force or even merely offensive lan- guage and gestures, sometimes referred to as “fight- ing words”). Armed robberies were committed against precipitative individuals “who clearly had not acted with reasonable self-protective behavior in handling money, jewelry, or other valuables.” Eleven percent of the holdups in the 17 cities were deemed to be precipitated, about the same as in a study conducted in Philadelphia (Normandeau, 1968). Forcible rapes that led to arrests were desig- nated as precipitated if the woman “at first agreed to sexual relations, or clearly invited them verbally and through gestures, but then retracted before the act.” Only 4 percent of all rapes were classified as precipitated in the study of 17 cities. However, as many as 19 percent of all sexual assaults in Philadelphia were deemed to be precipitated by females (Amir, 1967). (This controversial notion of victim-precipitated rape will be explored and cri- tiqued in Chapter 10.)

The commission concluded that instances of victim complicity were not uncommon in cases of homicide and aggravated assault; precipitation was less frequent but still empirically noteworthy in robbery; and the issue of shared responsibility was least relevant as a contributing factor in rapes (National Commission on the Causes and Preven- tion of Violence, 1969b; Curtis, 1974).

Research projects that look into victim com- plicity have shed some light on the role that alcohol plays in terms of precipitation and provocation. Alcohol is a drug (a depressant) and its consumption has been implicated even more consistently than the use of illicit drugs in fueling interpersonal

conflicts leading to fatal outcomes or serious injuries (see Spunt et al., 1994; Parker, 1995). For example, the UCR’s Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHRs) for 2013 reveal that “brawls due to the influence of alcohol” claimed many more lives than “brawls due to the influence of narcotics” (121 compared to 58 in 2010; 93 compared to 59 in 2013) (FBI, 2014).

The first comprehensive analysis of urban mur- ders (in Philadelphia around 1950) determined that the victim, the offender, or both were drinking before the killing took place in 64 percent of the cases (Wolfgang, 1958). Reports from medical examiners in eight cities in 1978 revealed that the percentage of corpses testing positive for alcohol ranged from a low of 38 percent to a high of 62 percent (Riedel and Mock, 1985). In New York City between 1973 and 1997, the proportion of victims who had been drinking before they were murdered was as low as 29 percent and as high as 42 percent, according to autopsies performed by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (Karmen, 2006). In a study of nearly 5,000 homi- cides committed in Los Angeles between 1970 and 1979, researchers reported that they detected alco- hol in the blood of nearly half the bodies autopsied. The blood-alcohol content in about 30 percent of these 5,000 murder victims was high enough to classify the person as intoxicated by legal standards at the time of death. The typical alcohol-related slaying involved a young man who was stabbed to death in a bar on a weekend as the result of a fight with an acquaintance or even a friend (Goodman et al., 1986).

Binge drinking is a dangerous practice that some people—including college students—have slipped into. Two mechanisms explain the link between consuming large quantities of alcohol and violence due to precipitative or provocative conduct. The selective-disinhibition perspec- tive suggests that if one person binges—or worse yet, if both parties do—judgment will become clouded, and these individuals are likely to misin- terpret each other’s intentions, cues, and actions, and then behave in a less restrained manner. The outlet-attractor perspective proposes that at

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certain drinking locations (such as liquor stores, bars, and clubs) people gather with the expectation that they will seek “time out” from normal con- straints and act “out of character” in an “anything goes” environment (Parker and Rebhun, 1995).

Some outbreaks of mortal combat that arise from intense conflicts—often fueled by alcohol— can be viewed as the outcome of a sequence of events in a transaction. The initial incident might be a personal affront, perhaps something as minor as a slur or gesture. Both the offender and the victim contribute to the escalation of a character contest. As the confrontation unfolds, at least one party, but usually both, attempts to “save face” at the other’s expense by not backing down. The battle turns into a fatal showdown if both participants are steeped in a tradition that favors the use of force as the way to settle bitter disputes (Luckenbill, 1977). Recall that the largest category in the listing of “circumstances” comprised people who were slain as a result of a dispute of some kind. Most of the deaths that resulted from these fights were unplanned and led to manslaughter indictments and convictions.

TRANSCENDING VICTIM BLAMING AND VICTIM DEFENDING: SYSTEM BLAMING

The analysis above of murders, robberies, burglar- ies, auto thefts, and identity thefts uncovered some strengths and weaknesses of both victim blaming and victim defending. Contrary to sweeping char- acterizations made by some victimologists, victim blaming is not inherently an exercise in scapegoat- ing, an example of twisted logic, or a sign of cal- lousness. It depends on which crime is the focus of attention, who the victims are, and why some peo- ple condemn their behavior. Similarly, victim defending is not always a noble enterprise engaged in by those who champion the cause of the down- trodden. Certain victims deserve to be criticized.

Victim blamers are not necessarily liberal or conservative, rich or poor, young or old, or male or female. Sometimes they switch sides and

become victim defenders—depending on the facts of the case, the nature of the crime, and the parties involved. Individuals are not consistent; nearly everyone blames certain victims and defends others.

The strengths of victim blaming and victim defending lie in their advocates’ willingness to scru- tinize specific criminal acts and reconstruct real-life incidents. The two clashing perspectives dissect in great detail who said and did what to whom and under what circumstances. Victim-blaming and victim-defending arguments bridge the gap between theoretical propositions and abstractions on the one hand, and how people genuinely think and act on the other.

The most serious drawback of both perspec- tives is a tendency to be microscopic rather than macroscopic. Victim-blaming and victim- defending arguments get so caught up (or bogged down) in the particular details of each case that they tend to ignore the larger social forces and environ- mental conditions that shape the attitudes and beha- viors of both criminals and victims. Thus, whenever partisans of the two perspectives clash, they inad- vertently let the system—with its fundamental insti- tutions (established ways of organizing people to accomplish tasks) and culture (way of life, traditions)—off the hook. Yet these outside influ- ences compel the actors in the drama to play the well-rehearsed roles of offender and victim and to follow a well-known script in an all-too-familiar tragedy. Policymaking often swings back and forth between attempts to control the behavior of either would-be predators or their potential prey—but not their larger social environment, which is what a system-blaming analysis of social institutions would recommend.

Clearly, transcending the analytical confines of both victim blaming and victim defending requires that the researcher go beyond criminology and victimology and into the broader realm of social science: sociology, anthropology, psychology, eco- nomics, and political science. Only then can the effects of the social system on shaping the thoughts and actions of specific offenders and their victims, and on creating the vested interests that have grown

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up around the problems of burglary, vehicle theft and identity theft, be appreciated and understood. Doling out the proper mix of exoneration and blame to just two people is of limited value because the influences of outside forces are eliminated from consideration.

As for murders, system-blaming would center on the glorification of violence in the media as a source of entertainment, from murder-mysteries to movies to video games. Resorting to physical force is also widely accepted as a means of conflict reso- lution, not only on the meanest streets of poverty stricken neighborhoods where young men immersed in a subculture of violence congregate, but also in policy-making circles at the highest levels of government where plans to go to war are developed. The reliance on deadly force is also encouraged by the firearms industry through the manufacture of increasingly powerful weapons, with easy access to them due to lax laws regulating gun purchases.

As for robberies, system-blaming would start out by pointing out the longstanding and now growing gulf between the well-off and the desper- ately poor, and the over-importance of material possessions in a consumer-oriented society.

In the case of burglary, system-blaming would emphasize the organized nature of fencing as an incentive to thievery. Imagine if burglars had to peddle their stolen stuff on the street themselves, rather than cashing it in at some fencing operation that accepts “second-hand goods,” no questions asked.

In the case of identity theft, system blaming would stress how the numerous data breaches (esti- mated at almost 650 per week in October 2014) expose personal data to thieves regardless of the efforts by conscientious customers to protect their secrets by regularly changing their passwords. From January 2005 up to October 2014, nearly 570 mil- lion records containing sensitive personal informa- tion were exposed because of over 4,850 security breaches. These breaches compromised the names, social security numbers, financial account informa- tion, medical records, and email addresses and pass- words kept in the files of banking, finance, credit,

educational, government, military, and medical organizations (ITRC, 2014c). These data breaches, not individual acts of carelessness, are often the basis for identity thefts. In 2011, one in every five per- sons who received data breach notification letters later became a victim of at least one subsequent fraud. In 2012, that victimization rate rose to one in every four. By 2013, one out of every three customers who got a warning later got into finan- cial trouble in some way. Almost half (46 percent) of all consumers with breached debit cards from banks discovered that their accounts were drained. About 15 percent of all persons whose Social Security numbers were taken eventually were defrauded, according to an annual survey (Javelin, 2014).

Also, surprising amounts of personal informa- tion are readily available in databases accessible through the Internet. The lax security measures of some businesses put their consumers at risk. Online stores, car dealerships, retail chains, and regional banks are rarely held accountable for unauthorized disclosures of confidential information about their customers, and are reluctant to publicly acknowl- edge intrusions into their files. Organizations often are not vigilant guardians of the records of their students, employees, or patients (Newman, 2004). Data brokers who sell personal information for commercial purposes need to take additional mea- sures to protect the public from raids on their files by cybercrooks and fraudsters who seek credit, debit, and ATM card account information (like PIN codes), Social Security numbers, and birth- dates. Stolen identifiers are for sale through global black market channels.

Most federal and state legislation passed to date focuses on deterring and punishing offenders. It offers little protection or relief in the form of gov- ernment compensation or restitution by offenders for those who lose money, and fails to hold accountable the commercial ventures whose care- less practices enable thieves to periodically swipe databases full of confidential data. Most state gov- ernments have passed laws to compel organizations that maintain databanks to notify people put at risk when a breach of security takes place. But Congress

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could pass stricter regulations that would impose higher internal security standards on the operations of agencies and companies that suffer breaches with infuriating regularity but only reluctantly admit that intruders broke into their record-keeping systems, office files, and computer databases. Thefts of personal data from supposedly secure repositories can endanger hundreds of thousands of people at a time (Editors, New York Times, 2005a; Sherman, 2005; President’s Task Force, 2007; and Consumer’s Union, 2008; and Acohido, 2014).

The system-blaming approach also questions the sincerity of the efforts made by the giant cor- porations (especially banks and credit card compa- nies) that ostensibly suffer losses when their customers fall prey to identity thieves. Even though this kind of fraud initially costs them bil- lions of dollars annually, ultimately they pass along most of these expenses to their customers by rais- ing rates and fees, just as large stores charge higher prices to cover “inventory shrinkage” due to sho- plifting and employee theft. Any remaining losses can be written off at tax time. It appears that top executives have calculated that it is better for their businesses’ bottom line to recoup money from honest customers than it is to spend more on fraud prevention or to pay more to pursue and help bring to justice impostors masquerading as someone else.

Sensing that this problem has become a deeply entrenched feature of the financial landscape, com- panies have discovered that every “crisis” presents an opportunity to make money by marketing credit monitoring services to detect suspicious activity and by selling a new form of insurance that repays pol- icyholders for expenses arising from misappropria- tions of their good names (May, 2002; Edwards and Riley, 2011; and Albanesius, 2011).

Many law enforcement agencies still lack experts in forensic computing and remain far behind the curve when it comes to detecting intru- sions, figuring out who did it, and gathering evi- dence that will stand up in court. The odds are in the thieves’ favor. Convictions take place in only 1 out of every 700 to 1,000 reported instances of identity theft (Katel, 2005).

In the case of car theft, victim-blaming and victim-defending arguments nearsightedly dwell on the actions of motorists and thieves. What is excluded from the analysis is as important as what is included. A comprehensive battle plan must take into account how sophisticated and organized com- mercial thievery has become, and how profitable the black market for “hot” cars and stolen parts continues to be. It must also grasp how the practices of insurance companies provide incentives for thieves to steal cars for parts, and how salvage yards make it easy to infiltrate stolen items into the flow of recycled parts to auto body repair shops (see Goodman, 2014) An effective anticrime strategy must also come to grips with the inadequa- cies in record-keeping and in the stamping of serial numbers on crash parts. These shortcomings, which have been known for years but are not yet been adequately resolved (see Karmen, 1980; NIJ, 1984), make it difficult for law enforcement officers to detect and prove thievery.

Even more important, it is necessary to go beyond victim blaming and victim defending to realize that the manufacturers bear responsibility for the ease with which their products are taken from their customers. Pros brag that they need just a minute or two (and an ordinary screwdriver or some shaved-down keys) to defeat standard anti- theft locks on the doors and ignitions of many makes and models (see Kesler, 1992; Behar, 1993; “Auto Theft Alert,” 1994; S. Smith, 1994; and McKinley, 2006).

Perhaps blaming victims for auto theft serves to distract attention from engineering issues. The most virulent victim blaming has emanated from auto- mobile industry spokespersons, insurance company representatives, and top law-enforcement officials. Who or what are they protecting? Certainly, they are not apologists for the lawbreakers, either the joyriding juveniles or the professional crooks. Apparently, condemning the motorists who left their cars vulnerable to thieves is intended to divert attention away from the automobile manufacturers who design and sell cars that are so easily stolen. Considerable evidence exists to substantiate the charge that until recently vehicle security (like

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passenger safety) was assigned a low priority by automakers, probably because thefts stimulate new car sales (see Karmen, 1981a). Vehicle security is likely to remain a problem until manufacturers are compelled by law to post theft-resistance ratings from an independent testing bureau or government laboratory on new-car showroom stickers.

THE IMPORTANCE OF DETERMINING RESPONSIBILITY IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROCESS

A wife returns home late at night after having a tryst with her landscaper at a motel. Her husband, an executive and former professor, becomes enraged and slams her face into the floor of the garage, splitting her head open. The police find her blood-soaked body behind the wheel of her SUV in a creek, but when they determine that the apparent driving accident was staged, the husband is arrested. He is prosecuted for her murder, but the jury finds him guilty of the lesser charge of passion/provocation manslaughter. The judge sentences him to eight years in prison. He will be eligible for parole after five and a half years. (Miller, 2005)

The process of fixing responsibility for crime unavoidably rests on judgments that are subject to challenges and criticisms. These judgments are based on values, ethics, allegiances, and prejudices concerning the crucial question of whether (and to what degree) the victim shares responsibility with the offender for a violation of the law. A number of important decisions that affect the fate of the offender, the plight of the victim, and the public’s perception of the crime hinge on this issue of victim responsibility.

Whether or not the victim facilitated, precipi- tated, or provoked the offender is taken into account by police officers, prosecutors, juries, judges, compensation boards, insurance examiners, politicians, and crime control strategists. Victim responsibility is an issue at many stages in the crimi- nal justice process: in applications for compensation; in demands for restitution and compensatory

damages; in complaints about how crime victims are treated by family, friends, and strangers at home, in hospital emergency rooms, in court, and in the newspapers; and in the development of crime prevention programs and criminological theories.

At every juncture in the criminal justice pro- cess, judgments must be made about the degree of responsibility, if any, the complainant bears for what happened. The police confront this issue first. For example, when called to the scene of a barroom brawl, officers must decide whether to arrest one or both or none of the participants and what charges to lodge if they do make arrests. Often the loser is declared the victim, and the combatant still on his feet is taken into custody for assault.

When prosecutors review the charges brought by the police against defendants, they must decide if the complainants were indeed totally innocent vic- tims. If some degree of blame can be placed on them, their credibility as witnesses for the prosecu- tion becomes impaired. A district attorney may decide that the accused person would probably be viewed by a jury or a judge as less culpable and less deserving of punishment and therefore has less of a chance of being convicted. Because relatively few cases are brought to trial, the prosecution will engage in plea bargaining (accepting a guilty plea to a lesser charge) if a blameworthy victim would be an unconvincing witness. Such cases might even be screened out and charges dropped. For instance, a study of files in the District of Columbia during the early 1970s revealed that evidence of victim blameworthiness halved the chances that a case would be prosecuted (Williams, 1976).

Killings that resulted from extreme provoca- tions by the deceased are likely to be considered justifiable homicides and won’t be prosecuted. Jur- isdictions use different standards to determine what constitutes provocation and justification. For exam- ple, a study of slayings in Houston, Texas, deter- mined that 12 percent were justifiable, but in Chicago only 3 percent of all killings were consid- ered justifiable by local authorities. It appears that the legal definition of justification was broader in Texas than in Illinois (Block, 1981).

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If the provocation by the person who died is considered insufficient to render a homicide justifi- able, it might be treated as an extenuating circum- stance. Evidence of victim provocation can persuade the district attorney to charge the defen- dant with manslaughter instead of murder. In a homicide or assault case, the victim’s provocation must have been “adequate” in order for the charges to be reduced or for the defendant to be acquitted on the grounds of justifiable self-defense. In most states, that means that the defendant’s violent responses to the victim’s provocations must have occurred during the heat of passion, before a rea- sonable opportunity for intense emotions to cool (Wolfgang, 1958; Williams, 1978).

If the defendant is convicted, the judge may view the injured party’s provocation as a mitigat- ing factor that makes a lesser sentence appropriate. In jurisdictions where restitution by offenders is permitted or even mandated, the culpability of victims can be a cause for reducing the amount of repayment that convicts must undertake. Simi- larly, the judge or the jury in civil court is likely to consider a plaintiff’s blameworthy actions as a rea- son for reducing the monetary damages a defen- dant must pay for causing loss, pain, and suffering. Parallel considerations arise when persons wounded in violent crimes apply to a criminal injury compensation board for reimbursement. If the board members determine in a hearing that the victim bears some responsibility for the incident, they will reduce the amount of the award or may, in extreme cases of shared guilt and provocation, entirely reject the application for financial assis- tance (see Chapter 12).

In some conflicts that erupt after extensive interaction between two mutually hostile parties, the designations “offender” and “victim” simply do not apply. When both people behaved ille- gally, adjudication under the adversary system may not be appropriate. Neighborhood justice centers have been set up to settle these shared responsibility cases through mediation and arbitra- tion. Compromises are appropriate when both disputants are to some degree “right” as well as “wrong” (see Chapter 13).

In sum, widely held beliefs and stereotypes about shared responsibility can profoundly shape the way a case is handled within the criminal justice process. The frustrations of trying and failing to deter or rehabilitate criminals periodically propels public safety campaigns in the opposite, presumably easier, direction toward crackdowns on victim facil- itation, precipitation, and provocation. What fol- lows is a satire that was written decades ago but remains quite relevant, in which a fictitious profes- sor of victimology puts forward preposterous pro- posals to reduce street crime (see Box 5.6).

Applying Deterrence Theory to Victims

For more than two centuries, since the time of Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham, the origina- tors of the classical school of free will or rational choice theory, a fierce debate has raged over whether would-be offenders are deterred by the prospects of apprehension, conviction, and punish- ment. Rarely, if ever, is the debate about deterrence applied to past and potential victims.

Simply put, deterrence theory holds that swift and sure punishment is the solution to the crime problem. According to the tenets of specific deterrence, punishing offenders teaches them a les- son they won’t forget, so they will not repeat the forbidden act. According to the doctrine of gen- eral deterrence, publicly punishing offenders makes them into negative role models that serve as a warning to others to avoid committing similar misdeeds.

Proponents and opponents argue whether offenders really learn the intended lesson (especially in jails and prisons, which can serve as “graduate schools” that churn out individuals with advanced degrees in criminality). Do would-be lawbreakers really mull over their decisions rationally, think twice, and decide not to commit illegal acts? Or do they often act impulsively, disregarding the pos- sible consequences in the heat of passion? Do others who hear about the crime and the punishment that followed truly make the connection, think, “That could be me!” and become “scared straight” and dissuaded from violating the law?

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Applying the principles of general deterrence to law-abiding people, many parallel questions arise: Do victims learn a lesson from their mistakes? Do they realize how they may have facilitated, pre- cipitated, or even provoked criminal activities? Do they vow to not repeat these errors, to take “dos and don’ts” tips more seriously, and to change their careless or even reckless ways? Or do they disregard the persistent threats, continue to take their chances, plow ahead stubbornly, and become repeat victims, suffering serial victimizations (two or more incidents during a relatively short time)?

And does their suffering serve as a warning to the general public about “how not to behave”? Does news media coverage of specific incidents strike fear in the hearts and minds of large num- bers of would-be victims, making them think twice and conclude that the potential costs out- weigh the benefits? Do members of this audience exercise their free will and rationally decide the particular risky behavior engaged in by a victim isn’t worth pursuing, and do they then choose a more prudent course of action? Does the fright- ening prospect of becoming a casualty lead to constructive responses, such as incorporating risk avoidance and risk management precautions into lifestyles?

The answers to these queries require careful research by victimologists.

Facilitation, precipitation, and provocation are recognized as the blameworthy actions of specific individuals in particular incidents. However, the data presented in Chapter 4 from the UCR and the NCVS confirmed a widely held belief that certain entire groups of people are more likely than others to be murdered, robbed, assaulted, or to lose their valuables to burglars, car thieves, and other crooks. Why is that? What, if anything, did they do—or fail to do—that caught the attention of criminals? What, if anything, marks them as dif- ferent from the rest of the potential targets in the general population? Which risk factors heighten dangers and make these high-risk demographic groups and their possessions more vulnerable to attack (Dussich, 2011).

Although victimologists cannot agree among themselves about precisely which behaviors and practices increase susceptibility, being singled out definitely does not appear to be a random process, striking people just by chance. When individuals ask, “Why me?” victimologists suggest that the rea- son in most cases goes beyond simply “being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” However, “being at the wrong place at the wrong time” indeed can

B O X 5.6 Prof Calls for Crackdown on Crime Victims

There is so much talk about crime in the streets and the rights of the criminal that little attention is being paid to the victims of crime. But there is a current of opinion that our courts are being too soft on the victims, and many of them are going unpunished for allowing a crime to be committed against them. One man who feels strongly about this is Pro- fessor Heinrich Applebaum, a criminologist who feels that unless the police start cracking down on the victims of criminal acts, the crime rate in this country will continue to rise.

“The people who are responsible for crime in this country are the victims. If they didn’t allow themselves to be robbed, the problem of crime in this country would be solved,” Applebaum said.

“That makes sense, Professor. Why do you think the courts are soft on victims of crimes?”

“We’re living in a permissive society and anything goes,” Applebaum replied. “Victims of crimes don’t seem to be concerned about the consequences of their acts. They walk down a street after dark, or they display jewelry in their store window, or they have their cash registers right out where everyone can see them. They seem to think that they can do this in the United States and get away with it.”

“You speak as if all the legal machinery in this country was weighted in favor of the victim, instead of the person who committed the crime.”

“It is,” Applebaum said. “While everyone is worried about the victim, the poor criminal is dragged down to the police station, booked and arraigned, and if he’s lucky he’ll be let out on bail. He may lose his job if his boss hears about it and there is even a chance that if he has a police record, it may prejudice the judge when he’s sentenced.”

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be a sufficient explanation, as this tragic carjacking case demonstrates:

A father gets a call from his daughter about some good news. So he pulls over to the shoulder of the highway to safely talk on his cell phone. A parolee who had served time for attempted murder suddenly appears. “Who are you running from?” the father asks. The parolee doesn’t answer but yanks him out of the car, shoots him in the head, and speeds off in the stolen vehicle. The fugitive had just murdered a police officer and wounded another before fleeing and chancing upon the driver on his cell phone. The cop-killer is captured but the father dies. (Ruderman and Goodman, 2012)

Consider robberies as an example of the inter- play of different responses that can lead to strik- ingly different outcomes. Potential victims can learn a great deal from other people’s experiences, especially their mistakes. Successful robbers, armed or unarmed, are skilled at “target manipulation” or “victim management” (Letkemann, 1973). From a close-up, symbolic interactionist perspective within sociology, victim–offender initiatives and responses can be analyzed as a set of complemen- tary roles. Robbers are the initiators and aggres- sors; the people they are preparing to pounce

upon are usually passive, at least at the start. But the individuals who discover that they are under attack can refuse to play their assigned role, reject the script, and struggle against the scenario imposed on them. The intended prey might even gain the upper hand, switch roles, and disrupt the final act, or end it in a way dreaded by the aggressors. In other words, the incident may or may not proceed according to the offender’s game plan. When analyzed as a transaction based on instrumental coercion (applying force to accomplish a goal), a typical robbery proceeds through five stages or phases: planning, establish- ing co-presence, developing co-orientation, trans- ferring valuables, and leaving (Best and Luckenbill, 1982).

1. During the planning stage the offenders prepare to strike by choosing accomplices, weapons, sites, getaway routes—and intended targets. They look for certain favorable characteristics, such as valuable possessions, vulnerability to attack, relative powerlessness to resist, and iso- lation from potential protectors. Strangers are preferred because they will have greater diffi- culty in providing descriptions to the police and in identifying suspects from pictures or lineups.

“I guess in this country people always feel sorrier for the victim than they do for the person who committed the crime.”

“You can say that again. Do you know that in some states they are even compensating victims of crimes?”

“It’s hard to believe,” I said. “Well, it’s true. The do-gooders and the bleeding hearts

all feel that victims of crimes are misunderstood, and if they were treated better, they would stop being victims. But the statistics don’t bear this out. The easier you are on the vic- tim, the higher the crime rate becomes.”

“What is the solution, Professor?” “I say throw the book at anybody who’s been robbed. They

knew what they were getting into when they decided to be robbed, and they should pay the penalty for it. Once a person has been a victim of crime and realizes he can’t get away with it, the chances of his becoming a victim again will be slim.”

“Why do people want to become victims of crime, Professor?”

“Who knows? They’re probably looking for thrills. Boredom plays a part, but I would think the biggest factor is that victims think they can still walk around the streets of their cities and get away with it. Once they learn they can’t, you’ll see a big drop in crime statistics.”

“You make a lot of sense, Professor. Do you believe the American people are ready to listen to you?”

“They’d better be, because the criminal element is get- ting pretty fed up with all the permissive coddling of victims that is going on in this country.”

SOURCE: From “Victim Precipitation,” by Art Buchwald, copyright

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2. During the second phase of the interaction, the offenders establish co-presence by moving within striking distance. The robbers try not to arouse their intended prey’s suspicion or to provoke either unmanageable opposition or fright and flight. Some offenders rely on speed and stealth to approach unsuspecting indivi- duals. Others employ deceit to trick people into letting down their guard.

3. The third stage is developing co-orientation. At this stage the robbers announce their intentions to dominate the situation and exploit their advantages. They order their tar- gets to surrender valuables and they demand compliance. Their prey can either acquiesce or may contest the robbers’ bid to take charge, depending on an assessment of the aggressors’ “punitive resources” (ability to inflict injury). Robbers who fail to develop co-orientation (to secure cooperation and submission) through threats may resort to violence to intimidate or incapacitate their opponents.

4. If the robbers successfully gain and maintain the upper hand, the interaction moves into its fourth phase. Victims are searched and their valuables are seized. But the interaction is terminated prematurely (from the offenders’ point of view) if the targets uncooperatively resist, have no valuables, are unexpectedly rescued, or escape.

5. The fifth stage is the exit. It is marked by the robbers’ attempts to break off the relationship at a time and under conditions of their choosing. As they prepare to leave the scene, they may inflict injuries to prevent interference with the getaway, or they may issue threats about the dangers of pursuing them or reporting the crime to the authorities (Best and Luckenbill, 1982).

This breakdown of robbery transactions into distinct stages and discrete steps helps to anticipate possible outcomes. Targeted individuals may or may not suffer financial losses from stolen (or dam- aged) property. Robbers may or may not injure their victims at the outset or at the end. Their prey may or may not be able to resist the

aggressors’ advances and may or may not be able to prevent successful completions of the unwanted transfer of valuables. Officers on patrol may or may not become involved. And a very small pro- portion who resist may be killed in tragic incidents that escalate from robbery to homicide. When an attempted forced transfer of valuables from one person to another is deconstructed in this manner, many opportunities can arise to change the script and the sequence of events to the victim’s advan- tage. A lot can be learned from other people’s mis- takes. Suggestions from experts about how to prevent or at least survive robberies appear in Box 5.7.

Carjacking is a type of robbery that is very difficult to anticipate and defend against. There are no foolproof precautions, and drivers always must be on the alert for many different scenarios when starting or stopping and while parking. Vic- tims of this crime of opportunity sometimes are criticized for not being vigilant enough when loading or unloading packages; driving while pre- occupied with music or cell phone conversations; traveling with their car doors unlocked and win- dows open; blundering through dangerous neigh- borhoods rather than taking safer routes; or falling into a trap by stopping after being bumped into, as part of a staged accident by a vehicle full of robbers.

Theorizing About Risk Factors: Figuring Out Why Certain Groups Suffer More Often Than Others

Theoretical explanations start as hypotheses that answer questions that begin with “Why?” After making an empirical generalization (an observation based on patterns or trends that emerged when the data were analyzed) theorists are inclined to ask, “What accounts for this?” For example, during the warmer months, there are more unlawful entries (burglaries accomplished without using force to get in) and stranger rapes. This empirical generalization about the seasonality of certain illegal activities requires an explanation. Why should

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burglary and rape exhibit a predictable cycle of increases and decreases during the course of a year? An offender-centered explanation might pro- pose that burglars and rapists are more active during warmer weather. Another line of thought could be that something about their intended targets changes with the seasons. Perhaps behavior patterns during warm weather create greater opportunities for pre- dators to stalk their quarry. During the summer, people spend more time outside and are more likely to leave windows open while they are away from home. As a result, strangers find more occasions to assault girls and women sexually, and prowlers find more unprotected homes to invade (Dodge, 1988).

One of the founders of victimology (see Von Hentig, 1941, 1948) zeroed in on presumed weak- nesses and special vulnerabilities of entire groups— what today would be called risk factors. He was convinced that certain personal attributes played a part in determining susceptibility to attack. The mentally retarded (because they were less aware of dangers), newly arrived immigrants (unfamiliar with the language and customs), minorities (not given

the same degree of protection by law enforcement authorities), less-educated individuals, and very inexperienced people were pictured as attractive targets for exploitation by offenders employing deception and fraud. Con artists swindled those who were greedy, heartbroken, depressed, or lone- some with legendary ease. Physically handicapped people, the elderly and frail, the very young, and persons with impaired judgment and dulled senses due to intoxication were assumed to be easy prey for robbers and assailants. According to this typo- logical approach, a varied collection of psychologi- cal, biological, social, and demographic factors set whole categories of people apart as particularly vul- nerable (McShane and Emeka, 2011).

Why Various Groups Experience Differential Risks: Routine Activities and Specific Lifestyles

Most victimologists are not satisfied with explana- tions that emphasize a single vulnerability factor that is biological (gender, age, or race), psychological

B O X 5.7 Robbery: What the Experts Recommend

Police experts recommend these ways of minimizing the chances of being robbed:

1. Walk alertly and confidently, while scanning the vicinity forwards and backwards. Try not to walk alone. At night, consider taking a taxi cab even for short trips.

2. Trust your instincts and avoid uncomfortable situations, especially groups congregating and hanging out. Do not take shortcuts through unlit, sparsely traveled paths such as trails, stairwells or alleys.

3. Carry only as much cash as needed. Avoid outdoor ATMs, particularly at night and those in secluded inte- rior areas. Be alert at banks or check cashing businesses since carrying large wads of bills can attract robbers.

What to Do During a Robbery

1. Try to remain calm. Do not resist. Try not to be a hero. Take no action that would jeopardize safety. Follow the robber’s directions, but do not volunteer more than asked for. Assure the robber of full cooperation.

2. Meanwhile, make mental notes of the robber’s race, age, height, sex, clothing, complexion, hair, and eye color. Note anything unusual about the robber such as scars or tattoos. Also note the number of accomplices and how they left the scene, their direction of travel, and the type and color of their vehicle. Get the license number if it is safe to do so. Try to remember any conversations the suspects may have with one another, what the suspect’s weapon looked like, and what the suspect touched that may have left fingerprints.

3. After the robbery, go to a safe location close to the crime scene and call 9-1-1 immediately. Ask all wit- nesses to remain until the officers arrive. If a witness must leave, obtain his/her name, address, and tele- phone number. Witnesses should write down or remember their account of the suspects and their actions. Do not discuss the robbery or compare notes about the robber’s appearance with anyone. Protect the crime scene. Try not to touch anything.

SOURCE: Houston, Texas Police Department, 2014.

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(loneliness or greed), social (income or occupation), or situational ( just arrived as an immigrant; or just got paid in cash). A number of more elaborate theo- ries attempt to figure out why certain groups suffer more than others. These theories draw upon a num- ber of factors as building blocks.

From an offender’s standpoint, potential targets (individuals, homes, and cars) can be rated along several dimensions. One dimension is attractive- ness. Teenage muggers assault classmates to rob them of stylish shoes or coats or the latest electronic devices. Some people and things appear “ripe for the taking,” while others present more of a chal- lenge to the robber or burglar and raise the specter of being thwarted or even captured. Certain prizes can easily be snatched, spirited off, and cashed in (such as car airbags or smartphones), while others would take a long time and a lot of trouble to fence, and the net return might be minimal (such as used automobile tires of a specific size).

Situational factors highlight how people and their possessions are temporarily more susceptible at certain times, periods, or stages than at others. For example, muggers might lie in wait as payday approaches or when Social Security checks or pub- lic assistance allotments arrive in the mail (direct deposit eliminates this danger). Armed robbers might approach storekeepers at closing time.

Proximity describes whether the offender can get within range of the intended target, geographi- cally (by direct contact) and socially (through inter- action). Offenders might have great difficulty getting within striking distance of certain attractive targets, such as millionaires or their mansions. Proximity is a disadvantageous working condition for certain occupations such as mental health atten- dants and corrections officers who deal with dan- gerous people on a regular basis (see Garofalo, 1986; Siegel, 1998). Mental patients in hospitals for the criminally insane also endure high rates of assault and theft because of the proximity factor (see Seager, 2014). Certain individuals might be singled out simply because they are conveniently accessible, such as nonviolent inmates locked in with hardened convicts in prisons, jails, and holding cells. Similarly, elderly people trapped in high-crime housing

projects or meek students stuck in troubled high schools also suffer grave dangers because they are readily available targets.

Vulnerability is a dimension that refers to a target’s ability to resist and repel an attack, and ranges from well protected to largely undefended. For instance, at one extreme, rare coins in a museum are attractive to thieves and can be viewed up close but usually are displayed in tightly guarded settings. At the other extreme, it can be a costly mistake to leave valuables in plain sight in autos. The same vulnerability factors apply to people: Bodyguards may accompany corporate chieftains, but storekeepers walk home alone late at night.

The combination of the two factors of proxim- ity and vulnerability can turn deadly, as this tragic case shows:

A young woman moves from a small farming com- munity to a tough neighborhood in a sprawling big city. Her motivation is to help drug abusers kick their habits by becoming devoutly religious. Soon after making contacts and inviting addicts over to discuss religious teachings, she is found slain in her apart- ment. (McShane and Emerka, 2011)

Taking these factors into account leads to an explanation of how entire groups might face height- ened risks. Tourists often are preyed upon because of the confluence of a number of factors: exposure, attractiveness, proximity, situational vulnerability, and hot spots. Robbers, pickpockets, sneak-thieves, hustlers, and other swindlers gravitate to sites where tourists congregate as hot spots for crime because they figure that they can take advantage of the high population turnover and the anonymity of crowds to move into striking distance, while their prey will be readily identifiable (sporting backpacks, cameras, and maps and driving rental cars). Their attractive targets also will be carrying large sums of money and valuables, while being unusually vulner- able: relaxed and off-guard, distracted, careless, adventuresome, even reckless, unfamiliar with signs of danger, naïve about notorious scams avoided by knowledgeable locals, perhaps disinhibited from drinking too much, and often cut off from potential guardians by language barriers. The offenders also

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know from experience that tourists are not inclined to waste precious time filling out forms in police stations, looking at mug shots of potential suspects, and staying around to take part in drawn-out court proceedings. To discourage offenders from damaging the lucrative tourist trade that is so vital to the local economy, some prime travel destinations have orga- nized special police units to protect and serve visitors as well as special prosecutorial units (to fly in crucial eyewitnesses to testify in behalf of the state, or at least to use videoconferencing to facilitate their pressing charges and securing convictions) (Glensor and Peak, 2004).

Routine activities theory stresses the interac- tions of three key variables: the existence of moti- vated criminals (for example, drug addicts desperate for cash), the availability of suitable targets (people or their possessions), and the presence or absence of capable guardians. These guardians can be gadgets (motion detectors, burglar alarms, gates and fences, bright lights, safes) or people (such as alert parents, watchful neighbors, or police officers on patrol) or even animals (barking dogs). Would-be offenders seize opportunities to strike whenever attractive tar- gets are not well protected. If one of the three ele- ments is absent, a successful completion of a direct contact predatory crime won’t take place. Conse- quently, concerned individuals should take preven- tive steps to make themselves and their possessions less vulnerable to attack by anticipating how, where, and when offenders might probe and test their defenses. Everyday living arrangements that can affect victimization risks include patterns of commuting, shopping, attending school, going to work, and pursing hobbies.

Daily activities govern the social ecology of victimization: the kinds of people who will be harmed and the manner, time, and location of the incidents. For example, in recent decades, the vul- nerability of women to robbery and murder increased, according to routine activities theory, because they go far away from home to work and experience more interactions with nonfamily mem- bers. Those who spend most of their time at home (like the elderly) are not in much danger of being murdered by strangers; if they do meet a violent

end, it is likely to be at the hands of family members or close friends (Cohen and Felson, 1979; Messner and Tardiff, 1985; Maxfield, 1987; Burke, 2009; and Felson and Boba, 2010).

The routine activities explanation for differen- tial risks links several major themes within criminol- ogy and victimology. One is that social conditions continuously generate criminally inclined indivi- duals. Another is that opportunities for committing thefts and robberies multiply as possessions prolifer- ate. A third theme is that preventive measures can be more effective if they rest on “collective effi- cacy” derived from unofficial guardianship and informal mechanisms of social control (such as when nosy neighbors assume some responsibility for the well-being of others). The fourth theme is that certain activities and circumstances expose peo- ple and their possessions to heightened dangers (see Cohen and Felson, 1979; Cohen, Kluegal, and Land, 1981; Felson, 1994; Finkelhor and Asdigian, 1996; and Siegel, 1998).

Given the interplay of these factors (offender motivation, guardianship, and target suitability), how people actually behave can account to some degree for their observed differences in susceptibil- ity to violence and theft. The sociological term lifestyle refers to attitudes and behaviors that gov- ern how people spend their time and money at work and at leisure, and the social roles they play (such as traveler, parent, student, or homemaker). Lifestyle theory stresses the importance of three aspects of exposure: to high-risk persons; at high-risk locations; and during time periods of high-risk. Associating with high-risk persons in high-risk locations during dangerous times doesn’t guarantee that tragedy will strike, but it sure raises the mathematical probability of a person suffering a misfortune (Hindelang et al., 1978). Lifestyles that place people in jeopardy may appear to be freely chosen (such as pursuing thrill-seeking forms of entertainment) but also are strongly influ- enced by culturally shaped role expectations (such as how teenagers “ought” to spend Saturday evenings) as well as structural constraints (like the financial necessity of depending upon public trans- portation late at night).

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To further illustrate the significance of life- styles, consider the NCVS findings presented in Table 4.4 earlier, which indicated that single young men and women were robbed at much higher rates than their married counterparts. Surely muggers don’t feel guilty about preying upon people sporting wedding bands. It could be the willingness of young singles to venture out alone at night to seek the company of acquaintances and even strangers that accounts for much of the difference in the dangers they face. The relatively low rates of robbery, rape, and assault by strangers for young married men and women with small children can also be understood as a function of lifestyle. In their interactions with relatives and friends, leisure activities, and family-centered obli- gations, young mothers and fathers are less exposed to dangerous people and hotspots for criminal activ- ity than their counterparts without spouses or sons or daughters (Skogan, 1981a; Felson, 1994; Finkelhor and Asdigian, 1996; and Siegel, 1998). In contrast, the pursuit by single people of certain forms of late- night amusements such as cruising around, congre- gating in parks, drinking and partying with complete strangers, and frequenting bars and clubs near closing time inject elements of uncertainty and volatility. Seeking excitement from daring and edgy activities boosts risk levels too.

Engaging in unconventional deviant lifestyles greatly heighten risks. For example, prostitutes working the streets seem particularly prone to hold- ups, rapes, beatings, and on rare occasion violent deaths (especially by serial killers). These young women are easy targets because they operate in the shadows, are willing to accompany complete strangers to isolated or desolate locations, and often abuse alcohol or other drugs that loosen their inhibitions, increase their desperation for money, and impair their judgment. Crimes com- mitted against them often are not taken very seri- ously by the public or the authorities, and witnesses on their behalf (usually other prostitutes, pimps, drivers from escort services, or johns) are often dis- reputable, unreliable, or uncooperative with the authorities and therefore ineffective protectors (see Boyer and James, 1983). This case, although

unusual according to the SHRs, dramatizes the pos- sible perils of pursuing a deviant lifestyle:

A prostitute who advertises her services on an Internet website is dropped off by her driver, but soon runs out of the customer’s house, terrified, and disappears into some nearby woods at night. A police dog sent out to track her down instead unearths the remains of several people along a deserted stretch of a highway near a popular beach. Further searching and digging with heavy machinery over the course of a year eventually turns up her corpse, plus the remains of 9 victims. Some of them had been reported missing, several were dismem- bered, and others could not be positively identified. The police theorize that they were all linked to the sex trade, and were dispatched by one or more serial killers over a number of years. (AP, 2011b; Mueller, 2014)

A related concept, the deviant place factor, calls attention to exact locations rather than the general lifestyle of particular individuals. Certain settings attract predators on the prowl and trouble- makers looking for some action. Hot spots for crime tend to be concentrated in urban settings (Sherman, Gartin, and Buerger, 1989) and include crowded public spaces that serve as crossroads for a wide range of people (like downtown bus or train terminals), desolate areas where the police rarely patrol, or hangouts where heavy drinking and drug consumption regularly take place (perhaps seedy clubs or empty parking lots). Those who fre- quent these locations by necessity or choice expose themselves to greater risks.

In sum, lifestyles (including congregating at hot spots and spending time at deviant places) largely determine the quantity and quality of the contacts between potential targets and crimi- nally inclined individuals. Differences in lifestyles lead to variations in exposure to risks. In the long run, exposure is the primary determinant of a group’s victimization rate (for example, compare teenagers to senior citizens) (see Hindelang, Gottfredson, and Garofalo, 1978; Garofalo, 1986; Jensen and Brownfield, 1986; Mustaine and Tewksbury, 1998b).

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Some Victims Were Criminals: The Equivalent Group Explanation

The equivalent group explanation portrays vic- tims who engage in certain high-risk deviant life- styles in a less-than-sympathetic light. It emphasizes the possibility that certain pairs of victims and vic- timizers share the same interests, participate in the same activities, and are drawn from homogenous or overlapping lifestyle groups. According to this the- ory, offenders select their victims from their own circles of adversaries, acquaintances, and even for- mer friends. Adherence to and participation in the norms of certain deviant subcultures can sharply raise the chances of becoming a casualty. Fellow lawbreakers may be viewed as “fair game” or “easy prey” because their own involvement in criminal behavior discourages them from turning to the authorities they despise for help (see Fattah, 1991; Siegel, 1998).

Many murders can be pointed to as illustrations of the explanation that both parties were drawn from overlapping social groupings. Most perpetra- tors and many of their victims had been in trouble with the law before their final showdowns, accord- ing to a survey of more than 8,000 prosecutions carried out in the nation’s 75 largest counties during 1988. About 45 percent of the deceased turned out to have criminal records (arrests or convictions for misdemeanors or felonies) as did 75 percent of all defendants (see Dawson and Langan, 1994).

Entire categories of killings and armed assaults are reminders that not all murder victims were totally innocent, law-abiding people minding their own business. A considerable proportion across the coun- try could be characterized as “criminal-on-criminal.” The most obvious examples of overlapping illegal lifestyles leading to violence include mob wars between organized crime families engaged in racke- teering who try to get rid of the competition; drive- by shootings of street gang members embroiled in turf battles; fights to control the trade among rival drug- dealing crews; and inmates consumed by pent-up rage attacking each other over minor matters.

Conflicts among participants in the drug scene spark many casualties: cutthroat competition

between dealers, disputes between buyers and sellers (quarrels over high prices, money owed, misrepresen- tation of the contents, and scams surrounding inferior quality); robberies of dealers or customers; and what the FBI calls “brawls due to the influence of narcotics” by people acting out of character because they were high from crack smoking, cocaine snorting, and methamphetamine injecting. Adding these catego- ries together, drug-related murders can soar to stag- gering body counts in metropolitan areas at certain times (see Tardiff, Gross, and Messner, 1986; Spunt et al., 1993). Nationwide, a number of slayings that were deemed narcotics-related claimed many lives during the height of the crack epidemic in the late 1980s, and peaked in 1989 at about 1,400 (Timrots and Snyder, 1994). In Washington, D.C., drug- related murders boosted the homicide rate more strikingly than anywhere else during the late 1980s. About 20 percent of murders (in which the motive was known to the police) in 1985 were drug-related; either the coroner determined the victim was under the influence of drugs, traces of controlled substances or paraphernalia were discov- ered at the crime scene, or the killing occurred in a drug hangout such as a “shooting gallery” or “crack house,” according to the Office of Criminal Justice in the District of Columbia. This proportion rose to 34 percent the following year, jumped to 51 percent in 1987, soared to 80 percent in 1988, and crested at 85 percent of all homicides in D.C. during the first part of 1989 (Berke, 1989; Martz et al., 1989). In New York City, drug-related killings also peaked by the close of the 1980s at over one-third of all slayings but dropped by half to 17 percent by the end of the 1990s as the crack epidemic waned (see Karmen, 2006).

Criminals attacking other criminals behind bars in the nation’s jails and prisons was long considered to be a part of daily life in institutions. Perhaps the problem was even tolerated to some degree because the casualties were considered by many to be expendable persons who deserved to suffer. In addi- tion, the constant threat of violence was presumed to enhance the deterrent effects of being “sent away.” Between the years 2001 and 2012, about 255 inmates were murdered by other inmates in

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the nation’s county jails and 670 were slain in state prisons (Noonan and Ginder, 2014).

The equivalent group explanation also helps account for the carnage among teenage boys that intensified from the mid-1980s into the early 1990s. The overwhelming majority (about 85 percent) of these premature deaths were from gunfire. A cycle of aggression and retaliation developed as growing numbers of young men from poverty-stricken fam- ilies in drug-ravaged communities armed them- selves, both for self-protection and for prestige— whether or not they were directly involved in the crack, cocaine, or heroin trade that was thriving in their neighborhoods. When they fought each other with weapons, often over minor beefs that seemed matters of life and death at the time, the body count soared. These young gunslingers did not “freely choose” their lifestyles, however. The root causes of this teenage arms race were economic hardships, failing schools, dwindling legitimate job opportu- nities, limited supervised recreational activities, fam- ily instability, and a pervasive subculture of violence (see Fingerhut, Ingram, and Feldman, 1992; and Blumstein and Rosenfeld, 1998).

The subculture of violence theory explains why fighting may be the first resort, rather than a last resort, for certain offenders and their victims. Drawn from the study of murders in Philadelphia cited earlier, the theorist (Wolfgang, 1958) con- tended that young, inner-city males had been raised in an environment that stressed using physi- cal force to settle disputes. The ready resort to fighting as a means of conflict resolution was viewed as positive, necessary, and even respectable by fellow members immersed in this subculture, although using such violent means to settle argu- ments would be condemned as inappropriate and downright illegal in mainstream culture. The roots of this subculture (to the extent that it really exists as a distinct way of life within a larger militarized society) might be traced back to the old South and the old West, as well as to “lower class culture” in general. The focus of the values, beliefs, and tradi- tions in this subculture is on achieving respect and on the recognition of manhood, which is socially constructed to emphasize the ideal of “machismo.”

To be viewed as “manly,” a teenage boy or young adult must react forcefully to even perceived slights. In the process, members of the subculture of violence engage in constant spontaneous fights that blur the distinction between aggressor and victim (Wolfgang and Ferracuti, 1967; and Pearson-Nelson, 2009).

Controversies surround all of the explanations that center on deviant lifestyles and the membership of victims and offenders in equivalent groups. A blame-the-victim bias slips into the interpreta- tions. Research findings about the number and per- cent of murder victims who got high on alcohol or controlled substances before they died raise the pos- sibility that some casualties of deadly showdowns may have been partly at fault for the escalation of tensions and the outbreak of violence because their behavior “under the influence” was similar to the disinhibited actions of their attackers. Similarly, teenagers and young adults in gangs who end up injured or mortally wounded are written off as troublemakers who “got themselves killed” while taking part in illegal activities. Branded as young “gangbangers,” “thugs,” or drug abusers, they are demeaned as full-time lawbreakers who become part-time casualties (“today’s victim was yesterday’s offender”). Their entire lives are judged and stigma- tized solely on the basis of the worst incidents that are known, assumed, or alleged about them: their criminal records. The unmistakable implication is that their suffering is less deserving of compassion, support, and respectful treatment by the authorities who handle their cases.

What’s the Difference Between Crime Prevention and Victimization Prevention?

The concept of crime prevention has been defined in a number of ways. A rather inclusive definition would be the sum total of all proactive state policies and private initiatives (by individuals, community groups, businesses, and other organiza- tions) intended to reduce the damage inflicted by lawbreaking activities. Another formulation would include any interventions in mechanisms believed to cause criminal incidents that would reduce the

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probability of these occurrences. A third definition does not emphasize intentions but focuses on results: any strategy or program that reduces the number of offenses or offenders or victims, or the amount of damage (see Schneider, 2014). In a prac- tical sense, crime prevention means “the anticipa- tion, recognition, and appraisal of a risk, and the initiation of some action to remove or reduce it” (National Crime Prevention Institute, 1978).

Prevention relies on proactive strategies that discourage the development of illegal activities, as opposed to reactive crime control measures taken by the justice system in response to acts that have already been committed. Formerly, crime preven- tion strategies centered on government programs designed to eradicate the social roots of lawbreaking behavior, such as desperation for money, job shortages, failing school systems, and racial discrim- ination. Community-based crime prevention cam- paigns focused on lowering the dropout rate in school systems, providing decent jobs for all those who want to work, and developing meaningful recreational outlets and summer jobs for otherwise idle youth. But since the 1970s, this approach, which relies upon social investments by govern- ment to ameliorate conditions that generate street crime, has fallen out of favor because the consider- able expenses of these approaches require substantial revenue from taxation.

Over the decades, a subtle shift has taken place in so-called crime prevention measures. A better term than crime prevention for some of these pre- emptive moves, like installing surveillance cameras, is victimization prevention (see Cohn, Kidder, and Harvey, 1978).

Victimization prevention is much more modest in intent than crime prevention. Its goal is to dis- courage criminals from attacking particular targets, such as certain homes, warehouses, stores, cars, or people. Like defensive driving, victimization pre- vention hinges on the dictum, “Watch the other guy, and anticipate his possible moves.” The shift from crime prevention on a societal and govern- mental level to victimization prevention on a neighborhood, group (business, campus, office building), and personal level demands that potential

victims become crime conscious (or “street smart”). The responsibility for keeping out of trou- ble increasingly falls on the possible targets them- selves, who must outmaneuver would-be offenders and keep one step ahead of them. Crime-conscious individuals are compelled to follow victimization prevention tips, which are long lists of dos and don’ts compiled from observations of other people’s misfortunes. The recommendation derived from studies of other people’s mistakes is that cautious persons should take measures that make them appear to be well protected and their property well guarded, so that criminally inclined prowlers will look elsewhere for easier pickings (Moore, 1985).

Intense interest in the part played by lifestyles and routine activities has led to many new strategies to diminish the odds of being singled out for trou- ble. The ways people try to diminish their odds are called risk-reduction activities.

Avoidance strategies (Furstenberg, 1972) are actions people take to limit personal exposure to dangerous people and frightening situations, such as not allowing strangers into their homes or ignor- ing passersby who attempt to strike up conversa- tions on deserted streets.

Risk-management tactics (Skogan and Maxfield, 1981) minimize the chances of being harmed when exposure is unavoidable. Examples include walking home with other people rather than alone, or carrying a concealed weapon.

Situational crime prevention rests upon interventions that are designed to block criminal opportunities from developing in a particular time and place through the management, design, or manipulation of the human and physical environ- ment (Schneider, 2014).

Crime prevention through environmental design (referred to by the acronym CPTED) stresses the importance of creating well-protected, defensible space (Newman, 1972) by target hardening (add- ing locks, erecting fences) and maintaining effective surveillance (limiting the number of entrances, improving visibility by trimming bushes and adding bright lights). In public housing projects, certain architectural designs can enhance defensible space

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by erecting barriers to channel traffic and conse- quently limit the escape routes used by intruders. Extending defensible space requires that neighbors take some responsibility and ownership for semipub- lic and semiprivate areas by nurturing a sense of community spirit (collective efficacy) and encourag- ing self-help initiatives like block associations and neighborhood watch patrols (Golden, 2009).

Crime resistance means making an offender’s task more difficult through threat assessment and advanced planning. Risk-reduction actions can be categorized as individual or collective (when arranged in cooperation with others) (Conklin, 1975), and as either private-minded or public- minded (Schneider and Schneider, 1978).

However, the valve theory of crime shifts predicts that the number of offenses committed actually will not drop when targets are hardened because criminal activity simply will be displaced. If one area of illegal opportunity is shut off (for example, if robbing bus drivers is made unprofitable by the imposition of exact fare requirements or pre- paid cards), those who are desperate for cash will shift their attention to comparable but more vulner- able targets (such as cabdrivers or storekeepers) (National Commission on the Causes and Preven- tion of Violence, 1969a). When crime is displaced and criminals are deflected, the risk of victimization goes down for some but rises for others, assuming that offenders are intent on committing crimes and are flexible in terms of time, place, target, and tac- tics (Allen et al., 1981).

Victimization prevention strategies adopted by very crime conscious individuals actually might endanger other people who may be less cautious or less able to implement countermeasures. Victimization will be redistributed spatially, geo- graphically, and socially—a far cry from genuine crime prevention, which would lower the risks everyone faces. For example, a pamphlet distributed by the country’s largest police department frankly acknowledged that self-protective measures might merely redirect offenders elsewhere: “No vehicle is theft-proof. You must approach this problem with the attitude that it will not be my car that becomes part of the statistics. As selfish as it may sound, if

the thief wants a car of your year, make, and model, let it be someone else’s. If you follow these guidelines and take all the necessary precau- tions to protect your car, the chances are it will not be stolen” (New York Police Department, 1992).

The contention that victimization prevention methods simply shift the burden on to others, while alleviating the dangers faced by cautious peo- ple and their well-guarded possessions, is a plausible hypothesis that researchers must examine. One thing is clear: target-hardening strategies certainly lend themselves to commercial exploitation. Adver- tisements constantly proclaim that new, virtually foolproof, security-enhancing products are for sale. As these goods and services are purchased by a growing market share of people who desperately don’t want to become statistics, victimologists can test the claims to see which devices work best, or if they have any appreciable impact at all.

Should each prudent person worry only about his or her own safety and take protective measures to ward away prowlers and fend off thieves? How many anticrime devices and precautions are sufficient? Is there a limit, a point of diminishing returns?

Reducing Risks: How Safe Is Safe Enough?

When social scientists estimate risks, they are pre- dicting how many people will experience unwanted incidents. Statistical concepts underlying risk estimates can be difficult to grasp. Only three distinct probabilities can be readily understood: “0,” which signifies that an event is impossible; “1,” which means that an event is inevitable; and “0.5,” which indicates a toss-up, or a 50–50 chance (as in seeking “heads” when flipping a coin). But risks that are 0.1 (1 in 10) or 0.01 (1 in 100) or 0.001 (1 in 1,000) are harder to fathom or evaluate. If the odds of something happening were one in a million, statisticians would advise people not to worry about it (or count on it if the event is desir- able, such as winning a lottery). But when two or three people in every thousand are robbed each year, what importance should be placed on the risk of robbery when planning one’s daily schedule? How much preparation and anxiety would be

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rational in the face of these odds? What sacrifices would be appropriate in terms of forgoing necessary or welcomed activities (such as taking evening clas- ses or watching the sun set on a deserted beach)? At what point does disregarding risks and ignoring pre- cautions become foolhardy?

In general, it is safer to stay at home, especially at night; to travel in pairs or groups and use cars or taxis; to avoid public spaces, unfamiliar places, and complete strangers; to steer clear of known hot spots and dangerous characters; and to not let down one’s guard by becoming intoxicated or dis- tracted. Those precautions are a price that many older people are willing to pay to avoid putting themselves in harm’s way. But many teenagers and young adults reject such restrictions in their quest for entertainment and nightlife (see Felson, 1997; Mustaine and Tewksbury, 1998a).

To illustrate the nature of the dilemma, consider the much lower robbery rate of the elderly compared to people in their early twenties, even though senior citizens are presumed to be especially vulnerable to the young men who use force to steal. This apparent par- adox can be explained by noting that older people usually incorporate many risk-reduction strategies into their lifestyles and routine activities to the point that these self-imposed restrictions become second nature. For instance, to find young adults out after midnight drinking in bars, nightclubs, and gambling casinos seems normal; to encounter elderly people in suchsettingsatthose hoursis surprising.Teenagersand young adults ride home alone on public transportation late at night; old people rarely do.

Since entire demographic groups experience very different rates of victimization for robbery and murder, as documented in Chapter 4, risk- reduction strategies seem to work. But it is difficult to demonstrate the effectiveness of specific precau- tions, such as keeping away from known hot spots and volatile people who engage in deviant lifestyles. It is hard to pinpoint particular instances in which these strategies clearly have prevented a crime from taking place. Therefore, whether to sacrifice certain freedoms and pleasures for enhanced safety is a trade-off that each person must confront and weigh. The proper balance between safety and

risk is ultimately a personal decision. But it is also a matter of public debate. In general, more protec- tion can be secured by greater expenditure. Dangers can be reduced if individuals and groups are willing to pay the price for more police patrols, improved lighting, surveillance cameras, and other security measures. However, a demand for absolute safety (zero risk) is irrational in statistical terms. Probabili- ties of unwanted events can be reduced but never entirely eliminated. At some point, it is reasonable for a person to declare that the odds pose an accept- able risk (Lynn, 1981). Furthermore, many people lack the opportunities and resources to reduce the risks they face. They are unable to alter their means of travel, their hours of work, the schools their children attend, or the neighborhoods in which they live. Many of the suggestions and stern admonitions about dos and don’ts directed at the general public turn out to be impractical, unrealis- tic, and out of reach for such people.

In economics, a cost–benefit analysis can determine the point of diminishing returns, when additional outlays to attempt to achieve a goal exceed the value or return on that investment. Obviously, the price of a second lock on a door is outweighed by its benefit if the door comes with a standard lock that is flimsy. Just as obviously, adding a third lock to a door that already has two imposes more costs than benefits, especially if the hinges are weak.

But what about comparisons that are less clear- cut? What about installing floodlights and a burglar alarm? How about stepped up police patrols in a neighborhood plagued by break-ins? At what point are there too many police officers to justify their sala- ries? Can the pain and suffering of victims or the pub- lic’s fear of street crime (or terrorism) be converted by some formula to determine how much taxpayers or consumers should spend on security expenses? How much is peace of mind worth, in terms of money? “How safe is safe enough?” turns out to be a value judgment that each person must grapple with.

Ambivalence About Risk Taking

Contradictory messages permeate American cul- ture on the subject of risk taking. On the one

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hand, the prevailing entrepreneurial ideology extols the financial risk taking of investors, espe- cially daring “venture capitalists.” Similarly, popu- lar heroes go beyond their comfort zones and boldly take on daunting challenges: pioneers, explorers, inventors, private detectives, secret agents, soldiers of fortune, high-stakes gamblers, and other adventurers. Adolescence by definition is a period of experimentation, and risk taking is part of growing up.

On the other hand, middle-age and middle-class values emphasize order, stability, predictability, and control over one’s destiny. This leads to prudence in the face of danger. Conscientious, responsible,

“mature” adults plan, build, save, and invest so that they are prepared for adversity, illness, retirement due to old age, accidents, or devastating losses inflicted by criminals. They prize safety, peace of mind, insurance, and protective devices.

The ambivalent attitudes toward risk taking in American culture are mirrored by contradictory responses to victimization. Some readily rush to the defense of victims while others impulsively crit- icize them as reckless people who have failed in their gambits. Their suffering evokes sympathy, but it also invites second-guessing about what might be altered in their attitudes, daily routines, and lifestyles to avoid future troubles.

SUMMARY

When victims ask, “Why me?” victimologists sug- gest explanations that range far beyond the notions of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, fate, or just plain bad luck. Explanations that raise the possibility that the victim, along with the offender, shares some degree of responsibility for what hap- pened are the subjects of bitter debate.

Victim-blaming arguments focus on facilitation through negligence, precipitation due to reckless- ness, and provocation because of instigation. Victim blaming insists that injured parties must change their ways if they want to live safer lives. Victim defending either places the entire blame for what happened on lawbreakers (offender blaming) or finds fault with social institutions and cultural values that shape the lives of both offenders and victims (system blaming).

Differential risks are largely determined by rou- tine activities and lifestyles that result in more or less exposure to dangerous individuals in the vicinity of hot spots for illicit behavior. Involvement in illegal activities with criminally inclined persons surely heightens risks, according to the equivalent group hypothesis. Some people do not learn lessons from the misfortunes of others or from their own brushes with trouble and are not deterred from high-risk behaviors, so they face higher risks of becoming repeat victims.

Each person must perform a cost–benefit anal- ysis about precautions in everyday life and expen- ditures for risk-reduction measures, and determine on an individual basis just how safe is safe enough.

One final note needs to be emphasized. All the precautions listed in the boxes above to avoid rob- bery, burglary, motor vehicle theft, and identity theft are recommendations from police detectives and other justice professionals based on past experi- ences. These experts and professionals look at the way criminals operate and they scrutinize the appar- ent mistakes victims have made. That is how these victimization prevention tips were derived. But what seems to be plausible, reasonable, sound advice needs to be carefully researched. Victimolo- gists have to conduct studies to determine whether or not each of these tips and recommendations really work as touted and as intended. For example, do alarms actually scare off car thieves or at least cut short their attacks? Does it pay to install a burglar alarm and then incur the unending expense of monthly monitoring fees? If timers turn lights on and off at night to make a home look like it is occupied, does that actually deter burglars from attempting to break in? If a person rejects simple passwords that are easy to remember and conscien- tiously devises and changes strong passwords rou- tinely, does that really help to stave off attempts at

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identity theft? Crime conscious people need to know if these tactics do any good and if these expenses are worthwhile investments. Only careful research can answer these tough questions. Until

then, “how safe is safe enough” is a very difficult question to answer because evidence-based support for various common sense tips and recommenda- tions is not yet available.

KEY TERMS DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY

attractiveness, 166

avoidance strategies, 171

boost explanation, 137

caller ID phone spoofing, 150

character contest, 157

classical school, 161

co-orientation, 164

co-presence, 164

cost–benefit analysis, 173

crime conscious, 171

crime control, 171

crime prevention, 170

crime prevention through environmental design, 171

crime resistance, 172

deterrence theory, 161

deviant lifestyles, 168

deviant place factor, 168

dumpster diving, 150

equivalent group, 169

exposure, 167

facilitation, 144

flag explanation, 137

free will, 161

hot dots, 136

hot spots, 136

instrumental coercion, 163

just world outlook, 139

justifiable homicide, 155

lifestyle, 167

offender blaming, 142

outlet-attractor perspective, 156

pharming, 150

phishing, 150

precipitation, 154

provocation, 154

proximity, 166

rational choice, 161

risk-management tactics, 171

risk-reduction activities, 171

routine activities, 167

selective-disinhibition perspective, 156

shared responsibility, 135

shoulder surfers, 150

situational crime prevention, 171

situational factors, 166

skimmers, 150

social ecology of victimization, 167

subculture of violence, 170

subintentional death, 154

system blaming, 142

target hardening, 171

techniques of neutralization, 139

theoretical explanations, 164

typology, 137

valve theory of crime shifts, 172

victim blaming, 138

victim defending, 138

victimization prevention, 171

vulnerability, 166

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND DEBATE

1. Which high-risk groups—if any—do you fall into, when it comes to the following four crimes: robbery, burglary, vehicle theft, and identity theft?

2. Compare and contrast victim facilitation, vic- tim precipitation, and victim provocation. Make up scenarios to illustrate the differences.

3. Describe the process of victim blaming step by step, and then argue that people whose

identities were stolen may have made the thieves’ tasks easier. How can they avoid revictimization?

4. Describe the victim-defending point of view, and then apply it to motor vehicle theft.

5. Explain system blaming in general, and then apply this perspective to identity theft.

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CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS

1. Is it possible to be too crime conscious—too concerned about being victimized? Defend your point of view by providing examples of risk reduction strategies that demand sacrifices that might be considered by some to be pru- dent but by others to be unreasonable.

2. Review the statements for and against scruti- nizing the victim’s role that appear in Boxes 5.1 and 5.2. Select quotes from victimologists with whom you strongly agree and several with whom you strongly disagree, and explain your views.

3. Although it is impossible to prevent victimiza- tion, it is possible to reduce risks—but it will cost individuals, companies, and governments

much more money. Explain this observation and give some examples of expensive measures that could be undertaken.

4. Review your own lifestyle and routine activi- ties. What are the most dangerous things you do, in terms of exposure to criminally inclined persons and entering hot-spot zones? What could you do to reduce your risks? What changes would be unreasonable, impractical, or unworkable?

5. Argue that undertaking crime prevention on a governmental level is a more socially responsi- ble approach than simply encouraging indivi- duals to incorporate victimization prevention strategies into their everyday lives.

SUGGESTED RESEARCH PROJECTS

1. Find more examples of victim-blaming accu- sations for various crimes by searching through databases of newspaper and magazine articles, and in lists of victimization prevention tips.

2. Develop a brief questionnaire about high-risk activities and survey some people you know.

Ask whether they feel these activities are too dangerous in their opinion, in terms of being robbed. See if the willingness to take precau- tions (adopt victimization prevention strate- gies) is connected to age, sex, or past misfortunes.

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6 Victims and the Police

CHAPTER OUTLINE Victims Interacting with the Criminal Justice System:

Cooperation or Conflict?

What Would Be Ideal?

What Do Victims Want: Punishment? Treatment? Restitution?

Make “Them” Suffer Make “Them” Get Treatment Make “Them” Pay for Losses and Expenses

Victims and the Police

Reporting Incidents Responding Quickly Handling Victims with Care Challenging the Victim’s Version of Events Investigating Complaints and Solving Crimes Arresting Suspects Recovering Stolen Property Measuring Progress Toward a Victim-Oriented Police

Department Summary

Key Terms Defined in the Glossary

Questions for Discussion and Debate

Critical Thinking Questions

Suggested Research Projects

LEARNING OBJECTIVES To establish the ways in which victims suffer.

To find out what the criminal justice system can accomplish in behalf of victims.

To become familiar with the ways that the police can serve the best interests of crime victims.

To uncover issues and relationships where victims and law enforcement agencies can find themselves in conflict rather than in an alliance.

To become acquainted with the kind of evidence that is useful to evaluate whether a police department is effectively meeting the needs of victims in its jurisdiction.

To recognize the features of a victim-oriented police department.

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Though our homes and neighborhoods are saferthan they have been in decades, millions of Americans still become victims of crime each year. For many citizens, a sense of security remains painfully elusive, and we must continue to fight crime wherever it exists. (President Barack Obama, 2011)

The primary mission of the criminal justice system is to “fight crime.” But in terms of delivering justice, the system has an additional obligation: to serve those who are harmed by offenders. Criminology and crim- inal justice courses focus on the actions and operations of law enforcement agencies, prosecutors’ offices, defense attorneys, judges, juries, probation depart- ments, corrections departments, and parole authorities. Criminologists investigate how this system handles perpetrators—specifically, suspects, arrestees, defen- dants, convicts, inmates, probationers, parolees, and other formerly incarcerated persons. Victimologists explore how this same system handles the individuals who suffer injuries and losses due to illegal activities: how the police respond to complainants; how prose- cutors, defense attorneys, and judges treat these wit- nesses for the state; and how corrections, probation, and parole officials react to the special requests that individuals previously harmed by the convicts under their custody and control ask of them, such as for infor- mation, protection, and restitution.

Sociologists who analyze social institutions from a functionalist perspective point out that the criminal justice system is supposed to serve as the first line of defense for innocent, law-abiding peo- ple against the depredations of the “criminal element.” In other words, the legal system’s mission is to protect the general public, and then, failing that, to help specific individuals recover from the losses inflicted by offenders. But those who adopt a conflict perspective see this same system in a differ- ent light. Agencies and officials act to some extent on their own behalf and follow policies that are in their own self-interest, as well as to the advantage of even more powerful interest groups that dominate society (see Reiman, 2005). Therefore, from the conflict perspective, it is not surprising to discover that some victims enjoy cooperation from justice professionals while others find themselves at odds

concerning certain practices or policies pursued by the officials and agencies whose ostensible mission is to protect and assist them.

VICTIMS INTERACTING WITH THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM: COOPERATION OR CONFLICT?

The criminal justice system is the one branch of government that comes under scathing attack from all political quarters. Conservative crime con- trol proponents, treatment-oriented liberals, civil libertarians, civil rights activists, feminists, and vic- tim advocates—all find fault with its priorities and procedures. Over the past few decades, even some officials who run its agencies and shape its daily operations have joined the chorus of critics calling for change. However, they sharply disagree over how to reform the system.

The consensus among the experts who focus on victim issues is that the criminal justice system does not measure up to expectations. It fails to deliver what it promises. It does not meet the needs and wants of victims as its clients or consumers of its ser- vices. Serious problems persist, and the indictments of the system voiced over the years appear in Box 6.1. Even though the crime problem has subsided, and the shortcomings of other social institutions attract more attention, occasional criticisms of the way the system treats victims persist (see Box 6.1).

What Would Be Ideal?

Suppose a person is robbed and injured. What could and should the system do to dispense justice in this case?

Law enforcement agencies are at the intake end of the legal system and are the criminal justice pro- fessionals that victims initially encounter. Ideally, police officers could rush to help the person in dis- tress and provide whatever physical and psycholog- ical first aid might be needed. Then they should help the victim to file a complaint. Hopefully, they would catch the culprit and properly collect evidence of guilt that will stand up in court.

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They could recover any stolen goods taken by the robber and speedily return these items to the right- ful owner.

The prosecutor could make sure the defendant is indicted and then press for a swift trial. In the meantime, the injured party, who is serving as a key witness for the government, should be pro- tected from intimidation and reprisals. After convic- tion, the victim’s views about a fair resolution of this case could be fully aired. The judge could hand down a sentence that would balance the vic- tim’s wishes with the community’s desires and the robber’s needs. Correctional authorities could see to it that the probationer, prisoner, or parolee doesn’t harass or attack the person whose complaint set the machinery of criminal justice into motion. If the convict was ordered by the judge to reimburse the individual he harmed for losses and expenses, then correctional authorities could ensure that these restitution payments or services are delivered in a timely fashion, as promised.

But this “best-case scenario” frequently does not materialize. Instead of enjoying the cooperation of officials and supportive services from agencies as the system handles “their” cases, victims might find themselves sorely disappointed or even locked into conflicts with the police, prosecutors, judges, wardens, and parole boards.

WHAT DO VICTIMS WANT: PUNISHMENT? TREATMENT? RESTITUTION?

Why should victims bring their problems to the attention of a law enforcement agency that func- tions as the intake valve or first component of the legal system? What motivates them when they ask the police to set the crime justice process into motion? What kinds of results are they seeking from the authorities? What would be in their best interests? What does “justice” mean to them?

Rather than answer these questions that others must decide for themselves, the victims’ rights movement has sought empowerment. That means

the ability to have some input into important deci- sions at every step in the criminal justice process, from initially filing a complaint with the police up to the release of the perpetrator from custody, or probation, or parole. Empowerment would enable the injured parties to exercise their “agency”— taking actions in pursuit of outcomes that embody their sense of fair play, self-interest, and desire for closure.

But why demand inclusion? Why insist on having a chance to participate at key junctures in the criminal justice process?

Victims can pursue one or even a combination of three distinct goals. The first is to see to it that hard-core offenders who act as predators are pun- ished and removed from the streets so that they can’t harm their victims again, or prey upon others. The second is to use the justice process as leverage to compel lawbreakers to undergo rehabilitative treatment to counteract their criminal inclinations. The third possible aim is to get the court to order convicts to make restitution for any expenses arising from injuries and losses.

Make “Them” Suffer

A serial killer terrorizes a small city by binding, torturing, and killing his victims. He taunts the local police for three decades by sending them clues, but they fail to figure out his identity until finally they trace a disk he sent them to his church’s computer. After a court hearing, the son of his tenth and final victim denounces him to reporters as “a rotting corpse of a wretch of a human hiding under a human veneer. I’m spiteful, I’m vengeful, and I relish the thought that he knows that he’ll walk into that prison but he’ll be carried out.” (Wilgoren, 2005).

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A man is convicted of murdering three younger men with whom he was arranging a drug deal by shooting them point-blank in the back of the head as they sat in a car parked near a university. When the judge hands down the maximum sentence, life without parole, family members of the victims shout “Yes! Yes!” and weep. One mother declares “Justice was

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done. He’s going to suffer more than I have suffered.” (McKinley, 2013)

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A 23-year-old is four months pregnant when a young man enters her mobile home under the pretext of seeking directions, and then forces her into the bedroom and rapes her. Three decades later, he is finally convicted and sentenced for first degree criminal sexual conduct. Exercising an opportunity to voice her opinion, she tells the judge, “it’s been a rough 31 years…. My sex life has been screwed up … I hope he goes away for the rest of his life. (Deiters, 2013)

Penalizing offenders for the pain and losses they imposed on their victims is what comes to most people’s minds first when discussing the meaning of “justice.”

Besides physical injuries, victims can suffer socially and emotionally in the aftermath of a seri- ous violent crime such as rape, sexual assault, aggra- vated assault, and robbery. Just about two-thirds of the persons subjected to serious violent crimes told NCVS interviewers that they were burdened by socio-emotional problems, including moderate to severe levels of distress (manifested as anxiety,

depression, anger, and sleep disturbances), strained relationships with family members and friends, and/ or disruptions of their usual activities at school or work. But only a little more than half of those who experienced these upsetting consequences informed the police about their plight, and only slightly more than one in every ten received help from some service agency during the years 2009 to 2012 (Langton and Truman, 2014).

Many people hurt by acts of interpersonal vio- lence and theft want the justice system to punish convicts in their behalf so that they will suffer too. Throughout history, people have always pun- ished one another. However, they may disagree about their reasons for subjecting a wrongdoer to deprivations and hardships. Most deliberations in court concern questions of punishment: who, why, when, where, and how much?

Punishment—imposing unpleasant and unwanted consequences—is usually justified on utilitarian grounds as a necessary evil. It is argued that making transgressors suffer curbs future criminality in a number of ways. According to the doctrine of spe- cific deterrence, the perpetrator who experiences negative sanctions learns a lesson and is discouraged from breaking the law again. Making an example of

B O X 6.1 Notable Criticisms of How the Criminal Justice System Handles Victims

If there is one word that describes how the criminal justice system treats victims of crimes and witnesses to crimes, it is “badly.”

JAMES REILLY, DIRECTOR OF THE VICTIM/WITNESS ASSISTANCE PROJECT OF THE NATIONAL DISTRICT ATTORNEYS’ ASSOCIATION (1981, P. 8)

Crimes that terrorize take many forms, from aggravated assault to petty thievery. But one crime goes largely unno- ticed. It is a crime against which there is no protection. It is committed daily across our nation. It is the painful, wrongful insensitivity of the criminal justice system toward those who are the victims of crime.… The callousness with which the system again victimizes those who have already suffered at the hands of an assailant is tragic.

SENATOR JOHN HEINZ, SPONSOR OF THE OMNIBUS VICTIMS PROTECTION ACT PASSED BY CONGRESS (1982, P. A19)

Without the cooperation of victims and witnesses in reporting and testifying about crime, it is impossible in a free society to hold criminals accountable. When victims come forward to provide this vital service, however, they find little protection. They discover instead that they will be treated as appendages of a system appallingly out of balance. They learn that somewhere along the way the system has lost track of the simple truth that it is supposed to be fair and to protect those who obey the law while punishing those who break it. Somewhere along the way, the system began to serve lawyers and judges and defen- dants, treating the victim with institutionalized disinterest.… The neglect of crime victims is a national disgrace.

LOIS HERRINGTON, CHAIR OF THE PRESIDENT’S TASK FORCE ON VICTIMS OF CRIME (1982, PP. VI–VII)

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a convict also serves as a warning to would-be offenders contemplating the same act, according to the doctrine of general deterrence. (Whether convicts actually learn lessons and whether would- be offenders really think twice and decide not to carry out a crime are subjects of heated debate among criminologists.) Punishment in the form of imprisonment has been promoted as a method of enhancing public safety by incapacitating dangerous predators so that they can no longer roam the streets preying upon innocents. Another rationale for pun- ishment by the government is that it satisfies the thirst for revenge of angry victims and their suppor- ters, who otherwise may harbor an urge to engage in vigilantism and get even on their own. Finally, imposing severely negative sanctions also has been justified on the grounds of “just deserts” as a mor- ally sound practice, regardless of any value it has in deterring or incapacitating criminals. According to this theory of punishment as retribution, it is fair to make offenders suffer in proportion to the misery they inflicted on others. Since biblical times, people have believed in the formula of retaliation in kind: lex talionis, or “an eye for an eye.” According to this point of view, retribution rights a wrong, evens the score, and restores balance to the moral order, as

long as the severity of the punitive sanction is in proportion to the gravity of the offense. Punish- ment in behalf of the victim by criminal justice professionals is touted as the equitable and practical solution to the thirst for payback. In other words, the legal system serves as the official avenger for injured parties by imposing adequate and propor- tional retribution so that wrongdoers get their just deserts.

Despite the current popularity of punishment as the antidote to victimization and the cure for crime, the punitive approach remains controversial. Utilitarian opponents have documented how impractical, expensive, ineffective, and even coun- terproductive high rates of mass imprisonment can be. Civil libertarians have condemned such harsh punishments as a tool of domination and oppression used by tyrants and totalitarian regimes to terrorize their subjects into submission (see for example Menninger, 1968; Wright, 1973; Prison Research, 1976; Pepinsky, 1991; Elias, 1993; Mauer, 1999; Dubber, 2002; and Alexander, 2012).

The quest for vengeance has shaped history. Incorporated into the customs and consciousness of entire groups, classes, and nations, it is expressed in simmering hatreds, longstanding feuds, ongoing

For too long, the rights and needs of crime victims and wit- nesses have been overlooked in the criminal justice system.… we have begun to address this problem [through federal leg- islation passed in 1994 and 1996]. But those important mea- sures are not enough.

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON (1996, P. 1)

[According to a recent survey] victims often feel that they are treated as a piece of evidence, helpful only when they help prove the prosecution’s case and when they help a police officer find the bad guy. But they often feel disre- spected and ignored and that their interests and concerns are irrelevant.

SUSAN HERMAN, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR VICTIMS OF CRIME (1999)

In the year 2000, Americans were victims of millions of crimes. Behind each of these numbers is a terrible trauma, a story of suffering and a story of lost security. Yet the needs of victims are often an afterthought in our criminal justice system. It’s not just, it’s not fair, and it must change. As we protect the rights of criminals, we must take equal care to protect the rights of the victims.…

But too often our system fails to inform victims about proceedings involving bail and pleas and sentencing and even about the trials themselves. Too often, the process fails to take the safety of victims into account when deciding whether to release dangerous offenders. Too often, the financial losses of victims are ignored.… When our criminal justice system treats victims as irrelevant bystanders, they are victimized for a second time.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH (2002)

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vendettas, and even repeated outbreaks of retalia- tory military strikes leading to full-scale war. To feel a sense of fury and rage toward a vicious predator or cruel enemy is entirely human. Revenge fantasies can sustain individuals and even give purpose and direction to their lives. For example, people who sustained terrible losses were at the forefront of a campaign to deprive inmates of whatever comforts and privileges they “enjoyed” behind bars so they would be even more miserable in bleak, “no-frills” prisons (see Hanley, 1994).

Openly calling for revenge is usually frowned upon, and most people don’t want to appear vin- dictive. They are told to forget what the offender did, to put vivid memories of the harrowing event behind them, and to move on with their lives. But vengeance has its supporters, who reject charges that the urge to extract a pound of flesh is barbaric, shortsighted, and pointless, a moral failing or a sign of mental pathology, or even a willingness to go overboard and commit a new crime. They contend that wanting to strike back is connected to a bio- logically rooted sense of justice and, when success- ful and savored, can bring about a feeling of relief, catharsis, fulfillment, and completeness. If the urge to get even is stifled, then individuals who are dis- mayed and ashamed about their own vulnerability might take out the desire for revenge on themselves and engage in self-defeating or—worse yet—self- destructive behavior (Carey, 2004; and Nesbo, 2014). A similar motivation driving victim behavior is spite (defined as the desire to punish, hurt, humil- iate, or harass someone, even when the injured party gains no apparent benefit and may well pay a cost). Studies using surveys and experiments sug- gest that men are generally more spiteful than women and that young adults are more spiteful than older folks (Angier, 2014).

However, the thirst for vengeance can under- cut recovery if it becomes an obsession. Even when fulfilled, acts of revenge are rarely as satisfy- ing as had been imagined. In the hours and days following a crime, it is psychologically useful and even cathartic for persons nursing wounds to dream of inflicting pain on those who wronged them. But a chronic preoccupation with striking

back needlessly prolongs angry memories and painful flashbacks about the incident. Individuals consumed by a desire to get even never break free of the pernicious influence of their victimi- zers. Former victims learn that the best revenge of all is to transcend their offender’s grip, put the experience behind them, rise above what hap- pened, regain the moral high ground, and strive to lead a fulfilling life (Halleck, 1980; also see Carey, 2004). The next of kin whose loved ones were murdered sometimes arrive at this conclu- sion, as the following cases indicate:

A man whose wife was killed when a right-wing extremist blew up a federal building undergoes a long and painful journey through anger, hate, and ulti- mately forgiveness. When the killer is first captured and brought to court, he confides to a reporter, “I wanted to grab my rifle, go sit by the highway and give him a proper greeting.” But now he acknowl- edges that he has reached a surprising conclusion: that the execution of the bomber is wrong. “It is not about justice—it is about revenge. It’s blood lust. And if I don’t stand up now and say this, well, it’s just cowardice,” he declares. (Goodell, 2001)

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Three white supremacists, hoping to trigger racial conflict, chain a black man to their truck and drag him along a country road until he is dead. Thirteen years later, one of the murderers is about to be executed. The dead man’s sister tells reporters, “I had to forgive because if I didn’t, hate would eat me up just like it ate him up.… And I refuse to live life like that. Life is too precious to just be consumed with hate.” (Miller, 2011)

Make “Them” Get Treatment

Some persons do not look to the criminal justice system to exact revenge by tormenting their victim- izer in their behalf. Instead, they want professionals and experts to help wrongdoers become decent, productive, law-abiding citizens. Victims are most likely to endorse treatment and rehabilitation ser- vices if their perpetrators are not complete strangers.

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They realize that it is in their enlightened self- interest to try to salvage, save, rescue, and cure troubled family members, other loved ones, friends, neighbors, classmates, or close colleagues at work. Rehabilitation might take the form of counseling, behavior modification, intense psychotherapy, detoxification from addictive drugs, medical care, additional schooling, and job training. “Helping” offenders remains as much a part of the justice sys- tem’s mission as making them sorry for what they did. Rehabilitation was the original motivation of critics of corporal punishment and the widespread imposition of the death penalty (like the Quakers) who invented “penitentiaries” and “reformatories” and “houses of correction” in the early 1800s. Unfortunately, the ascendancy of a pessimistic, “nothing works” point of view (popularized because of a mistaken interpretation of a major study [see Martinson, 1974]) has led to disenchant- ment with the longstanding practice of investing in rehabilitation programs within prison walls.

Rehabilitation followed by reintegration into the community (currently termed “reentry”) is a long-term strategy that benefits both victims and society. Incapacitating antisocial predators is a short-term strategy that merely buys time and pro- motes a false sense of security that doesn’t last long. Angry and frustrated inmates may pose even greater threats to public safety when they are released from custody. Victims who overcome their initial emo- tional outrage over what offenders did to them might become equally infuriated about ineffective, heavy-handed, punitive policies as well as inept efforts to change the personalities and conduct of inmates in jails or prisons, or of convicts on proba- tion or parole.

Make “Them” Pay for Losses and Expenses

As a third alternative, some victims seek restitution rather than retribution or rehabilitation. They want the legal system’s help to recoup their losses and pay their bills—a necessary prerequisite for full recov- ery. Restitution collected from offenders can help restore victims to the financial condition they were in before the crimes occurred. Once perpetrators

make amends monetarily, reconciliation becomes a realistic possibility (see Chapter 12).

Whether they desire that something be done to the offender (punishment), for the offender (treat- ment), or for themselves (restitution), victims want the professionals who run the criminal justice system—police, prosecutors, judges, wardens, pro- bation officers, parole officers, members of parole boards—to take effective actions in response to vio- lations of law. What they don’t want is inaction, lack of interest, neglect, abuse, empty promises, or attempts at manipulation.

VICTIMS AND THE POLICE

Law enforcement agencies are the first representa- tives of the criminal justice system that victims encounter in the immediate aftermath of crimes. If their cases are not solved with an arrest, then police officers in metropolitan areas and sheriff’s deputies in rural areas will be the only criminal justice professionals with whom victims will have contact. Therefore, how the police handle the individuals who summon them for help during emergencies or who walk in to precinct station houses to fill out paperwork requires careful examination.

These first responders can help out in many ways. The police can arrive quickly when sum- moned and can provide on-the-spot first aid. Detectives can launch thorough investigations and solve crimes by taking suspects into custody, recov- ering stolen property, and gathering evidence that will lead to convictions in court.

Victims are direct consumers of police services. Their opinions, based on their direct experiences, can greatly influence police–community relations. Unfortunately, these “clients” or “customers” can become bitterly disappointed with the performance of law enforcement agencies ostensibly committed to “serve and protect” them if officers are slow or reluctant to respond, don’t believe their accusations, conduct superficial investigations, don’t solve their cases by making arrests, and fail to recover their stolen property.

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Reporting Incidents

Criminal justice authorities want people to “report, identify, and testify.” Officials fear that if would-be predators believe that their intended prey won’t complain to the authorities about their depredations, then the deterrent effect of the risk of getting caught and punished will be undermined. Furthermore, if the public provided more complete information about where and when crimes were committed, then crime analysts working for the police could more effectively anticipate where career criminals will strike next. In other words, victims who fail to report inci- dents actually are endangering others. Also, they forfeit important rights and opportunities, such as eligibility for services and reimbursement of losses through compensation plans, tax deductions, and insurance policies. Despite these appeals to self- interest and civic responsibility, most individuals still do not tell the authorities about incidents in which their property was stolen, and just half call on the police when they are harmed by violent perpetrators. Within each of these two broad cat- egories, certain types of incidents are more likely to be reported than others.

Of all the crimes inquired about on the NCVS, completed auto theft emerges each year as the cate- gory with the highest reporting rate (close to 90 percent of cars driven off, about 50 percent of all attempts). Most vehicle owners notify law enforce- ment agencies about their loss for several sound reasons: There is a good chance their missing cars, SUVs, and trucks will be recovered if officers are aware of the disappearance; filing a formal com- plaint is required for insurance reimbursement; and motorists do not want to be held responsible for any accidents or crimes involving their vehicles. (For example, detectives will assume that the owner was behind the wheel of a getaway car used in a bank robbery.) The lowest reporting rates were registered for thefts of household property worth less than $50. As for the category of violent crimes, robberies and aggravated assaults were reported most frequently and simple assaults least often. The only reporting rate that rises and falls substantially from year to

year is for rapes and other sexual assaults. Sometimes it approaches one-half of all incidents disclosed to NCVS interviewers, but during other years the report- ing rate tumbles to less than one-third of all rapes dis- closed to interviewers (Harlow, 1985; Rennison, 1999; Catalano, 2005; and Truman, 2011).

Differential reporting rates have been uncovered by the NCVS. Certain groups of victims are more or less likely to bring their problems to the attention of the authorities. During the 1990s, females were more inclined to report violent inci- dents than were males, and older people were more willing than younger ones (especially teenagers). Those who had never been married were less inclined to file complaints than their married or divorced counterparts. Urban residents notified their local police a little more often than suburba- nites. In general, reporting rates were higher by persons who faced violence than by those who lost property; were confronted by an armed assail- ant; attacked by a stranger; physically injured (espe- cially shot); or were harmed by someone who seemed high on drugs or alcohol. Reporting rates were relatively lower for incidents involving offen- ders thought to be gang members. Despite public misimpressions, lower-income people were some- what more willing to call the police than higher- income individuals, and black victims reported attacks more readily than white or Asian victims (Hart and Rennison, 2003).

The NCVS asks victims to explain why they did or did not report to the police the very same incidents that they are willing to disclose to survey interviewers. Different reporting rates reflect ratio- nal calculations about advantages and disadvantages that can vary from group to group (see Biblarz, Barnowe, and Biblarz, 1984; Greenberg and Ruback, 1984; Gottfredson and Gottfredson, 1988). When victims reported violent crimes, their leading reasons were “to prevent future vio- lence,” “to stop the offender,” and “to protect others.” Smaller percentages of respondents told interviewers their motivations were “to catch and punish the offender” and “to fulfill their civic duty.” When people did not file complaints, their

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most common explanations were that the incidents were “a private/personal matter,” “not important enough to involve the police,” or “some other offi- cials were notified,” and that the perpetrators were unsuccessful in achieving their intentions. Insurance coverage was not a significant factor in deciding whether or not to report incidents (Hart and Rennison, 2003; BJS, 2011).

Victimologists have long suspected that report- ing rates vary from department to department, depending on the closeness of the working rela- tionships between local law enforcement agencies and the residents they are supposed to protect and serve. Those suspicions were confirmed when the NCVS carried out a comparative study of reporting rates in 12 cities during 1998. Fewer victims of vio- lence called the cops in Spokane, Washington (31 percent), and New York City (32 percent) than in Washington, D.C. (50 percent) or Spring- field, Missouri (58 percent). A smaller percentage of the people who suffered property crimes filed com- plaints in San Diego, California (28 percent), and New York City (29 percent) than in Kansas City, Missouri (45 percent), and Savannah, Georgia (47 percent) (see Smith et al., 1999).

Note that these differential reporting rates from department to department undercut the accuracy of making city-to-city comparisons of crime rates based on the FBI’s UCR compilation of crimes known to the police. City-by-city rankings of mur- der rates can be accurate because they don’t depend on voluntary reports by victims, of course

Police departments face contradictory pres- sures. On the one hand, they want victims to come forward and share their misfortunes with the authorities, so that officers and detectives can effectively do their jobs. On the other hand, if that effort at outreach is too successful, the entire department might look inept, and individual pre- cinct commanders and squad leaders might look incompetent.

Police forces that successfully cultivate closer ties to their communities learn about a greater proportion of the crimes committed within their jurisdiction. “User-friendly” departments that have won the trust of local residents can wind up

penalized in terms of their reputations. A depart- ment that suddenly becomes victim-oriented might appear to be engulfed by a crime wave. The apparently rising crime rates could merely be the result of improving reporting rates. Ironically, departments that alienate the people whom they are supposed to protect and serve look better by comparison—they may seem to be effectively sup- pressing illegal activities, when the actual reason for the low numbers of reported incidents is that a smaller proportion of the inhabitants turn to them for help.

Commanding officers and supervisors of the robbery, burglary, and sex crimes squads also face contradictory pressures. They need a steady stream of cases to work on, but they do not want to appear to be overwhelmed or seen as ineffective. Evaluat- ing performance by using up-to-date computer- generated statistics is a foundation of the Compstat approach pioneered by the New York Police Department (NYPD) in the middle 1990s (and adopted since then by law enforcement agencies worldwide). As a result, victimization and arrest sta- tistics have been monitored as closely as companies keep track of sales and profits. Precinct commanders are largely evaluated on their ability to continuously reduce the number of crimes known to have been committed in their jurisdictions. This is a positive development because Compstat-oriented depart- ments now are constantly striving to devise more effective ways to improve public safety. However, the pressures to come to a meeting with the latest numbers of reported crimes being even lower than the last time has tempted some commanders and their subordinates to try to artificially suppress sta- tistics about criminal activities. Some ways to reduce the apparent crime rate is to discourage victims from reporting about their misfortunes, to refuse to accept their complaints into the record-keeping system, or to downgrade serious charges into minor offenses whose numbers are not so closely monitored (see Levitt, 2004; Baker, 2011; Rayman, 2012; Eterno and Silverman, 2012; and Matson and Turk, 2013). For example, the NYPD was pressured to set up a watchdog panel in 2011 to look into the numbers of reported offenses in its Compstat database after a city

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councilman declared, “I believe that the statistics were in fact being manipulated. I have spoken to many current and former police officers who unfor- tunately refused to go on the record but have cor- roborated that fact. And I’ve spoken to many civilians whose valid complaints were not accepted by the Police Department” (see Baker and Rash- baum, 2011). In an apparent response, the police commissioner sent a memo to officers telling them to make it easier for New Yorkers to report crimes and to count each complaint. Officers were instructed to fill out reports even if the complainant wouldn’t agree to be interviewed by detectives, couldn’t identify the suspect or refused to view photographs in mug books, didn’t want to press charges, and couldn’t provide receipts for items that were stolen (Parascandola, 2012).

Similar problems of brushing off would-be complainants or downplaying the seriousness of their accounts have cropped up in many other jur- isdictions. For example, in Milwaukee, the depart- ment misreported hundreds of beatings, stabbings, and child abuse cases to artificially deflate the UCR’s calculation of the violent crime rate for that city from 2009 to 2011 (Poston, 2012). In Los Angeles, 1,200 serious violent crimes were allegedly misclassified as minor offenses by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) record- keepers, according to a newspaper’s investigation (Rubin and Poston, 2014). Manipulation in the form of downgrading could have consequences for the complainants: They might not be eligible for the services and financial compensation available to certified victims of violence. Similarly, in Houston, “a pattern of deceit” to keep publicly published numbers down during 2010 was uncov- ered by investigative reporters. They unearthed sev- eral “hidden homicides”—deaths due to arson which were not counted as murders, and deaths ruled as suicides in which the deceased was shot several times. When the police department reluc- tantly reopened certain recent cases of suspicious deaths and ended up reclassifying some as murders, the next of kin of 20 deceased persons became eli- gible for victim compensation payments from a state fund (Greenblatt and Razio, 2010).

Police departments generally want recent immigrants—both those who arrived in the United States legally as well as those who did not—to report attacks upon them and to serve as witnesses for the prosecution because criminals often prefer to target them (Altman and Aguayo, 2006). For that reason, many departments do not want to be compelled to engage in the enforce- ment of federal immigration laws because that activity would undermine trust and cooperation with recent arrivals to their community (Preston, 2011). Another potential problem is that language barriers can cause confusion and conflict during stressful interactions such as emergency calls and filing complaints (as well as in stop-and-frisks, car stops, investigations, arrests, bookings, and inter- rogations). Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Justice has carried out about 50 routine audits of police departments that serve substantial popula- tions of inhabitants with limited proficiency in English to determine if the police are complying with civil rights laws mandating fair and equal treatment of all persons. Officers might find them- selves unable to make sense of accusations and unable to communicate their own requests or orders to disputants, complainants, and suspects. Solutions to this communication problem include having linguists on standby to translate what is said during 911 calls or at crime scenes, finding third- party bystanders to speak to victims in their native language, and hiring more multilingual officers. One particularly difficult situation involves inter- vening in domestic disputes. Officers unable to find an interpreter might refuse to accept a complaint and will fill out “uncooperative” or “refused” in the space on the form that is labeled “victim’s statement” (Rivera, 2010b). A review of the NYPD by the Justice Department’s Office for Civil Rights in 2010 concluded that the depart- ment often failed to ensure that New Yorkers seeking assistance had critical access to certified interpreters if their first language was not English (most commonly, it was Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Italian). For instance, despite having many Spanish-speaking officers, the NYPD had only 12 certified Spanish interpreters on call in

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its multilingual database, one for every 75,000 Spanish-speaking residents in its jurisdiction (Baker and Rivera, 2010).

As for trends, reporting rates are supposed to go up as the years go by. Criminal justice officials launched a campaign to promote calling the police for help decades ago (see “Crime Victims Digest,” 1985). At the start of the twenty-first century, a government publication accentuated the positive by emphasizing how reporting rates, particularly for acts of violence, had risen modestly over the years (see Hart and Rennison, 2003; also Catalano, 2005). But in 2010, the BJS concluded that any progress had stalled, and no statistically significant improvements in reporting rates for violent offenses had been achieved since 2001 (Truman, 2011).

Table 6.1 shows the reporting rates for vari- ous types of crimes since the NCVS began its surveys in 1973. It shows that in 2013, the reporting rate for rapes and other sexual assaults was less frequent than when the survey began

40 years earlier (and had actually tumbled to an all time low of 23 percent in 1995 and again in 2009). However, the reporting rate for robberies was higher in 2013 than in previous years (except 2007). Aggravated assaults, motor vehicle thefts, and burglaries also were reported a little more often in 2013 than during most years in recent decades (see Table 6.1).

A victim advocacy group has argued that the public should be shocked—rather than reassured— by the stubborn persistence of relatively low report- ing rates and the spotty progress in improving them despite years of campaigns to boost them. Their interpretation accentuated the negative, pointing out that the millions of incidents that victims decide not to bring to the attention of the authorities each year reflect a continuing and widespread lack of confidence in the criminal justice system. The per- sistence of this underreporting problem can be taken as evidence that police forces across the coun- try have had only limited success over the decades in enlisting the public to cooperate more closely

T A B L E 6.1 Trends in Reporting Crimes to the Police, Selected Years, 1973–2013

1973 1983 1988

All crimes 32 percent 35 36

Rapes and sexual assaults 49 47 45

Robberies 52 53 57

Aggravated assaults 52 56 54

Simple assaults 38 41 41

Burglaries 47 49 51

Household larcenies 25 25 26

Motor vehicle thefts 68 69 73

1998 2006 2010 2013

All crimes 38 41 NA NA Rapes and sexual assaults 32 41 50 35 Robberies 62 57 58 68 Aggravated assaults 58 59 60 64 Simple assaults 40 44 47 39 Burglaries 49 50 59 57 Household larcenies 29 32 32 29 Motor vehicle thefts 80 81 83 76

NOTES: Figures are percentages and include reports of both attempted and completed acts. Survey redesign influenced rape reporting rates after 1992. NA ¼ not available any longer. Reporting includes information provided by third parties, such as eyewitnesses, family members, school authorities, or officers at the crime scene.

SOURCES: Bastian, 1993; Truman, 2011; Truman and Langton, 2014; BJS’s NCVS, Criminal Victimization in the United States, selected years.

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with law enforcement (National Center for Victims of Crime, 2003).

In most jurisdictions, victims are not legally obliged to inform authorities about violations of law committed against them or their property. But if they go beyond silence and inaction, and conspire or collaborate in a cover-up to conceal a serious crime (like a shooting), they can be arrested themselves and charged with misprision of a felony. The failure of witnesses to report certain kinds of offenses, especially the abuse of a child or an elderly person, is a misdemeanor in many juris- dictions (Stark and Goldstein, 1985).

Responding Quickly

When victims call for help, they expect officers to spring into action immediately. To meet this chal- lenge, police departments have 911 emergency sys- tems. But incoming calls have to be prioritized by dispatchers who determine each one’s degree of urgency. Obviously, reports about immediate danger—such as screams in the night for help or calls about prowlers or shots fired—merit a higher priority than calls about cars that have disappeared from parking spots. If officers reach crime scenes quickly, they have a better chance of rescuing someone who is in grave danger, catching the cul- prit, recovering stolen property, gathering crucial evidence, and locating eyewitnesses. Police depart- ments have been experimenting for decades with ways to reduce response times to calls about emer- gencies. But NCVS findings fuel suspicions that a substantial proportion of victims still might be dis- satisfied with the amount of time it took officers to arrive at crime scenes.

Less than one third of all persons who were under attack told survey interviewers that the res- cuers arrived within five minutes, according to NCVS findings. No improvement in response times materialized from 1990 to 2008, even though crime rates and consequently workloads have fallen sharply across the nation, and many police forces have grown in patrol strength. In 1990, the police arrived within 10 minutes at the scene of a 911 emergency nearly 60 percent of the time; by 2008

(the latest figures available), their track record was no better. An officer came within 60 minutes in roughly 90 percent of all calls for help in the midst or aftermath of a violent incident, but in cer- tain explosive confrontations that response certainly would not be fast enough.

In New York City, the City Council ordered the NYPD to issue an annual report of its response times. The department was able to improve how long it took to get to crime scenes after receiving an emergency 911 “critical” call for help from a little over 6 minutes in 1999 to just under 5 min- utes in 2014, which was faster than the arrival time for ambulances but slower than for fire engines (Mayor’s Management Report, 2014).

To be fair to the officers responding to 911 calls, travel time is only one reason for delays. More importantly, precious moments are lost most often when people at the scene hesitate before reporting a crime in progress. There are several rea- sons for such delays on the part of bystanders and participants. They might be confused about whether an illegal act really occurred. Injured par- ties and eyewitnesses might want to first cope with emotional conflicts, personal trauma, and physical wounds, and then regain their composure before informing the authorities of what happened. (Before the advent of cell phones, delays arose if a landline or telephone booth wasn’t nearby.) (Spelman and Brown, 1984). As for policy implications, reducing the time elapsed on the police department’s end remains a matter of life and death and ought to be a priority for victim advocates to tackle.

A study of how long it took officers in Houston, Texas, to reach the scene of a burglary in progress discovered that response times were shorter in dis- advantaged neighborhoods, improving the likeli- hood of nabbing the intruder (Cihan et al., 2012).

Handling Victims with Care

People who bring their problems to a police station expect procedural justice. They want officers and detectives to listen to them without bias as they explain their situation. They anticipate that the police will be sensitive and polite, treat them with

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dignity, respect their rights, and make decisions in an open and transparent manner (see Murphy and Barkworth, 2014).

In the aftermath of a street crime, victims are likely to feel powerless, disoriented, and infuriated. Fear, guilt, depression, and revenge fantasies engulf them. They expect authority figures to calm and console them, to help them restore their sense of equilibrium, and dispel lingering feelings of help- lessness. After the first injury inflicted by the crimi- nal, victims are particularly susceptible to a second wound. If officers unwittingly make them feel worse by being dismissive or callous, they will feel rejected and betrayed by those they counted on for support (Symonds, 1980b; and Ogawa, 1999).

Studies of police work suggest that what vic- tims are encountering is the protective coating of emotional detachment that officers develop to shield themselves from becoming overwhelmed by the misery they routinely see around them. If officers appear unmoved, distant, and disinter- ested, it might be that they fear “contamination” (Symonds, 1975). Such “distancing” is a defense mechanism and is part of a “working personality” officers must develop because of the constant potential for danger in a hostile environment and the need to maintain objectivity in the face of complicated situations and conflicting witness accounts. A frighteningly unusual event for the victim can be a rather unexceptional incident for a seasoned officer (Ready, Weisburd, and Farrell, 2002). To avoid burnout, law enforcement offi- cers (like others in helping professions) sense that they must inhibit their impulses to get emotion- ally involved in their cases. The paramilitary nature of police organizations and the bureau- cratic imperatives of specialization and standardi- zation reinforce their inclinations to deal with tragedies as impersonally as possible. In addition, the “macho” norms of police subculture—with its emphasis on toughness, camaraderie, suspicion of outsiders, insider jokes, graveyard humor, and profound cynicism—put pressure on members of law enforcement agencies to act businesslike when dealing with profoundly upsetting situations (Ahrens, Stein, and Young, 1980).

Many departments have initiated training pro- grams to prepare at least a portion of their force to act sensitively when they deal with victims with acute needs. Officers and detectives are taught how to administer “psychological first aid” to peo- ple in distress. They are instructed to respond swiftly, listen attentively, show concern, and refrain from challenging the victims’ versions of events or judging the wisdom of their reactions while the crime was in progress. Officers are told to not show any skepticism when a rape victim is not badly bruised or bleeding, a child did not report molestation immediately, an elderly person has trouble communicating, or a blind person offers to assist with the identification of a suspect. At the conclusion of training sessions, officers should be informed that responsiveness to victims carries a high priority within the department and has become a criterion for evaluating performance and a consideration in granting promotions (Symonds, 1980b; President’s Task Force, 1982; National Sheriffs’ Association, 1999). By 2000, more than 70 percent of all big-city police departments (serv- ing more than 250,000 residents) had set up special victim assistance units, and more than 90 percent had officers on call who were trained to handle cases of child abuse, missing children, and domestic violence (Reaves and Hickman, 2002).

One of the most emotionally draining tasks in police work is notifying the next of kin of people who have been murdered. Anecdotal evidence indicates that many officers are inept at delivering bad news in plain language and with compassion. To rectify this problem, some departments have developed guidelines and manuals so that survivors are not further traumatized by disturbing memories of clumsy and uncaring behavior by officers carry- ing out these most unpleasant death notification obligations (Associated Press, 1994d).

Challenging the Victim’s Version of Events

When people fill out a complaint form in a police station, they want their versions of what transpired to be accepted. From a detective’s point of view, however, it is a necessary part of the job to maintain

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some healthy skepticism and handle complainants as “presumptive” victims until they pass a credibility test to weed out those whose stories are bogus. Obviously, the police should not automatically treat all complainants as if they are up to no good because of the misdeeds of a few fakers. The fol- lowing examples demonstrate that on rare occasions individuals who tell what appear to be compelling stories may be attempting to manipulate and mis- lead investigators in order to conceal their role in a serious offense or just for a self-serving reason.

A man and his estranged girlfriend are sitting in a car arguing over visitation arrangements concerning their 14-month-old son, who is in the back seat. A robber comes up to them, shoots her fatally and then shoots him in the leg. After he tells slightly different versions of events to detectives, they become suspicious. When he is visited in the hospital by a cousin who closely fits the description of the gunman, they are both arrested and charged with murder. (Baker, 2008)

■ ■ ■

A 20-year-old Army private tells detectives at a hospital that he was shot in the knee during a rob- bery. But the police investigators determine that he arranged to be wounded to avoid having to return to combat duty in Iraq. He pleads guilty to the misde- meanor of falsely reporting an incident, and receives a sentence of one year in jail. He also is ordered to return to his military base, where he may be subjected to a court martial. His wife and the accomplice who shot him for a fee of $500 also face conspiracy, assault, false reporting, and illegal gun possession charges. (Chan, 2007)

■ ■ ■

The founder and leader of a nationwide civilian anticrime patrol garners favorable media coverage when he tells reporters that he was injured when he tried to capture three rapists at a subway station. He also shows off bruises that he claims he sustained when he came to the rescue of a person being mugged but actually were the result of an accident. Years later, after nearly dying from a shooting, the anticrime crusader and talk-show host admits that he conspired with other members of the newly formed group to

stage a series of six publicity stunts to further the organization’s reputation for courage and effective- ness. About a dozen years after that, this acknowl- edged fabrication is used by a defense attorney to undermine his credibility with a jury when he testifies against a mob boss who, the prosecution alleges, ordered his assassination for mocking and taunting the Mafia on his talk-radio show. (Gonzalez, 1992; Preston, 2005; and Cornell, 2006).

■ ■ ■

A television network weather forecaster tells detectives that she was attacked twice by the same man, once while jogging in the park and again near her home. When the police can’t find any eyewitnesses, she confesses that “I made it up for attention. I have so much stress at work, with my personal life, and with my family.” Facing a jail sentence for filing a false complaint, the judge sentences her to probation and 350 hours of community service, the same amount of time the police spent investigating her phony claims. (Cornell, 2011).

It is always possible that the person alleging to be a bona fide victim is making a fraudulent claim for some ulterior purpose. People might falsely swear under penalty of perjury that they were harmed by criminals for a number of reasons. An angry person may exact revenge against an enemy by getting him in trouble with the law. An individual who did something improper may want to cover up the true circumstances surrounding an event (for exam- ple, when a husband claims he was robbed to account for the loss of his pay, which he actually spent on a prostitute or gambled away).

Hoaxes can be very socially divisive and dam- aging to race relations, especially when whites falsely claim they were viciously attacked by black suspects, setting off manhunts. Highly pub- licized examples include a husband who killed his wife but insisted she was shot during a hold-up (until his lie was exposed and he jumped off a bridge), and a young mother who drowned her unwanted little children by driving her vehicle down a boat ramp but swore that they were kid- napped and driven off by a carjacker (see Russell- Brown, 2008).

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A more mundane motive for lying is to com- mit insurance fraud. For example, tourists may dishonestly claim that they were robbed of their cash-filled wallets or expensive cameras as part of a scam to get reimbursement for nonexistent losses from insurance policies sold to travelers (Associated Press, 1999b). One area in which false claims of victimization routinely constitute a major problem concerns allegations of vehicle theft. Detectives on the auto squad and insurance company investigators suspect that as many as 10 percent of all persons who enter police stations with tales of woe about vehicles that have van- ished are faking in order to collect reimburse- ments they are not entitled to (Jay, 2011). “Owner give-ups” refer to illegal transactions where the vehicle is driven off a pier or ramp into a body of water (“splashed”), set on fire (“torched”), or simply abandoned so that it can be reported as stolen in order to avoid debts. As a result of schemes like this, a list of signs of sus- picious behavior has been compiled to weed out the fraudsters from the genuine victims of grand larceny auto (see Box 6.2).

It is appropriate for detectives to take all plau- sible complaints seriously and to search for evidence that will substantiate a person’s account of what happened. Deceptions are exposed by thorough investigations that look into vague descriptions and turn up inconsistencies each time the account is repeated, pieces of the puzzle that don’t add up, an absence of witnesses, and events in the complai- nant’s background that raise suspicions and under- mine credibility. Unfortunately, major hoaxes as well as petty false claims can waste taxpayer money and precious police resources that could be put to better use investigating real crimes and helping genuine victims (Radford, 2013).

Two categories of errors are possible when handling complaints from people insisting they are innocent victims. The first type, illustrated by the above examples, occurs when detectives initially believe a person who later is exposed as a liar. The other type of mistake, illustrated below, is to disbelieve the account of someone who really is telling the truth.

A 26-year-old mother of two accepts a ride from a stranger who kidnaps her. For the next two months, this retired handyman with an ailing wife holds her captive in a concrete bunker in his backyard and repeatedly rapes her. When he finally releases her, she runs to the police and tells of her ordeal as a sex slave. They don’t take this kidnap and rape victim’s story seriously, finding it hard to believe. Eventually, four additional young runaways and drug abusers recount horrific tales that are similar. Finally, the police launch an investigation, locate the bunker, and arrest the man who quickly pleads guilty to these vicious crimes. (Jacobs, 2003; Smalley and Mnookin, 2003)

Unfounding, illustrated by the above case, is a process in which the police reject a person’s claim about being harmed by a criminal as unbelievable or at least unprovable in court. Defounding means that detectives believe an offense really did take place, but it was not as serious as the complainant described (Lundman, 1980). For example, what was initially reported as a burglary might upon further investigation be classified as merely an instance of criminal trespass—which is a misdemeanor rather than a felony—if nothing of value was stolen.

Just as individuals might have a motive to lodge a false charge, police investigators might have an incentive to declare a report of a crime completely unfounded or to defound it down to a lesser offense. By defounding and unfounding complaints, detectives can reduce the number of serious crimes recorded in their precincts, perhaps because their supervisors want to convince the public that the crime rate is decreasing impres- sively. Detectives might cut down the number of difficult cases they must try to solve by abusing their discretion and writing off legitimate pleas for help. For example, for more than 20 years, Chicago detectives dismissed about 21 percent of their complaints about serious crimes as unfounded; the average rate for other big-city departments was less than 2 percent, according to the FBI. Detectives were inclined to dismiss vic- tims’ accounts as unfounded because they would receive higher ratings and faster promotions if they

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“closed” more cases. Auditors reviewing these police files concluded that as many as 40 percent of the rape, robbery, burglary, and theft reports disre- garded as unfounded probably did take place as the victims claimed. The kinds of cases that were prime candidates for official disbelief involved victims who were difficult to contact, knew their assailants, or did not lose much money (“Chicago Police,” 1983; “Burying Crime in Chicago,” 1983).

In Oakland, California, overworked detectives in the late 1980s dismissed 24 percent of the rape complaints they received as unfounded. At that time, the FBI reported that other departments across the country disbelieved about 9 percent of all rape charges. After a newspaper article questioned why there was such a disparity in the unfounding rate,

the police chief conceded that perhaps 200 cases were tossed aside too quickly and merited reexami- nation. But detectives in this California city advanced several arguments in their own defense. First, they asserted that the nationwide figure of 9 percent was a misleading standard for comparison, since many departments keep the unfounding rate artificially low by classifying cases as “filed pending further investigation” (not officially closed) rather than “closed due to baseless or false charges.” Sec- ond, they pointed out that because of budget con- straints, the sexual assault unit’s six investigators were so swamped with cases that they had to prioritize their workload. They felt pressured to disregard complaints from women who would appear unco- operative, untruthful, or unsympathetic in court,

B O X 6.2 Which Individuals Who Claim to Be “Victims” of Auto Theft Might Be Suspected of Engaging in Fraud by Law Enforcement and Insurance Investigators?

The following warning signs could arouse the suspicion of auto squad detectives and insurance company adjusters that the person who reports that his car was stolen might not be a genuine crime victim and that the alleged theft might be a “QC” (questionable claim) that merits closer scrutiny as a possible attempt at fraud:

Red Flags: The Auto Theft “Victim”…

■ Filed a false claim in the past

■ Received insurance reimbursement for a vehicle theft in the past

■ Is very knowledgeable about the process for filing a claim and insurance terminology

■ Owns a car that has a history of expensive mechanical repairs (a “lemon”) or gets very poor mileage (a “gas guzzler”)

■ Asserts that very expensive items were in the vehicle when it was taken

■ Has fallen behind in loan payments on the vehicle and faces repossession, has many outstanding tickets, or is beset by serious financial problems

■ Has very recently taken out the policy with this insur- ance company, the coverage is about to expire, or a cancellation notice has been sent out

■ Has recently moved into the current address or uses a post office box, does not have a telephone or only has a

cell phone, is difficult to contact, or has just been hired or just lost a job

■ Has purchased the policy by walking off the street into an insurance agency and putting down cash for a binder

■ Has paid only for minimum liability coverage but for maximum comprehensive fire/theft coverage on an expensive late model vehicle

■ Has waited several days before notifying the police of the alleged disappearance

■ Is notified that the vehicle has been recovered but was stripped, burned, severely damaged, or found with a seized engine or blown transmission but without a compromised steering column or ignition lock shortly after it was reported missing

■ Has documents (title, registration, license plate, vehicle identification number) that contain mistakes or irregularities

■ Presses for a quick settlement but avoids making state- ments under oath and requests that the check be picked up by a friend or relative

■ Has contacted a salvage yard or repair shop that takes an unusual interest in the claim

SOURCES: Jay, 2011; Ohio Insurance Board, 2011; Louisiana State Police’s Insurance Fraud Unit, 2011.

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such as prostitutes and drug abusers who would be inclined to lie about the circumstances surrounding the sexual assaults for fear of getting in trouble for solicitation or possession of controlled substances. Finally, the detectives insisted that many of the com- plainants refused to agree to medical examinations and failed to appear for follow-up interviews, mak- ing the investigation of their charges difficult, time consuming, and unlikely to lead to convictions (Gross, 1990).

Similarly, in New Orleans five detectives in the special victims squad were transferred for failing to thoroughly investigate hundreds of sexual assault complaints from 2011 to 2013. Many of the com- plaints were simply filed under the heading “mis- cellaneous,” and no further action was taken. In hundreds of other cases, an initial report was filled out but no effort was made to gather evidence. Detectives also routinely discouraged complainants in sexual assault cases from pursuing prosecution of the alleged rapists (Robertson, 2014).

Investigators do not want to be manipulated or deceived, of course. Even though lie detector tests are not admissible in court because their findings are not considered reliable, NYPD detectives received authorization in 2005 to use polygraphs during the early stages of an investigation to test their suspi- cions that a suspect, a witness, or a complainant was lying to them (Celona, 2005).

People who knowingly fill out false complaints are breaking the law in most states if they gratu- itously volunteer unsolicited, incorrect information to the police. The laws that make it a misdemeanor to file a false instrument (statement) are intended to deter perjury and thereby protect innocent indivi- duals from the embarrassment and hardships caused by untrue accusations. A lying complainant who instigates a wrongful arrest for an improper motive such as revenge also can be sued in civil court for malicious prosecution.

However, to encourage citizen cooperation with law enforcement, most jurisdictions have adopted a doctrine of witness immunity that shields complainants who furnish information to the police “in good faith” from any subsequent lawsuits by innocent individuals they mistakenly identified as

suspects (Stark and Goldstein, 1985). But those who waste the time and money of law enforcement agencies by filing patently false accusations can get into legal trouble, as the following example demonstrates.

A young woman mysteriously disappears while jog- ging just four days before her elaborate wedding. Hundreds of neighbors, wedding guests, and police officers search the area and pass out missing person flyers, while bloodhounds scour the banks of a nearby river and media outlets across the country broadcast her description. Her fiancé, the last person to see her, comes under suspicion but resists pressures by the police to take a lie detector test. Several days later and hundreds of miles away she reappears; she calls 911 and tells the authorities that she just was released by a Hispanic man and a white woman who had kid- napped her. A few hours later, the “runaway bride” admits she had gotten “cold feet” and had taken a long bus ride. Her friends, family, and neighbors are both relieved and furious that she was not a victim of foul play. Their views and her problems become the fodder for talk shows and tabloid headlines. In court, she pleads no contest to one felony count of making a false statement to the police, and the judge imposes a sentence of two years on probation, 120 hours of community service, plus a fine. (Johnston, 2005)

Investigating Complaints and Solving Crimes

Victims who report crimes expect their local police and sheriff’s departments to launch investigations that successfully culminate with the apprehension of suspects and the seizure of solid evidence point- ing to their guilt (Brandl and Horvath, 1991).

The FBI’s annual UCR calculates and publishes average clearance rates for each of the seven index crimes for police departments across the country. In general, clearing crimes means making arrests. FBI guidelines instruct police departments to consider cases to be solved when they are closed by taking suspects into custody, lodging charges against them, and turning them over to courts for prosecution. Exceptional clearances take place

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when situations beyond the control of law enforce- ment agencies prevent them from arresting and for- mally charging someone, even though sufficient evidence has been gathered and the exact where- abouts of the suspect are known. For example, the suspect cannot be arrested because he has died or is otherwise beyond reach (such as, he can’t be extra- dited) or the victim refuses to further cooperate with the prosecution. Old cases that are closed by an arrest count toward the current year’s clearance rate. In calculating clearance rates, the UCR pro- gram counts the number of reported offenses that have been closed and not the number of persons charged with these crimes. The arrest of just one person may clear several crimes, and yet the arrest of several accomplices may close only one reported incident (FBI, 2011). Note that the police consider the crime solved even if the sole arrestee is not ultimately convicted of the original charge or even any lesser charge. If the accused is found not guilty after a trial, the case usually is not reopened. In other words, there is no “case tracking” or follow-up, and once clearance rates are calculated and published in the UCR, they are not later corrected or updated to reflect what ultimately happened in court. Therefore, clearance rates tend to be overestimates of the proportion of criminals who are brought to justice and made to pay for their crimes because the FBI and local departments do not monitor what eventually happens to these cases at later stages of the criminal justice process. Some charges are dropped by prosecutors or dis- missed by judges, freeing those arrestees. Of those who are prosecuted, many engage in negotiations via their defense attorneys and plead guilty to lesser charges in order to get milder punishments, or are not convicted by a jury after a trial (see the leaky net diagram in Chapter 12).

Police departments routinely compile the per- centages of cases that are closed by arrests because this indicator of effectiveness ought to be calculated and submitted to the FBI’s UCR division. These clearance rates are used to evaluate the performance of individual detectives, specialized squads (such as those concentrating on homicide, burglary, and sex crimes), and the department as a whole.

But these same statistics can be interpreted from a different angle and for a different purpose. From a victim’s point of view, the police have successfully completed their mission when, acting on sufficient evidence, all the wrongdoers in a particular incident have been charged with what they really did. The proportion of cases that are solved can indicate the percentage of complai- nants who have a solid basis for being satisfied or dissatisfied with the investigatory services pro- vided by local police forces. Victims want suspects to be taken into custody because it symbolizes that justice has been served. An arrest means that their misfortunes have been considered sig- nificant enough to warrant official action, and their request for assistance has been taken seri- ously by those in authority. Victims who report crimes and cooperate with investigations want someone to be held directly accountable for the injuries and losses they have suffered. That person might be ordered by the judge to make restitution to repay losses and expenses. Besides restitution, injured parties might demand retribution in order to gain solace from the knowledge that the gov- ernment is punishing the wrongdoer in their behalf. Also, those with a sense of civic responsi- bility might want to see the offender removed from society and incapacitated behind bars in order to make the streets safer for others. For all these reasons, solving cases by making arrests can be considered a high-priority issue and a crucial performance measure from the standpoint of vic- tims who report crimes and cooperate with law enforcement authorities.

By the conclusion of most movies and televi- sion shows, the wrongdoer has been captured, rein- forcing the message that crime doesn’t pay. But victimologists need to ask, “In real life, how often do law enforcement agencies figure out (and also, fail to figure out) who did it?” Data from selected years over the past five decades appear in Table 6.2. These statistics summarize the overall accomplish- ments of roughly 17,000 law enforcement agencies during the second half of the twentieth century and the first 13 years of the twenty-first. The most recent solution rates appear in the last column.

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Accentuating the positive, the figures for 2013 reveal that police forces nationwide had greater suc- cess at solving violent crimes, which are more serious and threatening to public safety than property crimes. Accentuating the negative and looking at these numbers from the victims’ point of view, it is obvious that the vast majority of people who go to the trouble to report thefts to the police will not be pleased with the outcome of their cases: The inves- tigations will be discontinued before any arrests are made. Put another way, 87 percent of burglary com- plainants, 86 percent of persons reporting that their vehicle was stolen, and 78 percent of theft victims had good reasons to be frustrated in 2013—their offenders had escaped detection and arrest.

Similarly, many victims of interpersonal vio- lence did not gain the satisfaction of knowing that someone got in trouble for harming them. Of those who reported robberies, 71 percent endured the aggravation of learning that no one was appre- hended for accosting them. Of all those who had the courage to tell the authorities in 2013 that they had been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted, 60 percent did not experience the relief of knowing that their attackers had been arrested. Presumably, these assailants who remained at large were mostly strangers and not the perpetrators of acquaintance rapes. Of all those who were subjected to an aggra- vated assault like a shooting or stabbing, 42 percent were disturbed to find out that no arrests were made in their cases (FBI, 2014).

The highest clearance rates of all are achieved by homicide squads. But even these seasoned detec- tives who devoted considerable time and effort to

these important cases were not able to figure out who did it in a little more than 35 percent of the slayings that took place in 2013. To put it dramati- cally, that means that more than one out of every three killers got away with murder that year. Thou- sands of dangerous assailants annually join the ranks of murderers who are still roaming the streets unpunished for their heinous crimes.

As for changes over time, the UCR clearance rates compiled in Table 6.2 reveal a disturbing national trend. For six of the seven index crimes (except for larcenies, the least damaging but the only bright spot) a general downward drift is evi- dent from the early 1950s through the first 13 years of the twenty-first century. During the 1950s, police departments were able to solve prac- tically all murders and most rapes and aggravated assaults. Clearance rates for these three violent crimes as well as for robberies dropped sharply during the crime wave of the late 1960s and never bounced back up. During the 1970s and 1980s, the solution rates for rapes and serious assaults remained stable, while the ability of the police to solve murders continued to decline. Bur- glaries and auto thefts led to arrests roughly twice as often in the 1950s as in the 1990s. Grand and petit larcenies (major and minor thefts of all kinds) have always been difficult to solve (except for shoplifting arrests). During the early 1990s, clear- ance rates hit new lows across the board, but then improved slightly by 1998 (for murders, serious assaults, and robberies), as crime rates and conse- quently detectives’ caseloads fell throughout the nation. Disappointingly, solution rates (especially

T A B L E 6.2 Trends in Clearance Rates, United States, Selected Years, 1953–2013

Type of Crime 1953 1963 1973 1983 1993 1998 2003 2006 2010 2013

Murder 93% 91 79 76 66 69 62 61 64 64 Rape 78 69 51 52 53 50 44 41 40 40 Aggravated assault 75 76 63 61 56 59 56 54 56 58 Robbery 36 39 27 26 24 28 26 25 28 29 Burglary 27 27 18 15 13 14 13 13 12 13 Larceny 20 20 19 20 20 19 18 17 21 23 Vehicle theft* 26 26 16 15 14 14 13 13 12 14

NOTES: *Since the 1970s, this category of the UCR has included the theft of all motorized vehicles, including trucks, vans, motorcycles, and buses.

SOURCES: FBI UCRs, selected years, 1953–2013.

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for murder and rape) dipped again at the begin- ning of the twenty-first century. By 2006, the overall ability of police departments across the country to solve a reduced volume of cases of interpersonal violence and theft had sunk to an all-time low. These dismal national figures had recovered just a bit in a few categories by 2013.

These statistics from the FBI’s UCR reveal a shocking conclusion: during the twenty-first cen- tury, police departments are having more trouble than ever in solving cases despite breakthroughs in forensic science (like DNA matching), the prolif- eration of surveillance cameras, and the establish- ment of massive databases of known offenders and their identifying features like scars, tattoos, and fingerprints. Taken collectively, the nation’s 17,000 federal, state, county, and municipal law enforcement agencies had never before had such a disappointing track record as they did during the twenty-first century.

Translating these statistical trends into human terms, most victims have good reasons to be dis- satisfied with the performance of their local police and sheriffs’ departments. Because property crimes vastly outnumber violent offenses, and relatively few thieves are caught, most victims will be disap- pointed if they count on law enforcement agencies to arrest somebody for harming them. Ironically, decades ago, long before the victims’ rights move- ment began to demand improved services, local law enforcement agencies were much more effec- tive at accomplishing their basic mission of catch- ing culprits.

As might be suspected, some police forces are better than others when it comes to solving crimes. UCR statistics confirm the existence of differential rates for solving crimes from department to depart- ment. As Table 6.3 indicates, some urban police forces were able to solve a much greater percentage of murder cases than their counterparts in other large cities. Some departments caught killers at rates substantially above the national average for cities of a quarter of a million inhabitants or more, which was 60 percent in 2003 but sunk to 54 per- cent in 2006 before bouncing back to 61 percent in 2010 and 63 percent in 2013. On the other hand,

the kin of murder victims in cities with subpar per- formance records were likely to remain tormented by the lack of closure due to the inability of their local police departments to arrest any suspects.

According to the data assembled in Table 6.3, in most cities the proportion of solved cases rose and fell quite dramatically from year to year. In Phoenix, Washington, D.C., Boston, Oklahoma City, and Las Vegas, the police forces were able to achieve clearance rates that were way above the national big city average of 57 percent in 2012. The families and close friends of people mur- dered in these cities were more likely to experience the closure of learning that someone was charged with the slayings of their loved ones than in other urban centers. The cities where the next of kin were likely to be very upset due to particularly disappointing solution rates included Memphis, Seattle, Portland, Detroit, and especially Columbus. Police departments in Cincinnati, Cleveland, New- ark, and Atlanta also reported disturbingly low homicide clearance rates to the UCR for 2012 (not displayed in Table 6.3).

Note that the two largest police forces in the nation, in New York and Chicago, did not partic- ipate in the UCR’s voluntary reporting program during the period 2003 to 2012 (the NYPD’s clearance rate of 73 percent was achieved in 2013), and that the third largest department, the LAPD, disclosed a peculiar drop in 2011 to 39 percent and then a surge in solved murder cases from previous years that artificially boosted the 2012 rate to over 100 percent).

A number of factors might account for the wide range in clearance rates and their volatility over the years. The ability to solve homicide cases depends in part on practices and policies that a department can control, such as ensuring that the first officer who arrives at the crime scene is trained to follow proper procedures, assigning a sufficient number of detec- tives to a case, having them respond quickly, and devoting a substantial amount of resources to homi- cide investigations. Clearance rates also are shaped by factors beyond a department’s control, such as the particular mix of difficult versus easy-to-solve cases in its jurisdiction (Wellford and Cronin, 2000).

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For example, murder/suicide cases virtually solve themselves, such as when a husband kills his wife and then himself and leaves a note behind. “Smok- ing gun” cases are also cleared on the spot. On the other hand, slayings among mobsters, rival street gangs, or drug dealers are much more difficult to successfully close because of the lack of cooperation of witnesses and other knowledgeable people. Even the best departments find murders of robbery victims by complete strangers to be tough to solve.

Furthermore, victims and witnesses who are immersed in the “code of the streets” that prevails in poverty-stricken neighborhoods generally view

helping the authorities solve crimes as “snitching.” Consequently, one strategy to boost clearance rates would be to improve police–citizen interactions in a way that restores the legitimacy of the police (see Stewart et al., 2008). However, several factors widely assumed to be crucial—who the victim was, where the slaying took place, and the detective’s workload and degree of experience—actually may not signifi- cantly affect homicide clearance rates, according to a study of more than 800 killings between 1984 and 1992 (Puckett and Lundman, 2003).

Of all the homicide cases that are eventually solved, half are closed within a week, and 93

T A B L E 6.3 Clearance Rates for Homicide Cases (Murder and Manslaughter) in Major U.S. Cities, Selected Years, 2003–2012

City and State 2003 2004 2005 2006 2009 2012

All cities of 250,000 or more inhabitants

60 58 57 54 61 57

Phoenix, AZ 41 34 41 40 63 93 Los Angeles, CA 57 56 57 57 58 70** San Diego, CA 58 92 88 56 48 56 San Jose, CA 79 83 96 62 71 63 Denver, CO* 49 51 — — 71 60 Washington, D.C. 60 61 61 64 75 81 Jacksonville, FL 61 54 62 65 79 55 Chicago, IL * — — — — — — Indianapolis, IN 82 87 80 74 65 65 Baltimore, MD 76 59 54 53 55 50 Boston, MA 64 28 29 47 56 79 Detroit, MI 50 37 30 28 23 34 Las Vegas, NV 38 54 74 68 79 78 New York, NY* — — — — — 73**** Columbus, OH* — 37 56 — 52 22 Oklahoma City, OK 63 97 63 64 75 78 Portland, OR 44 45 45 60 37 36 Philadelphia, PA 65 65 63 56 75 70 Memphis, TN 80 79 72 66 70 56 Dallas, TX 64 59 74 81 66 60 Houston, TX 57 60 59 70 70 76 San Antonio, TX 67 78 70 — 87 75 Seattle, WA 78 71 72 70 100*** 37 Milwaukee, WI 80 82 63 59 78 62

NOTES: *The FBI’s UCR Division did not receive statistics from the police departments in Chicago, New York City, Denver, and Columbus for certain recent years. **The clearance rate for Los Angeles was estimated to be around 70 percent because only 39 percent of all homicides were solved in 2011 and over 100 percent were solved in 2012; apparently many previously unsolved cases were cleared in 2012. ***The clearance rate in Seattle exceeded 100 percent because unsolved murders from previous years were cleared by arrests in 2009. ****The NYPD figure is for 2013, since the 2012 rate was not disclosed.

SOURCE: “Return A Record Cards,” 2002–2012, FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Division, released to the author by special request.

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percent are solved within a year, according to a study of nearly 800 cases in four large cities during 1994–1995 (Wellford and Cronin, 2000). Even though the prognosis is not promising if no one has been identified as a suspect after one year, departments seeking to improve their clearance rates establish cold case squads to take a fresh look at old, unsolved serious crimes. Crimes that are finally closed with an arrest are credited to that year’s clearance rate, which can be boosted to over 100 percent whenever the cold case squad is unusually effective. With the passage of time, some positive developments might take place: Investigators who were overly focused on the wrong suspects might be reassigned or retire; eye- witnesses who originally were afraid to talk might become more cooperative; former partners in crime might experience a falling out; old evidence, as long as it is not contaminated, might be retested in police labs using powerful new techniques; and formerly overburdened detective squads now might have more time to do thorough investiga- tions. Media coverage of an unsolved case can stimulate renewed public interest, and persistent relatives who keep checking in and inquiring about any new clues can pressure homicide detec- tives to take a second look (Dahl, 2011).

As for missing adults who could be victims of foul play, the National Institute of Justice has set up a National Missing and Unidentified Persons Sys- tem (NamUs) database to assist detectives, private eyes, and concerned relatives search for clues. It listed between 80,000 and 90,000 names and descriptions filed by police departments across the country during 2013, but it is deemed to be under- utilized (Sottile, 2014).

Because there is no statute of limitations for murder, on rare occasions a deceased person’s rela- tives might be relieved to learn that a killer who thought he had escaped the long arm of the law has been brought to justice, as these two examples demonstrate:

The mother of an 18-year-old woman is sexually assaulted and then strangled in her apartment. Twenty-five years later, an ex-convict is arrested

when his DNA matches evidence found at the crime scene. The woman’s 43-year-old daughter tells reporters, “I’ve called these guys so many times to try and keep this case alive. If there are any other families out there, they need to do whatever it takes.” After a sleepless night, she declares, “This was the happiest and saddest day of my life.” (Charkes, 2008)

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A young woman serving as a federal intern leaves her apartment building to go off jogging and then disap- pears. Under unrelenting pressure from the media and her parents, the police search for her fruitlessly for a year, until a man stumbles upon her remains in a nearby park. Accusations are hurled at her hometown congressman, with whom she was secretly having an affair. He vehemently denies any involvement, but the revelations ruin his political career. Ten years after her slaying, a jury, basing its verdict largely on the testimony of another inmate who says he heard a confession, convicts a man—who had served time for attacking other women—of first degree murder. Before the judge sentences him to 60 years, the young woman’s mother calls him a “hideous creature” who is “lower than a cockroach.” She asks, “Did you really take her?” and then insists, “Look into my eyes right now and tell me!” He asserts “I am very sorry… but I had nothing to do with it. I am innocent.” (Tavernise, 2011)

On the other hand, family members and close friends can suffer endless frustration and anguish if a killer gets away with murder:

The parents of a little girl who wins beauty contests wake up early one morning to prepare for a family vacation—and discover a ransom note on the staircase inside their home. The kidnapper demands $118,000: exactly the amount that the father had just received as a bonus from his company. Shortly after they summon the police, the father discovers the child’s body in the basement. She had been sexually abused and then strangled. Because inexperienced officers do not conduct an effective investigation and no one is ever arrested for the murder, a cloud of suspicion hangs over the grieving parents and her brother. Years later, a new, highly sensitive test is

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performed on traces of DNA on the murdered child’s clothing and her father, younger brother, and mother (now deceased) are officially eliminated as suspects in her slaying. These secondary victims, who suffered additional emotional turmoil as the subjects of con- spiracy theories for over a decade, receive a note from the district attorney’s office, stating, “No innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion.” (Ramsey and Ramsey, 2000; Bellamy, 2005; and Johnson, 2008)

To sum up, after fruitless searches for clues and leads, most victims of property crimes and many who suffered interpersonal violence will wind up feeling defeated by the lack of closure in their cases. If more criminals were brought to court, then a higher proportion of residents would be sat- isfied with the performance of their local police or sheriff’s department on this most fundamental aspect of a law enforcement agency’s mission.

Arresting Suspects

When victims formally lodge complaints, they expect action in the form of thorough investiga- tions and the collection of evidence culminating in an arrest—in a proper lawful manner that will hold up in court.

When police officers carry out custodial inter- rogations or make arrests, they have a legal obli- gation to inform suspects of their Miranda rights to remain silent and to be represented by a lawyer. When victims file complaints, they immediately discover that the police are under no comparable constitutional pressure to read them their “rights” about their obligations and opportunities. To start with, victims need to know the names and badge numbers of the officers and the detectives han- dling their cases, where and when they can be reached, case identification numbers, whether sus- pects have been apprehended, and if so, whether they are being detained in jail or are being released on bail.

But findings from the NCVS indicated that a large percentage of victims during the 1980s never were informed whether their cases were solved and

arrests were made. Even when police were success- ful in closing a case with an arrest, they might not have shared this good news with these most inter- ested parties (FBI, 2007; Whitaker, 1989). To guar- antee that these basic rights (endorsed by a presidential task force in 1982) are respected, a number of states have passed statutes that specify that police departments must keep victims posted on the status of their cases. But in the remaining states, victims must depend on departmental poli- cies and the good will of individual detectives.

Dissatisfaction also can arise when detectives deem a complainant’s misfortunes to be too minor to merit official action. It is difficult to justify the expenditure of the department’s limited human resources, time, and money to solve minor cases. Some departments issue directives that specify cutoff points below which no action will be taken beyond simply making a formal note of the complaint. For example, in Dade County, which includes Miami, Florida, reports about stolen cars were taken solely over the telephone and only during certain hours (Combined News Services, 1993). In New York City during the 1980s, a detective from the burglary squad was assigned to a case only if the reported loss exceeded a figure of several thousand dollars (Gutis, 1988). Sometimes the police might be reluctant to expend much effort if victims are likely to receive insurance reimbursement.

Many complainants discover that with the pas- sage of time, their cases have been closed even though they remain unsolved. How long an investi- gation remains open depends on the workload in the jurisdiction and the seriousness of the offense. If the police are unable to establish the identity of a suspect or cannot obtain sufficient evidence to justify an arrest, then they can exercise their discretion to dis- continue any active effort to solve the crime. Victims have no formal means of compelling law enforce- ment agencies to continue to work on unsolved mysteries. Dissatisfied complainants have been unable to convince judges to intervene in matters of police discretion unless a pattern of noninvestiga- tion reflects racial or religious discrimination on the part of government officials sworn to serve and pro- tect the public (Austern, 1987).

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Even when a trail of evidence leads to a sus- pect, an arrest is never automatic. Police officers exercise a great deal of personal and departmental discretion in deciding whom to take into custody and book, and whom to let go, especially for mis- demeanors. The factors that influence these deci- sions include pressures from colleagues and superiors, the individual predilections of officers, the nature of the offense, and the relationship of the victim to the suspect. Victims can become angry when officers don’t arrest these suspects.

One solution for victims is to convince judges to issue arrest warrants based on their sworn com- plaints which officers must then carry out. A second solution is to exercise the dangerous do-it-yourself option known as a citizen’s arrest. Private citizens are empowered to use whatever force necessary to prevent a suspect from escaping until the police arrive to take charge of the situation. Civilians must directly witness the offenses, apprehend and detain their suspects immediately after the crimes are committed, and turn their captives over to the authorities without delay. Police officers are gener- ally obligated to accept custody of suspects taken prisoner by victims or bystanders. In some states, citizens can make arrests only for felonies, but in other jurisdictions they may act even if the offense they directly witnessed is only a misdemeanor (Cicchini and Kushner, 2010).

But citizen’s arrests are risky undertakings. Sus- pects are likely to resist capture and endanger vic- tims or onlookers who intervene. In cases of mistaken identity, even victims who acted with probable cause and in good faith can be sued in civil court for false arrest and false imprisonment in some states. The use of excessive force can also be grounds for a lawsuit, even if the wrongdoer is later found guilty. Police officials generally discour- age civilians from thinking of themselves as depu- tized to make arrests. They point to the lengthy training sworn officers receive in self-defense tac- tics, the use of firearms, the application of laws governing arrests, the seizure of evidence, and sus- pects’ rights. Because attempts to make citizen’s arrests can easily devolve into acts of vigilantism, law enforcement officials encourage activist-

oriented civilians to become involved in police auxiliary units or neighborhood anticrime patrols instead (Hall, 1975; Stark and Goldstein, 1985; and Cicchini and Kushner, 2010).

Recovering Stolen Property

Besides catching culprits, the police can satisfy vic- tims’ needs by recovering their stolen items. Just as clearance rates indicate the approximate percentage of victims who receive optimum service in terms of arrests, recovery rates show how often the police succeed in retrieving stolen goods. Unfortunately, unlike clearance rates, user-friendly recovery rates are not routinely tabulated and published by police departments or the FBI.

The UCR notes the overall dollar value of recovered stolen goods for all kinds of reported incidents. For example, police departments were able to recover 55 percent of the value of “locally stolen” motor vehicles but only about 1 percent of all cash taken by thieves, burglars, and robbers dur- ing 2013 (FBI, 2014).

Recovery rates for various crimes used to be available from the NCVS until 2008. Interviewers asked respondents whether all or part of the money and property taken from them was returned to them (not counting insurance reimbursement). Police recovery rates can then be estimated. But the figures will be biased upward because some vic- tims are able to get back their stolen property through their own efforts. Unfortunately, this sta- tistic cannot be refined further to determine the percentage of victims who recovered items by themselves and what percentage was retrieved by the police. Furthermore, these estimates combine partial and full recoveries, again biasing the statistics upward and presenting the abilities of police depart- ments across the nation as more effective than they really are. Partial recoveries might not satisfy vic- tims; a discarded wallet emptied of any cash or credit cards, for example, or a badly stripped auto- mobile with a traceable vehicle identification num- ber would count as partial recoveries. With these reservations in mind, the following observations can be made: This aspect of police work will

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leave most people who suffered robberies, burglar- ies, and household larcenies dissatisfied with the outcomes of their cases. The recovery rates are very low. Even though crime rates have fallen sub- stantially across the nation since the 1990s, enabling detectives to have more time to investigate the remaining cases, the ability of police departments to retrieve stolen goods apparently has not improved. In fact, these disappointing percentages dropped to new lows over the decades for burglar- ies, larcenies, and vehicle thefts. A mere 7 or 8 percent of all victims of burglaries and household larcenies recovered some or all of what was taken from them in 2008. For valuables stolen during robberies, the recovery rate did not change; victims got back some or all of their items in 24 percent of the cases in 2008, the same figure as in 1980. Only owners of stolen vehicles are likely to get back their cars. But these statistics don’t indicate the condition the vehicles were in when they were found—the recovered cars may have been severely damaged or stripped. A vehicle was recovered in 65 percent of all cases in 1980 but that figure slipped to 58 per- cent in 2008, according to NCVS annual reports. That disappointing overall rate (which varies dra- matically by state and by make/model/year) slid further to just 55 percent in 2013, according to the UCR (FBI, 2014). However, vehicles equipped with a tracking device that can be detected by spe- cially programmed computers provided to police departments were recovered better than 90 percent of the time in 2013, according to the manufacturer (Lojack, 2014).

Even if the police recover stolen property, some victims might not get it back for a while. Law enforcement agencies have the authority to hold seized items if they are of value in continu- ing investigations. Prosecutors are allowed to maintain custody of pieces of evidence until after the trial or even until those convicted have exhausted all appeals. Victims frustrated by that delay are now assisted in some states by statutes that compel the police to return stolen property “expeditiously”—as soon as it is no longer needed for law enforcement purposes (Stark and Goldstein, 1985).

As noted above, sometimes victims themselves deserve credit for retrieving stolen items, as these cases illustrate:

A young man advertises on a popular website that his car is for sale. A prospective buyer takes it for a spin, but doesn’t return. The trusting soul reports the theft to the police but soon becomes impatient when he sees a new posting about a car for sale that suspiciously resembles his on the same website. He arranges with the “owner” to meet at a gas station to take it for a test drive. The do-it-yourself sting operation succeeds when the thief drives up in the stolen car, the victim calls the police, and they arrest the crook red-handed as he bolts from the vehicle. (Doyle and Fredericks, 2011)

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A young man’s laptop is stolen by a burglar. The owner activates a built-in spyware program that snaps pictures of the thief and captures screenshots of his email, including a business address of a company. The owner searches for the company’s address and then plots its exact location on a mapping website. Then he notifies the local police department in that jurisdiction; however, the police deem the theft of his laptop to be a very low-priority matter. So he posts pictures and details about the apparent thief on a website, and then mobilizes his friends via social networking until the story goes viral. He is invited to appear on a national television network’s morning news program, and vents his frustration about law enforcement’s inaction. Shortly after his appearance in the mainstream media, he receives a call from the local police department that the thief has been arrested and that his laptop has been recovered. (Lindzon, 2011)

Measuring Progress Toward a Victim-Oriented Police Department

The adoption of a community policing approach by many departments symbolizes a commitment to granting residents a larger say in guiding the opera- tions and policies of a branch of local government that is supposed to protect and serve them. Com- munity policing also has opened the door to a more

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victim-oriented approach within law enforcement. What would a “consumer-centered” or “user- friendly” model entail? What performance measures indicate that a department is effectively carrying out its mission to protect and serve the residents of its jurisdiction?

First of all, a victim-oriented department would extend outreach efforts to neighborhood residents to build their confidence that they get an appropriate reception if they bring their problems to a police station. A user-friendly department would facilitate the process for lodging complaints, making it as stress free and as streamlined as possible. Complaints about very minor matters might even be taken over the phone or by filling out a form online. If a greater proportion of victims become encouraged to come forward, an indicator of success would be a tempo- rary rise in the crime rate because a higher percent- age of incidents would be reported and recorded. (A localized version of the NCVS could be used to discover what percentage of victims still are not reporting various types of crimes, and why.)

When victims come forward, they expect to be handled with care. To achieve this goal, a depart- ment would have to train its officers to deliver death notifications with compassion, to better com- fort traumatized persons, to provide physical and psychological first aid, and to avoid inflicting sec- ond wounds in the form of victim-blaming accusa- tions. The particular needs of children, battered women, rape victims, and disabled persons also would be addressed effectively by specialized squads of highly trained detectives (see Chapters 9 and 10). Officers could also be better trained to spot a com- plainant who is making a false charge, so that all complainants would not be greeted with skepticism as possible fakers and liars, and detectives would not subject them to needless accusatory questioning. Customer-satisfaction surveys could be an appropri- ate way to measure whether complainants felt departments were handling their cases with care.

A victim-oriented department would dispatch officers quickly to 911 calls for help. Statistics showing downward trends in response times to emergencies would indicate progress along this front. Presumably, police forces constantly work to solve as many crimes

as possible. But victim-oriented forces would not only seek to make arrests in high-profile cases that merit intense media coverage, but also in the much more common minor cases that revolve around stolen property. Clearance rates should rise in departments that are becoming more user-friendly, indicating that victims and witnesses are cooperating with investiga- tions to a greater degree, sharing all they know, look- ing at mug shots, and picking suspects out of lineups. Similarly, local law enforcement agencies would make greater efforts to recover stolen property and return it to its rightful owner after it is no longer needed for court proceedings. Officers and detectives would gather evidence properly so that it can be entered as a prosecution exhibit against the accused. Court records about the percent of charges at the time of arrest that are later dropped by the prosecutor, or dismissed by the judge, or that are dramatically reduced because of improperly obtained evidence can be examined to monitor progress along this front. All these performance measures reporting rates, average response times to emergencies, clear- ance rates, and stolen property recovery rates— would be published and posted on the department’s website each year, reflecting its commitment to trans- parency and accountability.

A victim-oriented department would also set up a victim advocacy unit. The advocates would pro- vide guidance and support for complainants as their cases are processed through the system, refer them to counseling, walk them step by step through the proper channels to obtain orders of protection or emergency shelter or compensation from a state fund, and make sure that they are safe and reasonably satisfied with the way they were treated (Duncan, 2014). Besides potentially achieving higher reporting rates, more tips from the public, greater levels of cooperation from witnesses, and better clearance rates, a victim-friendly department might benefit in an additional way. Its officers might enjoy higher morale and enhanced job satisfaction (IACP, 2009).

A key criterion for evaluation could be this: Does a department that claims to be victim-oriented do all that it can to provide the same high-quality services to the public as it delivers to fellow officers and to mem- bers of their families whenever they are directly

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harmed by criminals? If the department falls far short on this bottom-line performance indicator, then it

needs to re-examine its priorities and revamp its operations.

SUMMARY

In their pursuit of justice—whether the goal is pun- ishment of or treatment for the offender or restitu- tion for their losses—victims might find themselves in conflicting rather than cooperative relationships with police officers and detectives.

When they report crimes, victims want the police to respond quickly, administer psychological and physical first aid effectively, believe their accounts, apprehend suspects, gather evidence that is admissible in court, and get back any property that was taken from them. However, uniformed officers and

detectives might be slow to arrive, handle victims insensitively, consider their versions of events unbe- lievable or exaggerated, fail to solve their cases, and be unable to recover their stolen goods. Various statistical measures collected by the NCVS and the UCR (such as reporting rates, response times, clearance rates, and property recovery rates) can be used as performance indicators to provide some rough estimates about how often victims receive the services and assistance they seek from their local police and sheriff’s departments that pledge to serve and protect them.

KEY TERMS DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY

burnout, 189

citizen’s arrest, 200

clearance rates, 193

cold case squads, 198

community policing, 201

Compstat, 185

defounding, 191

differential reporting rates, 184

misprision of a felony, 188

performance measures, 202

second wound, 189

unfounding, 191

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND DEBATE

1. Make up some details about three very differ- ent robberies. Then, explain why, in your opinion, it is in their best interest for these victims to seek either punishment, offender rehabilitation, or restitution in each of these cases.

2. Make up some details about a shooting, and then discuss what a police department ideally could do for the injured person in this case. Then reverse the outcomes, and highlight every problem with the local police that could further compound the suffering of this victim.

CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS

1. From the viewpoint of police chiefs, argue that victims have unrealistically high expectations and make unreasonable demands in terms of the department’s priorities, resources, and personnel.

2. Speculate about the causes of the falling clearance rates for solving crimes of violence in recent decades.

3. Speculate about the reasons why stolen property recovery rates are so low.

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SUGGESTED RESEARCH PROJECTS

1. Interview local residents who have suffered crimes such as robberies, vehicle break-ins, petty thefts, and burglaries, and find out whether they reported the incidents to the police. Question them about why they did or did not. Ask those who reported crimes whether they know if their cases were solved by an arrest.

2. Meet with local police officials and discover what the department’s clearance rate is for the seven index crimes, its response time to 911 calls, the percentage of auto theft or robbery complaints that were determined to be unfounded, and the recovery rate for stolen motor vehicles. See if this information is con- tained in a publicly available annual report or

on a departmental website. If these statistics are not made public, should they be?

3. Draw up a comprehensive checklist of all the victim-oriented services that could and should be offered by a user-friendly police depart- ment. Rate your local department on how well it provides each form of assistance and support to crime victims.

4. Evaluate the websites of a number of police departments of interest to you. Are perfor- mance measures disclosed? Does the informa- tion that is posted on the Internet appear in a victim-friendly format (for example, what to do if…, how to…) and is some of it translated into different languages?

204 CH APT ER 6

F O S T E R , C E D R I C 1 6 9 2 T S

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