Types of victims and types of personal victimization: general characteristics

Have you ever wondered why some people are constantly attacked? Do they rob, steal things, maybe even rape or beat you up? But others are not touched and such misfortunes bypass them? How do these types of people differ on a psychological level and why do the former attract maniacs and rapists?

You can determine what victimology is from the name. Science (Logos) about victims (Viktima). A variety of it is criminological victimology, which studies the behavior of victims of criminals. How is the behavior of people who consider themselves victims different at the subconscious level? Let's take a closer look.

Story

The development of victimology began even before our era. In the myths of Ancient Greece there are references to Orestes. The parable tells the story of a father who sacrificed his daughter. As a result, he was killed by her mother, and she, in turn, was killed by her son. A similar scheme became the basis of justice of the ancient Greeks and was considered fair for that time. The thinker Anaximander (Ancient Greece, approximately 610-547 BC) wrote:

“And the innocent have something to repent of!”

Thus, the victim was held responsible for the actions of the offender. They were asked to evaluate their behavior and identify their own mistakes that prompted the criminal to act.

There is a saying in Buddhism: “He who does not carry evil within himself will not receive evil.” From here, a cause-and-effect relationship between the victim and the perpetrator is inferred. Criminology will subsequently consider the same thing.

With the development of culture, victimology acquires clearer postulates and beliefs. Science is developing and scientists' views on the psychological connection between victims of violent acts and their tormentors are changing. The path of development of victimology is also changing.

How to stop being a victim?

Is it possible to stop being a victim or will you have to come to terms with it? First of all, it is worth understanding that it is not possible to stop being a victim without the help of specialists.

Victimization is not a light stress, where it is enough to get by with a couple of auto-trainings and a pack of valerian. The victim thinks in a special way, perceives the world through a very unique prism, and in order to get out of this state it is necessary to completely change the worldview and attitude towards oneself. This is why you need the help of a qualified specialist.

Removal from the victim state can be divided into several stages:

• Admitting there is a problem. Many victims believe that there is nothing wrong with them, that the problem is with their abusers and that they need to work on themselves. The most difficult period, since the victim literally revels in her suffering, is ready to blame the whole world for her troubles, she is used to living in this state constantly and simply does not know how to do it any other way. A psychologist is needed to explain what exactly the problem is and to lead the victim to admit that it exists.
• No complaints! Many people have taken the habit of constantly complaining about everything: their health, their mood, the sun is shining too brightly, the night is too cold, the flowers don’t smell as good, and the heap is also the neighbor - the last goat. Such behavior has a detrimental effect on a person’s subconscious, since complaints are programmed in advance for failures and troubles. As a result, the complaint develops into a state of helplessness: it is easier for the victim to come to terms with what is happening and complain about the injustice of life than to radically change the situation.
• Love yourself. If a person loves himself, then this is manifested in his gesture, his look, he actually glows with self-love. Self-love is built on respect for your personality, because you know for sure that you are worthy of physical and emotional care. It is necessary to love yourself even in the most difficult period of life, accept your mistakes as a useful experience, appreciate your advantages and fight your shortcomings. Take responsibility for your life and then you will feel like a truly self-sufficient person.
• Learn to think positively. If you constantly think about troubles and doubt your every move, then it is not surprising that your life is a constant struggle with problems. Aggressors and abusers unconsciously gravitate towards precisely those people who radiate the energy of fear, doubt and self-doubt. Criminals take perverse pleasure from the suffering of others, and pessimists provide an almost endless source of pleasure.

The science

What is victimology? There are three main definitions of this science:

1. Auxiliary for criminology. It is studied during the course of criminal law and criminology.
2. Independent victimology, as a science about the psychological characteristics of victims. The subject of her study is not only the victim of a criminal offender. The study includes individuals suffering from psychological pressure at home or at work.
3. Victimology defines one of the branches of criminology and does not exist as a separate science.

Classification and typology of crime victims

In actual criminological terms, about victimology

one could always speak of it as a science that studies the personality of a crime victim, the nature and content of her behavior, the moral and psychological image of the victim, the role of the victim in the mechanism of criminal behavior.
Criminal victimology comprehensively studies the personality and behavior of victims of criminal attacks; their role in the genesis of the crime; criminologically significant relationships and connections between the victim and the offender ;
ways and means of compensation or mitigation of harm caused to the victim as a result of a criminal attack. At the same time, its specific subject is the quantitative and qualitative statistically significant characteristics of victimization and the individual ability of certain individuals to become victims or, in other words, the inability to avoid a criminal attack and resist it where this was objectively possible. Of particular interest to victimology

also represents the so-called “guilty”
victim .
However, it would be a deep mistake to believe that victimology is a study only of “guilty” victims. No, it seems to us that she is interested in a comprehensive, comprehensive study of crime victims, and it is necessary for the following reasons. Firstly, many victims find themselves in this role due to their positive behavior from the point of view of law and morality (for example, police officers); due to a certain status or due to simply some occasion. Secondly, aggregated data on victims helps to reveal the true picture of crime. In legal terminology, different terms are used to designate someone who has suffered harm as a result of a crime: “victim”, “victim”, “victim”, “injured party”, etc. The main term here is “victim of a crime”. Therefore, they are used predominantly in criminal proceedings. But in criminal law the term “victim” is also used, but sometimes the legislator speaks of “victims” (Article 254 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation). IN AND. Dahl interprets the word “victim” as follows: devoured, destroyed, perishing. He further explains that someone who has suffered from something is a victim of these causes. One is an innocent victim of malicious intent, the other of his own unbridledness. Dahl’s definition of a victim coincides most precisely with the concept of a victim of a crime in the victimological sense

.

B. Mendelson, as a first step in understanding the results of his study of the relationship between the offender and the victim, proposed the first typology of victims:

· Completely innocent victim. Such a victim may be a child or a completely insane person;

· Victim with little guilt. This victim could be a woman who instigates a mistaken attack on herself that results in her death;

· A victim who is just as guilty as the offender. This may include those who, through their behavior, purposefully provoke the offender to commit a crime;

· The victim is more guilty than the offender. This includes those who encourage another to commit a crime;

· The most culpable victim. This occurs when the offender (aka the victim) was killed by a person who committed acts of self-defense;

· Imaginary victim. These are people suffering from mental disorders such as paranoia, who mistakenly attribute to themselves the qualities of a victim;

Hans von Gentig explored the relationship between the "active side" (from English, Do - to do), to which he attributed the criminal, and the "passive side" (from English: Suffer - to suffer), to which he attributed the victim. He proposed his own classification of victims, which was based on psychological, social and biological grounds. A prerequisite for its classification was also the identification of the victim in relation to various risk factors. He grouped all types of victims into three main classes: the general class of victims, psychological types of victims and the activated suffering person (The activaiting sufferer).

General class of victims:

1. Youth, children. They are physically weak and are most likely to become a victim of attack. Childhood is the most dangerous period of life.

2. Women. The female sex is another form of weakness that provokes crime. The weakness of a woman is even enshrined in law, since many laws are based on the fact of the weaker female and stronger male sex.

3. Older generation. The older generation includes the majority of owners of large fortunes and wealth-equivalent power in its various manifestations. And at the same time, old people are weak physically and often mentally.

4. Mentally disabled persons. Mentally ill, stupid people, as well as drug addicts and alcoholics.

5. Immigrants and various kinds of social minorities. Immigration means more than just a change of location. It causes a persistent feeling of helplessness in everyday interpersonal relationships. The inexperienced, poor and often depressed immigrant is an easy target for all types of crime.

Psychological types of victims:

1. Depressive type. These victims may suffer due to a suppressed instinct of self-preservation. Deprived of such an instinct, an individual can be easily subject to violence, deception, etc.

2. Greedy. This type of person is an easy victim . An excessive desire for profit overshadows reason, life experience, and the inner voice that often warns a person against danger.

3. Extravagant. Arbitrary, causeless behavior that goes beyond generally accepted boundaries often provokes a crime.

4. Lonely and “heartbroken” victims . Loneliness, according to Gentig, leads to a weakening of the individual’s mental abilities, which therefore becomes easy prey for criminals. Grief-stricken victims are often so overwhelmed by their losses that they become easy targets for criminals of all kinds.

5. Tormentor. In this case, the victim becomes the criminal. This may be a mentally unstable father who abuses his wife and children for many years until one of the children grows up and, under extreme provocation, kills him.

6. “Blocked victim.” Here the victim is so entangled in the situation of a difficult relationship with the criminal that protective steps become impossible for him.

Activated passive face:

This section consists of only one element - “Activated passive face”. This occurs when the victim transforms into a criminal. Many factors can act as “activators” of the victim, such as:

· personal predispositions;

· age;

· alcohol;

· a loss;

· self-control and other factors;

In victimology, not only victims in the criminal procedural sense are subject to study, but also other categories of victims, for example, latent victims, if, of course, there are criteria for their identification as such. The typology or classification of victims in this case may be as follows:

· A potential victim is a person who becomes a target under certain circumstances and due to his personal qualities, status, position, behavior; an individual can begin to “play” the victim long before the crime begins;

· Random victim - there is also a potential victim, but more determined by a certain situation and the choice of the criminal himself. Sometimes it is only chance that decides who will be the victim of a criminal attack;

· A latent victim is a person who actually suffered from a crime, but for some reason this fact remained undetected, hidden from the official registration of crimes in conditions where such registration is mandatory (in most cases) or desirable in the interests of society and states;

Based on the content of the victimization

and based on the studies conducted on the characteristics of the behavior of crime victims, it is possible with sufficient reliability to distinguish several types of victims: aggressive, active, proactive, passive, uncritical, neutral, random, real, potential. The most common, according to the experts surveyed, are accidental (72%), real (69%) and potential (56.6%) victims. The respondents' perceptions of passive (40.2%) and uncritical (26%) victims were slightly reduced. Aggressive (conflict) victims of crime were noted by 23.6% of experts. Forced passive, proactive and active victims of crime are known to 18.5% of surveyed employees. A very small part (11.4%) are neutral victims (according to 2002 data).

48.

Crime prevention is a system of measures taken by government agencies, public organizations, government officials and other persons aimed at counteracting the processes of crime determination, with the goal of resocializing potential criminals and preventing the commission of new crimes.

Some authors propose the term “crime prevention” to denote such activities (indicating that an already existing phenomenon cannot be prevented)[1], however, the term “crime prevention” is well-established in theory and used in most works[2].

The terms “crime prevention”, “crime prevention” and “crime suppression” are also often used in literature and regulations. Some authors do not consider it necessary to highlight any semantic shades of these concepts and consider them as synonyms of the general concept of “crime prevention”[3], however, there are still certain semantic differences between them[4].

The concept of “crime prevention” can be understood in both a broad and narrow sense. In a broad sense, prevention is synonymous with prevention. In the narrow sense of the word, prevention is considered to be measures aimed at identifying and eliminating the causes and conditions of specific criminal acts, as well as identifying persons potentially capable of committing a crime in order to implement a targeted preventive effect[5]. Such activities are one of the stages of comprehensive crime prevention.

Crime prevention comes down to suppressing criminal activity at the initial stage, when the criminal is only contemplating, planning to commit a certain act (that is, at the stage when his activity is not yet criminally punishable).

The suppression of crimes takes place when the process of committing a crime is stopped by external influence at the stage of preparation or attempt, when the criminal only prepares the means or instruments for committing a crime, looks for accomplices, conspires to commit a crime, or when the process of a criminal attack is stopped before it has been achieved purpose, criminal damage was caused.

Classification is a systematic distribution of objects and phenomena into certain groups, classes, categories based on their similarities and differences in one or more characteristics.

The educational value of classifications lies in the fact that their knowledge allows for a deeper understanding and study of various facets of the crime prevention process.

Crime prevention measures can be classified on various grounds (characteristics). When the classification is based on a set (combination) of characteristics that form a certain social type or separate one social phenomenon from others, we are talking about typology. Typology is a more complex type of classification.

I.According to the preventive action method:

1) incentive measures (purposeful inclusion of an object in socially useful connections and relationships);

2) measures of restriction (preventing the object from entering into criminogenic relationships).

These are two interconnected aspects of preventive activity.

II.According to the mechanism of action:

1) incentive measures (incentives - provision of various benefits for certain socially useful actions);

2) punishment (liability - forced deprivation of certain benefits in proportion to the offense committed, as well as causing hardship and suffering to the offender, with the achievement of the goals of general and special prevention);

3) restoration (compensation - making amends for harm, compensation for damage, restoration of social justice);

4) security (protection measures - i.e. forced restrictions on the behavior of individuals and the activities of legal entities, applied in the presence of grounds specified in the law and aimed at preventing the harmful effects of a source of danger).

They differ from each other in method, immediate goals, grounds, content, subjects and timing of application.

In German criminal law, “restoration”, along with punishment and security measures, is considered as the so-called “third track” of criminal law regulation.

In real life, “alloys” of prevention measures are more common, in which they are combined in different proportions. The connection can be parallel (for example, punishment + security measures + compensation for damage with the main punishment in the form of imprisonment), sequential (criminal punishment for an intentional crime + ban on service in the police).

III.By scope, preventive measures are divided into general, special and individual:

•general preventive measures are aimed at eliminating the causes and conditions of crime as a whole (country, region, city, administrative district, etc.);

•special preventive measures are addressed to certain groups of crimes (for example, those committed by criminals, repeat offenders, violent, mercenary);

•individual preventive measures are aimed at eliminating or blocking the causes and conditions of a specific crime.

IV. According to the level of preventive impact, prevention measures are implemented on:

1) in general;

2) specialized;

3)individual levels.

For example, solving employment problems is a general level of social prevention; the employment system for persons released from prison is a specialized level of social prevention; employment of the released Petrov - individual social prevention.

For example, the existence in Russia of a licensing system for firearms for all citizens is a general level of security measures, a special regime for issuing licenses for persons with previous convictions is a special level of security measures, and the issuance of a license to a specific citizen Ivanov is an individual level of security measures.

The situation is similar with measures of restoration and punishment.

V.By scale, warning measures are divided into those applied:

1) on the territory of the Russian Federation;

2) a subject of the Federation;

3) city, district, microdistrict, enterprise, administrative area.

VI.Depending on the degree of permissibility:

1) permissible preventive measures (“everything that is not prohibited is permitted” - measures of social prevention);

2) permitting (licensing, permitting procedure, special requirements are imposed on the subject - appropriate qualifications, special training, certification);

3) prohibitive (for example, you cannot protect your garden with a wire to which a high voltage electric current is connected).

VII.According to the branch of legislation within which preventive measures are regulated, they can be divided:

into constitutional, administrative, civil, criminal law, as well as civil, administrative, criminal procedural.

VIII. By content:

1) economic; 2) socio-political; 3) ideological; 4) cultural and educational; 5) legal; 6) organizational, managerial and technical measures.

XI.Depending on the type of criminal behavior or the characteristics of the object of preventive influence, the following preventive measures are distinguished:

1) selfish, 2) violent, 3) sexual, 4) economic, 5) professional, 6) organized crime, 7) juvenile delinquency, 8) women, etc.

X. Depending on the moment of application of preventive action, measures can be divided into:

1) early prevention measures (pre-criminal control measures, etc., registration in the prevention departments of minors who have not yet violated the criminal law, but have already committed a number of administrative offenses);

2) measures to prevent relapse (measures of post-criminal control - measures of penitentiary prevention, when the preventive effect is associated with deprivation of liberty, and measures of post-penitentiary prevention (control) when preventive measures are carried out after release from a correctional institution).

XI. According to the preventive focus, preventive measures can be divided into measures aimed at eliminating:

1) social danger of the individual;

2) criminal situations;

3) conditions for the formation of criminogenic attitudes of the individual.

4) measures aimed at the personality of a potential victim (victim) or measures of victimological prevention.

XII.By subjects of application:

a) state bodies and their officials;

b) public organizations.

49.

The crime prevention system includes: facilities; types and forms; preventive measures; subjects carrying out this work. Objects. 1) processes and phenomena of various orders (economic, psychological); 2) the activities of people, which must comply with the norms of law and social interaction; 3) the personality of the criminal. Types of warning: 1. general (for the entire population or its groups); 2. special (separate groups or areas of activity and objects); 3. individual (by identifying persons who can be expected to commit crimes) Crime prevention is carried out in the form of influencing the causes and conditions of crime, as well as the personality of a specific offender. Principles of crime prevention: legality; humanism; democracy; complexity (program-targeted approach, coordination of the activities of all subjects of crime prevention); differentiation and individualization (preventive measures are applied in different volumes depending on the type of crime, the scale and form of manifestation of the causal complex of antisocial phenomena, the level of implementation of preventive measures, as well as taking into account the individual qualities and characteristics of citizens and criminals); the principle of reality (the actual possibility of carrying out activities taking into account the given resource provision under certain conditions of place, time and other specific circumstances); timeliness of response to crime; principle of validity (compliance of preventive measures with the criminal situation and its trends) Subjects of crime prevention are government bodies and public organizations, officials and citizens, purposefully implementing measures at various levels and on various scales aimed at identifying and eliminating the causes of crime and conditions conducive to the commission of crimes. 1) subjects of general social prevention - federal, regional and local authorities and management, public organizations that do not perform direct law enforcement tasks; 2) subjects of special prevention: a) government bodies performing law enforcement functions - the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, the prosecutor's office, the court, customs; b) state and public structures performing law enforcement functions - commissions on juvenile affairs; c) private and public structures that facilitate the implementation of law enforcement tasks. 3) subjects of individual prevention - employees of state law enforcement agencies, employees of other state bodies and institutions; parents and persons replacing them; individual citizens. Law enforcement agencies play a major role in crime prevention. Among law enforcement agencies, the central entities involved in crime prevention are: the prosecutor's office, the court, internal affairs agencies, the FSB, and the Ministry of Justice. The preventive role of the court is to apply punishment as a measure to combat crime, which is provided for by criminal law. Crime prevention of internal affairs bodies is a type of activity of services, divisions and employees of these bodies, carried out within the competence of preventing and suppressing crimes and administrative offenses, identifying the causes and conditions conducive to their commission, taking measures to establish these circumstances, influencing persons with persistent illegal behavior in order to prevent criminal acts on their part. FSB bodies carry out operational investigative activities to identify, prevent, suppress and solve certain types of crimes. The preventive activity of the Ministry of Justice, which carries out criminal punishments, is to identify the causes and conditions conducive to convicts committing repeated crimes, violations of public order, labor discipline and taking measures to eliminate them. A crime prevention measure is a means to identify and eliminate the causes and conditions conducive to the commission of crimes. By scope, preventive measures are divided into: 1) general - aimed at eliminating or neutralizing the causes and conditions of crime in general; 2) special (special) - a system of influences on the processes of causality and determination of individual social groups, areas of activity, objects characterized by an increased likelihood of committing a crime 3) individual - identification of persons from whom, judging by reliably established facts of their antisocial, illegal behavior, it is possible expect the commission of crimes, and provide educational and other measures of influence to them, as well as to those around them, in order to prevent crimes. By content: economic (for example, reducing inflation); political (law enforcement); social (protecting the interests of low-income groups of the population); organizational and managerial (increasing the level of detection, introducing mandatory criminological examination of legislation), cultural, educational, legal and others - demographic, technical, medical, etc. From the stages of development - stages: preventive measures (early warning); prevention (direct warning); suppression of crime (prevention of self-determination of crime). According to the legal characteristics: 1) special criminological measures based on the rules of law, but not regulated by them (legal education, upbringing); 2) regulated in detail by legal norms (administrative supervision). According to the mechanism of action: 1) measures eliminating the causes and conditions of crime and candy crimes; 2) blocking (neutralizing the effect of certain causes and conditions); 3) weakening (limiting this action); 4) preventing the implementation of criminal intent.

50.

51.

Victimology in Russia

The domestic science of victim psychology began to develop in the 1960s. Its prerequisites were laid with the idea that it is possible to study the motivation of a criminal only using a portrait of the target of his attack. Given the fact that the victim is usually within reach, unlike the criminal who needs to be caught. Therefore, looking at the perpetrator of the crime from the opposite side contributes to his better perception.

The founder of the science of victimology in our country was L.V. Franc. His article on the importance of studying the psychology of the victim, published in 1966, created a stir and received many positive responses. Later, Frank will publish a book in which for the first time Soviet society will be revealed in a victimological context. It is interesting that the author sees not only direct participants in unlawful actions as victims. This definition includes both the relatives of the victim and those considered to be the guilty victim. In the 21st century, the concept of what victimology is has expanded and captured the world, in addition to its criminal side. They began to study the victim in everyday life.

What is victimology?

Victimology is a scientific discipline that studies how people or groups of people become victims of crime. It examines the behavior of the victim and her relationship with the offender before the crime, at the time of its commission and after it. In addition, victimology studies the crisis states in which victims find themselves, determines the necessary assistance measures and finds ways to prevent repeated crimes.

Particular attention is paid to such aspects as:

• the victim’s place in the chain of events that ended in the crime against her;
• the relationship between the offender and the victim (both long-term and those that preceded the crime);
• sociological, moral, psychological and other characteristics of the victim;
• the behavior of the victim at the time the crime was committed against her and after it.

To finally understand what victimology is, let’s consider the basic concepts with which this science operates. These are “victim behavior”, “victimization” and “victimization”. All these terms are also derived from the Latin word “victima”, which means “sacrifice”. Let's look at the meaning of each of these concepts in more detail.

Victim behavior

These are all kinds of actions, statements and other actions by which a person increases the likelihood that a crime will be committed against him. Victim behavior can be considered a night walk in a desert area or presence at a disco in very conspicuous clothes. This category also includes violation of public order (there are often people in society who want to calm the bully down with brute force).

Victimization

Sometimes victimization is considered synonymous with the term “victim behavior,” but this concept also includes physical and mental states. Circumstances also play a role. For example, a person who returns home at night in a state of alcoholic intoxication is a victim. And beautiful girls are more likely to be sexually assaulted, so attractive appearance can also be considered a factor in victimization.

The state of victimization cannot be considered as a reason to share guilt between the criminal and the victim. The exception is situations when victimization was a consequence of an offense committed by the victim (for example, if a heavily drunk guy behaved defiantly, provoked a fight and was injured in it).

In most cases, the victim's victimization is not considered by the court as a mitigating circumstance for the offender. However, for public opinion it can become a reason for the so-called “victim blaming” - partial or complete shifting of blame onto the victim (this Anglicism has already become an established term in the Russian language, since it most accurately defines the meaning of this phenomenon).

By the way, victim blaming is a big problem in modern society. Most often, it manifests itself in public condemnation of victims of sexual violence (in the style of “It’s her own fault - there was no point in dressing up like that!”), as well as victims of domestic violence (“So she deserved it, because there is no smoke without fire!”).

Victimization

This is the name for the process of turning a victimized person into a victim. This process can be quite complex and take a long time from the first contact between the offender and the victim until the crime is committed. Victimization also includes the victim's reaction to the crime and subsequent events (including the victim blaming mentioned above, which is sometimes called “re-victimization”).

The purpose of knowledge

The concept and subject of victimology is characterized by the study of the influence of the psychological state of the victim on the attacker. The temperamental characteristics of the victim are called victimization. It turns out that a person initially has psychological properties, a predisposition to becoming a victim of crime. For example, victims of scammers tend to trust strangers, have poor understanding of life, are often greedy or low-income, and believe in omens.

Victim psychology factors

The main categories of victimology that influence the nature of the crime have been identified by scientists relatively recently:

• Killers are attracted to people who are self-centered and not afraid to take risks. They differ in that they do not think about the consequences of their own actions. Often the future victim knows his killer. She is characterized by aggressiveness, conflict, and addiction to alcohol or illegal substances.
• The ideal victim of rapists is characterized by: promiscuity in acquaintances and internal immaturity as a person. Such people are infantile and have little experience in relationships with the opposite sex; they can be either overly modest or, on the contrary, attract everyone’s attention with shocking antics.
• Victims of scammers are determined by greed and gullibility.
• The domestic aggressor keeps his victim under constant influence, parasitizing on her feelings. The person suffering from his actions depends financially or physically; he can be any family member (wife, mother, child, cohabitant, etc.). As a rule, these are impressionable people with a weak will.

Considering that each case of violence is purely individual, psychologists were able to select some features inherent in the emotional state of the victim at the time of the crime.

Factors of victimization

Victimization is often proposed to be understood as the ability of a person to become a victim of a crime due to certain subjective qualities inherent in the individual. With this understanding, crimes such as waging aggressive war or terrorism have no victims. What subjective qualities of Iraqi citizens determined the aggression against this country? What are the “victimological abilities” of people who found themselves at the performance “Nord-Ost” on October 23, 2002 or September 1, 2004 at school No. 1 in Beslan? Victimization is precisely the likelihood (of individuals, groups of individuals, groups of people, residents of a region, country, etc.) of becoming victims of criminal acts. With this approach, attention is focused not on the search for the subjective qualities inherent in the individual (the “guilt” of the victim), but on the interaction of objective circumstances and subjective characteristics that increase the likelihood of being a victim of a crime.

Victimization is a quality of the social environment, a property that is largely objective. Theoretically, it always exists in relation to all people and can only differ in small values. It is clear that these values ​​are minimal in the “monastic republic” (a special unit of the Greek Republic, a self-governing community of 20 Orthodox monasteries under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople) on the Greek Athos peninsula, where no one except monks and novices resides. Nevertheless, victimization exists here too; it is no coincidence that Mount Athos has its own police.

The nature and magnitude of victimization depend on many factors, and primarily on the type of crime. Some crimes (genocide, terrorist act, waging aggressive war, development, production, stockpiling, acquisition or sale of weapons of mass destruction) are characterized by mass victimization. The circumstances that determine the magnitude of its values ​​are factors of global politics (American hegemony, the emergence of odious political regimes, regional wars and conflicts, religious and ethnic extremism, financial speculation, anthropophobic (misanthropic) theories such as the “golden billion”, etc.). The importance of mass victimization is increased by weak international and domestic control over the use of the results of scientific and technological progress (for example, cloning technologies, obtaining new strains of viruses and breeding chimeras - creatures with polar genetic properties). The breakthrough of adventurers and criminals into politics sharply increases the significance of mass victimization.

Mass victimization depends on historical (memory of generations, which stores not only positive, but also negative facts of history, transferring them to contemporaries), political (ideological intolerance and despotism) and geographical (places of residence of people, in particular near drug trafficking and in border areas) factors. A big contribution to the increase in the values ​​of mass victimization is made by weak social policy, as a result of which huge groups of disadvantaged, powerless people appear in the state.

Group victimization is the likelihood of becoming victims of crime for individuals united according to certain social characteristics. Thus, group victimization is typical for vehicle drivers and pedestrians, law enforcement officers, women, children, and rich people. Here there is a relationship between the amount of victimization and factors such as profession, level of security, place of residence, intensity of traffic flows, etc. Thus, high values ​​of group victimization are characteristic of criminal investigation officers, employees of private security companies, homeless children, taxi drivers, prostitutes, etc.

Individual victimization increases when a person is careless in choosing the place and time of leisure, promiscuity in acquaintances, flashy and provocative clothing, cheeky behavior, rudeness, offensive remarks, excessive gullibility, inattention, poor relationships with the criminal, etc. To a large extent, it depends on the psychological state of the victim, the ability to anticipate danger and resist possible threats.

The technique of victimological forecasting is based on determining the values ​​and establishing combinations of victimization factors. Its logic is simple: the greater the number of victimogenic factors and the greater their significance, the greater the likelihood of being a victim of a crime.

This forecasting takes into account the magnitude of such factors as the prevalence of crime in a given region and place, the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies, assessment of one’s own security (including from the point of view of taking certain measures), readiness to behave in a criminal situation.

Victimological forecasting is extremely relevant in business activities. Modern Russian business life is in many ways similar to survival in an extreme environment, but with the caveat that the social environment is active and often criminal. In the process of victimological forecasting, risk factors such as legal (related to malicious use of legal gaps and legal incompetence of a partner) are taken into account; law enforcement (assessing the likelihood and consequences of the response of law enforcement and judicial authorities to a criminal situation); banking (taking into account the possibility of abuse by banking institutions); financial (related to the likelihood of material losses due to the existing payment model, including payments to criminal intermediaries or “curators”); transport (indicating the possibility of suffering damage due to attacks on vehicles, including pipeline transport); obligatory (arising from threats of non-fulfillment of obligations by the debtor); competitive (taking into account manifestations of unfair competition: provoked bankruptcies and sanctions of government and judicial authorities for the economic suppression of competitors); personnel (related to errors in personnel selection and management), etc. These risks are specified in relation to typical tasks solved in the process of business activity of a certain type.

Thus, when concluding transactions, it is recommended to pay attention to the following circumstances: a questionable source of initial capital at the time of starting business; participation in shadow and criminal business; engaging in criminalized types of business activities (gambling, etc.); presence of patrons; relationships with the administration, law enforcement, and judicial authorities; connections in the criminal environment, frequency and nature of contacts with criminals, including participation in joint “topics” (business projects); presence of deposits, real estate, other property abroad, second citizenship; moral deformations and pathologies (alcoholism, drug addiction, homosexuality and other sexual deviations); presence of unfulfilled debt obligations for the entire period of business activity; delays in settlements with creditors due to one’s own fault (including simulating the occurrence of force majeure); unfair competition, duplicity, deceit, non-obligation in relations with partners; negative image in law enforcement agencies, application of sanctions by them, initiation of criminal prosecution; criminal registration; the desire to attract interest from influential connections, exaggeration of one’s capabilities in the business world; discrepancy between the enterprise’s profits and the costs of meeting the needs and requests of the owners or management; evasion of providing collateral or other guarantees of fulfillment of an obligation. These signs indicate that their owner is an unreliable participant in the proposed transaction and there is a high probability of being a victim of fraud or another crime.

Victimological forecasting is an area of ​​interest for any person who decides to buy or sell real estate, go on vacation to a foreign country, spend leisure time in a nightclub, etc. Criminological knowledge makes it possible to systematize and clarify relevant information.

How is the psychology of the victim different?

What is victimology in the victim-offender relationship? Why does a person suddenly become a victim of a crime? What behavior leads them to this sad outcome? Victimology identifies common features in the victim’s behavior:

1. Self-esteem. A person doesn’t love himself so much that it even shows outwardly. It is easy to identify such a person in a crowd. Unprepossessing, shabby clothes, unkempt appearance, dull eyes.
2. The desire to merge with the gray mass. The desire to be like everyone else and not stand out from the crowd is inherent in most immigrants from the Soviet Union, where mass participation and herd mentality were encouraged. As a rule, such people are afraid to be special and attract attention. The criminal senses this and can easily identify such a person in the crowd.
3. Inability to think and live without relying on outside opinions. This is typical for the majority; we are used to focusing on what people say. It is easy for such individuals to impose any opinion and subjugate them. These are chosen by aggressors who use drugs and alcohol.
4. Fear. Characteristic of domestic violence. Fear of loneliness, publicity, shame and much more. Fear makes a person tolerate and get used to violence. The vast majority of typical victims consider fear to be the norm in their lives.

Moreover, the ideal victim likes to be in this state constantly. It is very difficult to convey to a person that such a perception of reality is harmful and sometimes dangerous.

Victimology

Victimology (lat. victima - victim, lat. logos - teaching) is a section of criminology, the study of the victim of a crime, the science of victims who have the individual or group ability to become victims of a criminal act.

Who is attacked more often by dogs and rapists? This question will probably surprise many. Is it possible to compare the reflex behavior of animals, who do not know good and evil, and the psychology of a criminal who deliberately causes suffering to other people? Of course, the difference is very big. Although one should not overestimate the intellectual potential of a criminal. Noble, sensitive bandits are often found in books and films, but almost never in real life. The overwhelming majority of rapists and murderers are rather undeveloped people, deprived in some way, suffering from many complexes, extremely unbalanced, evil and immoral. Therefore, comparing them with dogs that have broken loose is not too much of an exaggeration. However, this is not about them, but about their victims.

Misbehavior when in danger

It has been noticed that children often, even too often, suffer from both evil dogs and unkind people. Why? Largely because they themselves behave incorrectly. Having become accustomed to parental love and fairly smooth relationships with peers (conflicts between children proceed “gently” and literally almost painlessly), a small child is not able to react correctly to potential danger. Many children do not know how to handle dogs: they make gestures that the animal considers provocative, sometimes they themselves cause pain and discomfort to the dog, or even simply tease them. When an angry dog ​​lunges at a child, the child most often tries to run away, thereby spurring the animal’s ancient instinct of pursuit. In communicating with an unfamiliar “good uncle”, the child also naively does not see any danger and therefore risks falling for some kind of bait and becoming a victim of a pervert. Education, in particular, consists of instilling in a child reasonable caution to protect against harm. Why does this insurance sometimes not work even for adults and experienced people? After all, accidents happen not only to children. Many of us know that, generally speaking, it is dangerous to tease dogs, but nevertheless we unwittingly continue to do it, thereby dooming ourselves to the role of the victim. Therefore, it is so important to understand the peculiarities of your behavior and break the yoke of doom if for some reason it darkens your life.

Character of the victim

Criminologists and psychologists have long drawn attention to the fact that many people who have suffered from violence share some common characteristics of character and behavior. The study of these features led to the creation of victimology - the science of the psychology of a potential victim. It was found that there is a category of people who are particularly vulnerable to violent attacks. The likelihood of suffering at the hands of criminals for such people is much higher than for all others. Discussions about evil fate are completely inappropriate here. As a rule, a person signs a serious sentence for himself, and only he himself is free to appeal and cancel this sentence.

Within the general and rather heterogeneous category of potential victims, two main types can be distinguished.

First type of victim

The first category includes people who are mentally weak, timid, and prone to exaggerated fears and anxiety. It’s not without reason that they say: when you expect trouble, it definitely comes. Faced with danger, these people perceive it as a fatal inevitability. They are terrified that their worst premonitions are coming true. This is a kind of psychological readiness for violence, which, however, does not give rise to resistance or attempts to somehow get out of the situation, but panic or shock, which makes the victim completely defenseless. The foundations of such a worldview are laid in childhood, and the family atmosphere plays the main role here. Potential victims are, as a rule, children of domineering and strict parents who profess the principles of authoritarian upbringing. From an early age, a person gets used to the fact that his fate depends entirely on someone stronger, who is free to caress or, conversely, cause suffering. Having gotten used to the idea that nothing depends on him, a person continues to wait all his life to see how others will dispose of his fate. With joyful excitement he awaits blessings and affection, with horror - humiliation and pain.

Therefore, it is so important to instill in a person self-confidence and self-esteem from a young age. One of the main pedagogical rules: as a child grows up, it is necessary to trust him to independently carry such a load as he is capable of lifting. A person should know that the solution to most of his life problems primarily depends on himself, and not on someone else’s arbitrariness.

Second type of victim

The provocative behavior of the victim is most often the result of ignorance of basic psychological laws. A person naively believes that others interpret his actions with the same meaning as he does. For example, it is known that women are more prone to eye contact than men. At the same time, their gaze usually means only very moderate interest, but the perverted mind of the rapist can evaluate such a gaze as a sexual appeal.

In general, it is very important not to make eye contact with a suspicious subject showing aggressive intentions. This simple recommendation was given by a great expert in animal psychology, Konrad Lorenz. In his book “The Ring of King Solomon,” he wrote that when meeting an unfamiliar dog, you should never look closely into its eyes. The animal perceives such a look as a challenge and often rushes to react aggressively. A criminal, overwhelmed by primitive instincts, is in some ways similar to an animal. So it is better not to tease either a four-legged or a two-legged animal in this way.

Finally, the most provocative step is the appearance of the victim in a place suitable for committing a crime. Every criminal is a coward by nature and will not commit violence in public. He chooses the opportunity to attack his victim where and when no one can protect him or even witness the crime. Sigmund Freud also drew attention to the strange habit of one of his patients walking in vacant lots. It turned out that the lady was both afraid of intimacy and longing for it. Therefore, she was unconsciously drawn to a place where this intimacy could take the form of an event completely beyond her control - rape. All that remains is to wish all lovely ladies not to be like Dr. Freud’s cantankerous patient.

Victim complex

Its appearance is influenced by experiences of events that form a negative psychological perception of the world. These could be critical situations, problems in your personal life, world disasters, catastrophes, losses and traumatic events. These are situations in which the victim reveals himself:

• Crime. Various types of crimes and attempted crimes, terrorist attacks.
• Violence. Both domestic and sexual.
• Abuse or additive behavior. Various types of addictions, submission to the influence of cults and groups.

Text of the book “Victimology. Psychology of victim behavior"

Irina Malkina-Pykh Victimology. Psychology of victim behavior

About the author
Irina Germanovna Malkina-Pykh is a psychologist, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, specializing in biophysics.

Reviewers:

Doctor of Psychology, Professor A.S. Zakharevich;

Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor M.P. Zakharchenko.

Chapter 1 General issues of victimology

Victimology literally means “the study of sacrifice” (from the Latin viktima

– sacrifice and Greek.
logos
- teaching). This science arose as the implementation of the idea of ​​studying crime victims and initially developed as a direction in criminology. However, over time, ideas about it have undergone changes, and different positions have emerged regarding the subject of victimology and its scientific status. These positions boil down to the following:

1. Victimology is a branch of criminology, or a private criminological theory, and, therefore, develops within its framework.

2. Victimology is an interdisciplinary science about the victim of crime that is auxiliary to criminal law, criminal procedure, and criminology. It exists and functions in parallel with criminology.

3. Victimology is a general theory, the doctrine of the victim, which has as its subject of study a victim of any origin, both criminal and not related to crimes (victims of accidents, natural and man-made disasters, epidemics, wars and other armed conflicts, political confrontations, and also various types of violence and addictive behavior). Victimology, therefore, is an independent science, whose belonging to the legal science can only be partially recognized. Rather, it is the science of human safety (Riveman, 2002).

1.1. Victimology: subject, history, prospects

Thus, they talk about victimology in a broad and narrow sense. In the first case, it covers not only law and criminology (the latter creates a general doctrine of the victim of crime), but also a number of other sciences, including psychology and psychiatry.

In a broad sense, victimology is a socio-psychological field of knowledge that studies various categories of people - victims of unfavorable conditions of socialization. The subject of socio-psychological victimology is the study of children and adults who find themselves in difficult life situations and requiring special social and psychological help. Thus, victimology is a developing comprehensive study of people in crisis (victims of crimes, natural disasters, catastrophes, various forms of violence, addictive behavior, etc.), and measures to help such victims (Tulyakov, 2003).

In a narrow sense, victimology is a part of criminology.

Criminal victimology studies:

▪ sociological, psychological, legal, moral and other characteristics of victims, knowledge of which allows us to understand due to what personal, social-role or other reasons they became a victim of a crime;

▪ the place of victims in the mechanism of criminal behavior, in situations that preceded or accompanied such behavior;

▪ relationships between the offender and the victim, both long-term and instantaneous, which often precede criminal violence;

▪ the behavior of the victim after the commission of a crime, which is important not only for investigating crimes and exposing the perpetrators, but also for preventing new offenses on their part.

In other words, criminal victimology studies:

▪ how do the typical characteristics of various crimes relate to the personal qualities (gender, age, profession, etc.) and behavior of the victims;

▪ what are the fluctuations (seasonal, daily, share in the overall crime structure) of various crimes depending on changes in the crime structure in a particular region;

▪ how the real possibility of committing a crime by a certain person prone to this is influenced by the situation that ensures his contacts with persons of greater or less vulnerability;

▪ to what extent does “fitting in” with a specific potential victim influence the choice of method of committing a crime;

▪ what the process of choosing a victim by a criminal represents and depends on;

▪ how to organizationally ensure the identification of persons who are most likely to be victims;

▪ what measures of influence on potential victims (including forced ones for persons of negative behavior) that directly ensure their safety should be used and included in the general system of crime prevention measures;

▪ in what direction should the search for new opportunities for crime prevention be pursued (Riveman, 1988; Riveman, Ustinov, 2000).

The basic concepts of victimology (both general and criminal) include victimization

and
victimization.
Victimization, or
victimogenicity, is
a person’s acquired physical, mental and social traits and characteristics that may make him predisposed to becoming a victim (of a crime, an accident, a destructive cult, etc.).
Victimization is
the process of acquiring victimhood.

Victimology develops methods for diagnosing individual victimization, group and microsociety victimization; the content, forms and methods of prevention and rehabilitation of victims of socialization determine the degree of their effectiveness; offers recommendations on the strategy and tactics of society, the state, and social institutions in relation to various categories of victims. Victimology, based on the study of types of victimized individuals and physical, mental and social deviations in the development of people, offers specific measures to correct these deviations and to prevent negative influences on personality development.

Modern victimology as a special sociological theory carries out a comprehensive analysis of the victim phenomenon, based on theoretical concepts and models originally developed in the field of other social disciplines (criminology, political science, theory of public administration, psychology, social work, conflictology, sociology of deviant behavior). Victimology is one of the human sciences that studies behavior that deviates from safety norms (Riveman, 1981).

Modern victimology is implemented in several directions.

The general theory of victimology describes the phenomenon of the victim of a socially dangerous manifestation, its dependence on society and its relationship with other social institutions and processes. The main idea of ​​the general theory of victimology is to build a systemic model of interaction “social phenomenon - victim”, describing and studying ways to normalize negative social, psychological and moral influences on a person from the natural environment, artificial living and working environment, social environment, as well as crisis internal environment of the person himself with the aim of correcting and neutralizing them, increasing the adaptive abilities of a person.

At the same time, the development of the general theory of victimology is carried out, in turn, in two directions:

The first one explores the history of victimization and victimization, analyzes the patterns of their origin and development following changes in the main social variables, taking into account the relative independence of the phenomenon of victimization as a form of implementation of deviant activity.

The second one studies the state of victimization as a social process (the interaction of victimization and society) and as an individual manifestation of deviant behavior through a general theoretical generalization of data obtained by middle-level theories.

Particular victimological theories of the middle level (victimology, tort victimology, traumatic victimology, etc.) subject to special analysis victimization and behavioral characteristics of certain types of victims of socially dangerous manifestations. These theories are based on the experience gained in the study of socially dangerous manifestations in other sociological and related disciplines (ecology, criminology, tortology, traumatology, disaster medicine, etc.).

Applied victimology – victimological technology (analysis, development and implementation of special techniques for preventive work with victims, social support technologies, restitution and compensation mechanisms, insurance technologies, etc.).

Issues of victimology have become the object of criminological research only since the Second World War. In 1945, two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. As a result of these explosions, thousands of people were killed simultaneously. The tragedy went beyond the individual, turning into a national disaster, which prompted Japanese scientists to consider questions about the causes of sacrifice. In the same year, publications appeared in a new scientific direction - victimology. Almost simultaneously, although with some delay, research in the field of victimology began to be conducted in the United States and a number of European countries (Khristenko, 2005).

The creation of victimology is associated with the names of Hans von Gentig (1888–1974) and Benjamin Mendelssohn (1900–1998). The time of birth of victimology, obviously, should be correlated with 1947–1948, when its fundamental principles developed by them were published.

In 1948, Gentig published the monograph “The Criminal and His Victim. Research on the sociobiology of crime,” in which he formulated and developed principles fundamental to victimology.

Gentig identifies three categories of concepts that make up the subject of victimology: a) the offender-victim, b) the latent victim, c) the relationship between the offender (the causer of harm) and the victim.

He views the criminal and the victim as subjects of a complementary partnership. In some cases, the victim shapes, educates the criminal and completes his formation; she tacitly agrees to become a victim; cooperates with the criminal and provokes him (Schneider, 1994).

The monograph examines various typical situations and relationships associated with the personality and behavior of the victim, various types of victims who have a special attraction for criminals, a special ability to resist, and uselessness for society: old people, women, emigrants (“non-religious”), national minorities, alcoholics , unemployed, children, etc. Separate groups of victims are divided into “disarmed” (with a bad conscience, having committed a crime and therefore unable to resist extortion, blackmail) and, conversely, “protected”, i.e. the rich, capable of ensuring their safety . There are also “imaginary” victims, victims with a family history, victims prone to becoming criminals, etc.

Along with G. Gentig, the pioneer of the problem of victimhood on a fundamentally new level, the creator of victimology and the author of its name is B. Mendelssohn. Unlike G. Gentig, who never used this term and did not take victimology beyond the boundaries of criminology, B. Mendelson considered it as an independent scientific discipline (Riveman, 2002).

His report “New Psychosocial Horizons: Victimology”, given at a conference of psychiatrists held in Bucharest in 1947, and his later work “A New Branch of Biopsychosocial Science - Victimology” contain many of the fundamental principles of victimology:

a) the concept of “victim” is considered (five groups of victims are called: a completely innocent (“ideal”) victim; a victim with slight guilt; a victim equally guilty with the attacker; a victim more guilty than the attacker; an exclusively guilty victim);

b) the concepts of “criminal couple” are introduced (disharmonious unity of the bearer of aggression and the victim and, conversely, harmonious unity, as, for example, happens in a criminal abortion with a fatal outcome), “candidate victim”, “voluntary victim”, “victim provocateur” ", "victim-aggressor", "victimity index", etc. (Frank, 1973; 1977).

In 1975, B. Mendelson published the monograph “General Victimology”, in which he developed his concept of victimology, linking it with the creation of “clinical” or “practical” victimology, the orbit of which should include not only victims of crimes, but also victims of natural disasters, genocide, ethnic conflicts and wars (Kvashis, 1999).

Some ideas and provisions of G. Gentig received their further development at the psychological level in the works of the Swiss scientist G. Ellenberger. He analyzes in more detail the concept of “criminal – victim”, different cases when a subject can become a criminal or a victim, depending on the situation, successively a criminal, then a victim (and vice versa), simultaneously a criminal and a victim. A significant place is given to the so-called natural victim and pathological conditions that give rise to victimological situations.

The works of G. Genting intensified the scientific search of other scientists. In 1958, M.E. Wolfgang published the work “Types of Murders,” in which, summarizing the results of numerous studies, he typified the situations that arise when killers interact with their victims. The victimological aspects of crimes such as fraud, robbery, torture, hooliganism, rape and some others have also attracted the close attention of scientists.

In 1956, G. Schultz introduced the concept of a crime based on personal relationships between the offender and the victim. Connections between the victim and the perpetrator may vary in terms of their closeness and intensity. The criminal and his victim may only know each other in absentia; they may know each other by sight. Acquaintance can be casual, based on living together in the neighborhood or at work. The connection can only arise immediately before the crime is committed. Superficial social contacts can turn into closer acquaintances and friendships. This approach is based on the principle of the degree of proximity between the victim and the criminal.

Swiss scientist R. Gasser in the book “Victimology. Critical reflections on a new criminological concept" describes in detail the history of the development of victimology, formulates some theoretical positions, examines the victim at the sociological level (lone victim, refugee, foreign worker, victim with a special family and marital status, victim of a large crowd of people, etc.). At the psychological level, there are passive, unconsciously active, consciously active, consciously and unconsciously offending victims. At the biological level, the physio- and psychopathological traits of victims, victims with bad heredity and “recidivist victims” are considered.

In the articles of Polish authors A. Bachrach “Criminological and victimological aspects of road accidents” (1956), B. Holyst “The role of the victim in the genesis of murder” (1956), A. Friedel “Robbery in the light of criminology and criminology” (1974), X. Kanigonsky and K. Stepnyak “Pickpocket and His Victim” (1991), “Car Thefts” (1993), S. Pikulsky “Murder out of Jealousy” (1990) are considered in relation to the specifics of the crimes being studied, “guilty” and “innocent” victimogenic predispositions victims. In 1990, B. Kholyst’s fundamental work on victimology was published, in which, using extensive sociological and psychological data, the behavior of a crime victim and her role in a specific criminal situation are analyzed (Ryskov, 1995).

Almost all researchers consider it necessary to study the specific conditions that contributed to the commission of a crime. Thus, the Bulgarian scientist B. Stankov notes the role of a specific life situation in the development of illegal actions, the need to study specific psychological traits of the victim’s behavior in the process of committing a crime.

German researcher G. Schneider notes that there are no “natural victims” or “victims by nature.” But physical, mental and social traits and characteristics acquired by a person (some physical and other deficiencies, inability to defend themselves or insufficient readiness for it, special external, mental or material attractiveness) can make him predisposed to becoming a victim of crime. If he is aware of his increased victimogenicity, he can learn certain behaviors that allow him to resist and cope with this threat. Victimization and criminalization, as G. Schneider notes, sometimes have the same sources - initial social conditions.

A special place in the research of predecessors of modern victimology is occupied by the work of G. Kleinfeler on the provocation of crime by the victim herself. He believes that in some cases it is necessary to mitigate the responsibility of the criminal depending on the behavior of the victim, and sometimes to completely release him (the criminal) from responsibility.

Combining the concepts of Gentig and Mendelssohn, the Japanese researcher Miyazawa (1968) identified a general (depending on age, gender, type of activity, social status, etc.) and a special (depending on mental and psychological instability, retardation in the development of intelligence, emotional instability, etc.) victimization, examined the relationship between each of the two types and crime. According to him, when both types are layered, the degree of victimization increases.

Psychiatrists also began to become interested in victimology: first forensic, and then general medical. They identified “unconscious” states that could interfere with the victim’s ability to resist the offender. These included a wide range of pathological conditions, characterized by both complete loss of consciousness and various clinical forms of stupefaction. The presence of “mental” illness is a prerequisite for the conclusion of “defenselessness”.

From a psychoanalytic point of view, the predisposition to become a victim can be explained by unconscious feelings of guilt or shame and the desire to be punished, or be the result of passive goals leading to the passivity of the subject. Research by psychiatrists has proven that people with mental disorders are often highly victimized, and in the formation of their victimization in general and victim behavior in particular, great importance is attached to factors caused by mental pathology.

K. Higuchi (1968) conducted victimological research, paying special attention to the area of ​​juvenile delinquency. Having considered the interpersonal relationships of the harm-doer and the victim, on the one hand, and the factors causing the damage, on the other, he classified the characteristics of victims depending on the factors of crime. Higuchi found that there are specific groups of victims, divided according to such important criteria as age, gender and mental properties, and each group has its own characteristics of victimization.

Victimology in our country began to develop only in the late 80s. In the 70s, L. V. Frank was the first in the USSR to publish works on victimology, he was supported by D. V. Rivman.

In the process of development of domestic victimology, the problem of the crime victim has been studied for many years (which is still happening) within the framework of legal disciplines or in connection with them.

L. V. Frank, relying on the developments of the world victimological theory, with which the USSR was practically unfamiliar, was able in his works to prove and substantiate the opinion that victimology is a relatively independent scientific field that has theoretical and applied value.

L. V. Frank considered the following basic concepts of victimology:

▪ the concept of victimization as a process of turning a person into a victim of a crime and as a result of the functional impact of crime in general, which can manifest itself at various levels of impact on victims, members of their families, social groups and communities;

▪ the concept of victimization as a person’s tendency to become a victim of a crime as a result of his or her mode of action and socio-demographic characteristics;

▪ the concept of the “criminal-victim” connection as a system of relations between these subjects within the framework of a criminogenic situation, which has a significant impact on the development and genesis of the mechanism of criminal behavior.

Accordingly, the main functions of victimology, according to L. V. Frank, were:

▪ obtaining new information about the causes of crime;

▪ obtaining information about the mechanism of criminal behavior for the purpose of using it in the process of crime prevention;

▪ obtaining information about the mechanism of relationships between the criminal and the victim of the crime;

▪ assessing the true state of crime through victimization analysis;

▪ use of victimological information in the sentencing process;

▪ use of victimological information to improve the process of compensation for harm to crime victims.

Such significant differences in determining the scientific status of victimology are not accidental. They emerged at the dawn of victimology, when one of its “fathers”, B. Mendelssohn, raised the question of the need to create a new independent science - victimology, and another - G. Gentig - did not use this name at all, a priori considering it as a direction in criminology .

By the mid-80s – early 90s, the assessment of the role and significance of victimological research was gradually changing. The development of the crisis situation in the countries of the post-Soviet bloc, changes in the lifestyle of an entire generation, aggravated by the transience, diversity and uncertainty of the social situation, could not but affect the change in social attitudes towards victimological problems. According to the opinion of L. V. Frank and Yu. M. Antonyan, expressed almost a quarter of a century ago, victimology, which emerged as a scientific direction in criminology, will eventually have to turn into an interdisciplinary branch of scientific knowledge, a separate, independent scientific discipline (Frank, 1977) .

The inclusion in the subject of victimology of all categories of injured persons (not only physical ones), who have become victims of a variety of circumstances, makes victimology a complex sociological and psychological science, not limited to the criminal sphere of causing harm. But victims of crimes and, for example, environmental disasters are completely different, and victim-risk situations have nothing in common. Consequently, defining victimology as the science of studying any victims, it is necessary to predict its formation and development in this capacity, not forgetting the internal inconsistency of its subject.

Today in domestic science there is no comprehensive victimology on the subject, but the prospect of its development into an independent science that synthesizes knowledge about victims of any origin can be presented as including the following areas of research:

▪ criminal victimology (however, criminology is unlikely to easily part with an important element of its subject);

▪ traumatic victimology (studying victims of non-criminal trauma);

▪ victimology of everyday life and leisure (a wide range of safety problems when using household appliances, water safety, transport safety, which also depends on potential victims, etc.);

▪ psychiatric victimology (problems of victims with mental disorders);

▪ victimology of disasters, environmental and natural disasters;

▪ technical safety victimology (studying the consequences of victim behavior associated with violation of labor safety rules, fire safety, etc.);

▪ victimology of violence (within its framework – victimology of family violence, crimes that violate sexual integrity); victimology of military crimes; victimology of terrorism, hostage-taking, kidnapping;

▪ victimology of involvement in destructive cults;

▪ victimology of addictive behavior.

As for victimology as a socio-psychological science, its task includes at least three major areas of research:

1. development of a general theory of the formation of personal victimization (victim psychology);

2. development of methods and techniques for correcting the general level of victimization of an individual;

3. development of methods and techniques for working with post-traumatic stress disorder in victims.

The following should also be noted here. Psychology now deals primarily with what is bad in human life and in relationships between people. She seems to have “forgotten” about strengths, concentrating on human weaknesses, focusing primarily on what a person “lacks.” Excessive attention is paid to such phenomena as “disease”, “distress”, etc.

According to M. Seligman, modern psychology has essentially “become victimology.” A person is considered in it as a fundamentally passive being with reduced personal responsibility, etc. “learned helplessness”, when he is affirmed in the thought that he will always be a victim of other people or circumstances.

M. Seligman and his followers believe that the paradigm of modern psychology must be changed: from negativity to positivity, from the concept of illness to the concept of health. The object of research and practice should be the strengths of man, his creative potential, the healthy functioning of the individual and the human community ( Sheldon, King,

2001).

Helplessness

A person is constantly in this state. The eternal victim is characterized by the opinion that nothing in life depends on her, she cannot solve problems on her own. Psychologist M. Seligman defined the concept of learned helplessness. The acquisition of such a state occurs at the time of events that a person is not able to independently influence. The victim believes that she is not able to correct events, that everything that happens to her is an accident or a trick. His life does not depend on him. Moreover, a person can receive such a state into his “treasury of feelings” from others. If the society he is surrounded by has the same views, the victim easily succumbs to them. Encouragement is a negative way to get out of the victim state; the victim stops competing and loses initiative.

Outskirts

Criminological victimology is the study of victims not only of crimes, but also of the consequences of accidents, natural and man-made disasters, epidemics, wars and other armed conflicts.

Criminological victimology studies:

• Sociological, psychological, legal, moral and other characteristics of victims. All this allows us to determine for what reasons they became victims of a crime;
• The place of victims in the mechanism of criminal behavior , in situations that preceded or accompanied such behavior;
• The relationship that develops between the criminal and the victim , both long-term and instantly formed;
• Victim's behavior after the crime . Is of great importance for the investigation of crime and for the prevention of new crimes;
• Ways, opportunities, methods of compensation for the harm caused by the crime , and, first of all, the physical rehabilitation of the victim (victim).

[reklama]
The subject of study of victimology is persons who have suffered physical, moral or material harm as a result of a crime, as well as criminals; their behavior related to the crime committed, the relationships that connected the offender and the victim before the crime was committed; situations in which harm occurred.

Along with the concept of “victimology”, the term “victimization” is often used. Victimization (from Latin victima – victim, victim complex, victim role) is the predisposition of individuals to become victims. Victimization is the increasing risk of people becoming victims.

In many cases , the victim is an active element in the criminal situation and in the dynamics of the criminal act. The victim, being an active element of the situation, can lead the offender into a state of intense passion, rage, and hatred.

Depending on the behavior of the victim , the situations preceding the crime can be divided into three groups :

• The situation with the provocative nature of the victim. Such behavior is considered immoral and illegal;
• A situation in which the victim’s actions are careless (for example, leaving personal belongings unattended);
• Situations in which the actions of the victim are lawful, but cause unlawful behavior by the offender (for example, correct criticism of a person, a remark).

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In many cases, the situation does not play any significant role. The criminal in such moments is the main character. The victim plays no role for him.

Like the future criminal, the future victim evaluates the current specific situation and acts depending on the results of the assessment, his views, inclinations and psychological and other capabilities. The victim interacts not only with the future criminal, but also with other elements of the situation.

What to do?

How to get out of the victim state? Or is this forever? It is necessary to understand that a way out is possible in most cases only under the supervision of a specialist. The process can be painful and may be accompanied by inappropriate behavior and aggression. A specialist will support you at a critical moment and direct your emotions in the right direction. The psychologist’s task is to restore the patient’s faith in his own strength, to make it clear that he is independently responsible for his own life. Without support and an objective outside view of the situation, it is difficult for a person to cope with victim syndrome.

How to get rid of victimization

Victimization, especially in a pronounced form, is a mental disorder, a disease, and the treatment of any disease should begin with eliminating its cause. But in psychotherapy this, unfortunately, is not always possible. So, if the victim syndrome was formed under the influence of defects in childhood socialization, then we can no longer change anything in the past. Therefore, it is not the cause that will have to be eliminated, but its consequences. And here there are several ways, but they all require the intervention of a qualified psychologist, psychotherapist, or even a psychiatrist:

• Changing attitudes towards the past. After all, it is precisely this that shapes human behavior in this case. Psychotherapeutic techniques allow you to get rid of the consequences of childhood mental trauma, change a person’s attitude towards what happened to him in the past, teach him to let go of the past and feel independent of it.
• Forming a positive attitude towards yourself and others, increasing self-esteem and self-esteem. Self-confidence and gaining a sense of independence will allow a person to abandon the status of a victim.
• Using cognitive psychotherapy methods to correct attitudes, views, values, attitudes towards oneself and others.
• Development of self-control, formation of attitudes towards an adequate type of behavior, development of communication skills and the ability to interact with other people, correctly assess their intentions and attitudes. This can be achieved with the help of special socio-psychological trainings.
• Relieving tension and the effects of stress, getting out of a state of depression, which is achieved with the help of special medications prescribed by a psychiatrist.

But an important condition for correcting the behavior of people with victim syndrome is the creation of a favorable social environment, finding true friends, like-minded people, and close people. And perhaps for this it will be necessary to change their place of residence and go to a place where this person will not be seen as a victim.

Stages of changing the victim's consciousness

The way out of the victim state is divided into several stages:

1. Recognizing the problem and awareness of those moments in life that lead to unpleasant situations. This is the most difficult point, since a person who is accustomed to feeling like a victim becomes so accustomed to this state that it is not possible for him to behave in a radically different way. Victims of physical violence need to contact a psychologist whose work specializes in such patients. First of all, they need to survive the tragedy, and in this case it is not possible to do this on their own.
2. Give up the habit of complaining. For many of our fellow citizens, this condition is permanent and is considered normal. Complaints about the government, bosses, doctors, store clerks, neighbors and relatives - all this is considered the norm of everyday life. And this is a huge mistake that has a detrimental effect on the subconscious. If grievances are stuck in the head, but a person understands that he needs to get rid of them immediately, then the help of a psychologist will help to cope with the situation. The rest need to give up the state of helplessness, take their lives into their own hands and deal with problems if they exist. And if not, do not take rudeness and rudeness personally, do not cling to the words and actions of strangers. A lot of vital energy is wasted on dissatisfaction and complaints. By stopping this bad habit, you will feel a surge of strength and will stop attracting situations that provoke criminals to act against you.
3. Love yourself. If a person exudes love, then the world around him reflects this feeling and returns much more to him in return. Your attitude towards yourself should be based on respect, because you, like no one else, know that you are worthy of emotional and physical care. Love yourself even when things are going badly and your mood is at zero. Respect your choice, even if it turned out to be wrong and brought failure. Accepting responsibility for one's own body and soul removes the stamp of sacrifice from a person. He stops demanding from other people what he himself is able to provide better and more fully.
4. Positive thinking. It attracts good events into life. Don't cling to troubles, learn to learn from them and move on with your life. A person filled with positive energy changes the energy space around him. For criminals, as people who are mostly destructive and feed on the negative emotions of others, pleasant and energetic opponents cause anxiety. Their gaze is not caught by self-sufficient and favorably disposed individuals.
5. Psychologist. First of all, a specialist is needed for those who have been subjected to any type of physical violence. Secondly, to those who have deep grievances towards relatives (usually parents). The influence of these grievances can be traced throughout life and a person may not even understand that the root of most problems is in relation to oneself.

The main ideas of victimologists:

1) demeanor has a significant impact on the motivation of criminal behavior. It can alleviate and even provoke it. On the contrary, optimal human behavior can make it impossible to commit a criminal offense (or reduce its likelihood to a minimum, or at least avoid serious negative consequences of crime);

2) the likelihood of becoming a victim of a crime depends on a special phenomenon - victimization. Each individual can be assessed in terms of how likely he is to become a victim. This probability determines a person’s victimization (the greater the probability, the higher the victimization);

3) victimization is a property of a certain person, social role or social situation that provokes or facilitates criminal behavior. Accordingly, personal, role and situational victimization are distinguished;

4) victimization depends on a number of factors:

— personal characteristics;

— the legal status of the official, the specifics of his official functions, material security and level of security;

- the degree of conflict of the situation, the characteristics of the place and time in which this situation develops;

— the amount of victimization may change. The process of its growth is defined as victimization, while its decline is defined as devictimization. By influencing the factors of victimization, society can reduce it and thereby influence crime.

Three groups of situations based on the behavior of the victim

Situations preceding a crime in which the victim’s actions:

1. are provocative in nature, contain a reason for committing criminal acts (violence, etc.). This is illegal and/or immoral behavior.

2. are careless in nature, thereby creating favorable conditions for committing a crime (for example, leaving personal belongings unattended in places where the possibility of their theft is relatively high).

3. are lawful, but cause illegal behavior of the criminal (for example, correct criticism of a person who behaves tactlessly in a public place generates violence on his part towards the person who made the remark).

Who is most likely to become a victim of crime?

Specific individuals may be destined to become victims of crime due to:

firstly, their psychological and behavioral characteristics,

secondly, role specificity and group affiliation.

A psychological predisposition to become a victim presupposes the presence of the following personality traits:

• excessive gullibility
• indiscretion,
• increased temper and irritability,
• aggressiveness,
• and in behavior - a tendency towards adventurous and unrestrained actions.

This group should also include those who, having a psychological predisposition, also lead a certain lifestyle, moving among those who pose a danger to them. These are tramps, prostitutes, drug addicts, alcoholics, professional criminals.