Highlights
The overlap between victims and offenders is substantial. For violent crimes such as homicide, most victims have been offenders.
In Chattanooga, for example, more than half of all shooting victims in 2015 had criminal histories with a violent crime or gun charge.
One study found that violent offending increases risk for victimization by 68% in neighborhoods where the street code of violence is strong.
Another study found that victims of violence are 55% more likely than non-victims to commit a violent crime.
Most violent crime victims know their offenders.
Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Retired federal senior spokesperson. Thirty-five years of directing award-winning public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of criminology and public affairs-University of Maryland, University College. Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Certificate of Advanced Study-Johns Hopkins University. Former police officer. Aspiring drummer.
Article (rearranged and edited quotes from the study)
Yes, the average big-city cop will say that they are already aware of the relationship between violent victims and violent offenders.
Nevertheless, the rest of the world probably doesn’t get the connection.
The article below is based on a report from the National Institute Of Justice of the US Department of Justice (link at bottom). It focuses on the lack of services for those victimized by violent crime. Temple University conducted the study.
There are a variety of projects addressing emergency room responses to victims of violence in the hope of providing services to break the cycle of retaliatory violence, Programs Serving Violent Victims.
Little attention is paid to research or policy consequences for offender-victims.
Shooting victims are often children and young adults. In Philadelphia, the study setting, every year there are roughly 1,200 shootings. Deep poverty is high, contributing to the culture of violence and victimization, the study report noted.
The Study
Eligible study subjects were men and women, between ages 18 and 40, who had suffered a violent injury in a street crime within 12 months of study recruitment. The researchers focused on injuries serious enough to warrant hospital treatment — whether or not the victim sought or received such treatment.
Victim status — separate from offender status — was an eligibility criterion of the study. The Temple team reported, however, that an overwhelming majority of participating victims were found to be represented in the victim-offender overlap (emphasis added).
On average, participants had been arrested 3.6 times.
Excluding the handful of subjects with no arrest record, the participant average was six arrests.
The study data established that in half of all incidents when police were called and responded to a violent crime, that police response was associated with better odds of receipt of any of the four victim services — or more precisely, that police non-response is associated with worse odds of receipt of victim services. Yet again, even counting incidents in which police responded, in the end only 16% of the sample accessed any of the four key services.
Repeat Victimizations Are 50 Percent of All Violent Victimization (separate study)
From 2005 to 2014, an average of 3.2 million persons age 12 or older experienced one or more nonfatal violent victimizations each year per the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
About 1 in 5 of these victims (19 percent) experienced repeat victimization, defined as two or more violent victimizations during the year.
Repeat victims accounted for a disproportionate percentage of all violent victimizations that occurred each year.
In 2014, 19 percent of violent crime victims who experienced repeat victimization accounted for 50 percent of all violent victimizations, Bureau Of Justice Statistics.
Most Crime Victims Know Their Offenders (separate study)
The majority of violent crime happens between people who know each other. Strangers committed about 1.8 million nonfatal violent crimes, or about 38 percent of all nonfatal violent victimizations, Bureau Of Justice Statistics. The percentage will change from year to year but what doesn’t change is the fact that most violent crime involves people you know.
Conclusions
There have been endless discussions as to a public health approach to violent crime from violence interrupters to social work programs to emergency room-hospital interventions to break the cycle of violence. Most have little evidence that they work, Crime Solutions.Gov.
Liks cops, violence interrupters go where the violent criminals are (i.e., high crime areas-hospitals). They offer an array of services looking to interrupt the cycle of violence. Looking at the “effective” or “promising” ratings of Crime Solutions. Gov, there are strategies (see violence prevention) that “may” work while acknowledging that the evidence is scanty.
But histories of mental health, PTSD, brain damage, child and substance use may be (and probably are) reasons that make those contemplating retaliatory violence tough nuts to crack through interventions, Mental Illness And Related Issues.
Most violent victims know their offenders.
Those victimized by violence often have histories of arrests and violence. Either from a public health or investigative perspective, knowing who they are (medical or mental health providers cannot supply that information) via police reports becomes important.
The problem is that only 41 percent of violent crimes are reported to law enforcement.
The other issue is repeat victimizations (an average of 3.2 million persons yearly). Constant victimization may be connected with retaliation.
But if we are going to consider a public health approach or investigative perspective to victimization, going to where the offenders are makes sense.
Source
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