Crime Victims An Introduction to

Victimology 8th Edition by Karmen ISBN

1133049729 9781133049722
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CHAPTER 6
VICTIMS AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM:
COOPERATION AND CONFLICT
PART I: THE POLICE

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Upon completing this chapter the student should be able:

1. To find out what the criminal justice system can accomplish in behalf of victims.
2. To become familiar with the ways that the police can serve the best interests of crime
victims.
3. To uncover issues and relationships where victims and law enforcement agencies can find
themselves in conflict rather than in an alliance.
Instructor’s Manual

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

KEY TERMS
community policing defounding
misprision of a felony clearance rates
second wound cold case squads
burnout citizen’s arrest
unfounding performance measures

CHAPTER OUTLINE
VICTIMS VERSUS THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

WHAT DO VICTIMS WANT: PUNISHMENT? TREATMENT? RESTITUTION?

Make “Them” Suffer
Make “Them” Get Better
Make “Them” Pay Back

VICTIMS AND THE POLICE

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

CHAPTER OVERVIEW
Criminologists study the operations of the criminal justice system. They investigate how
the criminal justice system handles offenders—suspects, defendants, convicts, probationers,
inmates, and parolees.
Victimologists explore how the system handles victims: how the police respond to
complainants; how prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges treat these witnesses for the state;
and how corrections, probation, and parole officials react to special requests by victims.
Sociologists who analyze social institutions from the functionalist perspective point out the
criminal justice system is supposed to serve as the first line of defense for innocent, law-abiding
people against the depredations of the “criminal element.” In other words, the system ought to
help victims recover from the harm inflicted by offenders. Not all agree with this philosophy.

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Part I: The Police

Those who adopt the “conflict” perspective believe the various agencies acting primarily in their
own best interests.
The criminal justice system is one branch of government that comes under scathing
attack from all political quarters. Conservative crime control proponents, treatment-oriented
liberals, civil libertarians, civil rights activists, feminists, and victim advocates—all find fault
with its procedures and principles. Over the past few decades, even some officials who run its
agencies and shape its daily operations have joined the chorus of critics calling for change.
However, there is disagreement over how to reform the system.
Rather than seeking to reform the criminal justice system, the victim rights movement has
sought empowerment. This means the ability of victims to have some input into important
decisions at every step in the criminal justice process, from initially filing a complaint with the
police up to the release of the offender from custody, probation, or parole. Empowerment would
enable the injured parties to exercise their “agency”—taking actions in pursuit of outcomes that
embody their sense of fair play, self-interest, and desire for closure.
Victims can pursue one or a combination of three distinct goals. These goals include
seeing to it offenders who act as predators are punished (retribution), having experts help
wrongdoers become decent, productive, law-abiding citizens (rehabilitation), and seeking to be
repaid for monetary losses and/or injuries (restitution).
Law enforcement agencies are the first representatives in the criminal justice system
victims encounter in the immediate aftermath of crime. If their cases are not solved with an
arrest, then police officers in metropolitan areas and sheriff’s departments in rural areas will be
the only criminal justice professionals with whom victims have contact.
Criminal justice authorities want people to report crime. Officials fear if potential
offenders believe their intended victims won’t complain to the authorities, then the deterrent
effect of the risk of getting caught and punished is weakened. NCVS data shows certain types of
incidents are more likely to be reported than others, and particular groups of people are more
inclined than others to bring their complaints to the attention of the authorities.
When victims call for help, they want officers to spring into action immediately. To meet
this challenge, most police departments have 911 emergency systems. Incoming calls have to be
prioritized by dispatchers who determine each one’s degree of urgency. Obviously, reports
about critical situations—such as screams for help in the night or concerns about prowlers or
shots fired—merit a higher priority than calls about cars that have disappeared from their parking
spots. Detectives need the continuing cooperation of persons who have reported crimes, for
without their help, these cases will be more difficult to solve. Two areas of conflict between
victims and the police can arise at the complaint investigation stage. First, the uniformed
officers and detectives who respond to the calls for assistance might seem remote, uninvolved,
maybe even unconcerned about the victim’s plight. Second, the police may conclude the
complainants’ charges lack credibility and consequently discontinue their hunt for clues and
suspects.
When people fill out a complaint form in a police station, they want officers to accept
without question their version of what transpired. From a detective’s point of view, however, it
may be a necessary part of the job to maintain some healthy skepticism and handle complainants
as “presumptive” victims until they pass a credibility test to weed out those whose stories are

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Instructor’s Manual

bogus. It is always possible the person alleging to be a bona fide victim is making a fraudulent
claim for some ulterior purpose, or might fail to reveal their own role in facilitating,
precipitating, or provoking the crime. People might falsely swear they were harmed by criminals
for a number of reasons.
“Unfounding” is a process in which the police reject a person’s claim about being harmed
by a criminal as unbelievable or at least improvable in court. “Defounding” means detectives
believe an offense really did take place but it was not as serious as the complainant described it.
When victims formally lodge complaints, they expect action in the form of a thorough
investigation culminating in an arrest and the collection of evidence in a legally admissible
manner that will hold up in court. However, the UCR reports during the twenty-first century,
police departments are having more trouble than ever in solving cases, despite breakthroughs in
forensic science (like DNA identification), the proliferation of surveillance cameras, and the
establishment of computerized databases of known offenders and their fingerprints. This means
most victims of property crimes and many who suffered interpersonal violence will wind up
feeling defeated by the lack of closure in their cases.
Data from 2006 reveals police forces nationwide are more successful at solving violent
crimes, which are more serious and threatening, than property crimes. However, eighty-three
percent of larceny complainants, eighty-seven percent of vehicle theft victims, and eighty-seven
percent of burglary complainants were frustrated because their offenders escaped the long arm of
the law. Similarly, seventy-five percent of the individuals who reported robberies also
experienced the aggravation of learning no one was apprehended for accosting them.

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 Chapter 6: Victims and the Criminal Justice System
Part I: The Police

MEDIA SUGGESTIONS
The Brave One
Victim doesn’t get help from the police and seeks revenge themselves

Eye for an Eye

Same as above

DISCUSSION TOPICS

1. Pull a crime story from your local paper. Discuss with the class if you were the victim of
this crime whether you would seek punishment, rehabilitation, or restitution (or a
combination of these) in this particular case.

2. Victimologists refer to poor police communication and behavior towards victims as a

‘secondary victimization’. What are the particular harms a victim may experience with a
bad police encounter.

3. Are the demands of victims in terms of expectations of police departments unrealistic?

Provide arguments from both the perspective of the police departments (consider resources
and personnel) and victims.

4. Why are crimes more difficult to clear than thirty years ago? How might recent
technology assist in bringing the clearance rates back up?

STUDENT ACTIVITIES
1. Interview a police officer about victim relations. Develop a set of five questions from
information in this chapter. Turn in a transcript from this interview along with your
analysis of what you discovered from it.

2. Interview a victim of a property crime and a violent crime. Did they report the crime to the
police? Where they satisfied with how the police handled their case? What, if anything,
do they wish the police would have done differently?

3. Develop a resource booklet for a specific group victims in your local area. For example,
for victims of robbery where can they go for assistance with financial compensation,
hospitalization costs, or counseling? Be sure to call each victim-oriented program to be
clear on what services they provide.

4. Write an analysis of the current websites for three local police departments. What
information is available for victims? Try to navigate through this information to determine
whether it would be difficult or easy for a victim. Are there any barriers to victims
receiving these services? For example, what if the victim did not have transportation? Or
if the victim did not speak English? Or if the victim was a caregiver for an elderly person?

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