Identifying the Impact of Crime on Victims
Being the victim of a crime can leave painful, permanent scars. These scars can be physical, emotional, and financial.
Physical scars
According to the National Crime Victimization Survey (a survey administered annually by the Bureau of Justice Statistics as a way to measure crime), approximately 1.2 million violent crimes occurred in the United States in 2019. That’s 7.3 victims for every 1,000 citizens over the age of 12. (For more on the National Crime Victimization Survey, check out Chapter 3.)
Many of the injuries resulting from crime — which range from bruises to death — require medical care. The physical pain can last for months, years, or even a lifetime. For example, you’ve no doubt seen news reports of gang members or armed robbers firing their weapons at particular people (like rival gang members) and hitting innocent bystanders. Such victims may suffer lifelong debilitating injuries. But sometimes physical injuries are just a small part of the total story.
Emotional effects
Crime creates ongoing fear in people who are victimized. Out of fear, victims often alter their lifestyles dramatically, and a life lived in fear isn’t a full life. Imagine a rape victim who becomes so afraid of another attack that she won’t leave her home at night or go anywhere without a companion.
Beyond fear, victims may suffer very serious psychological effects, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Someone suffering from PTSD may endure bouts of depression, severe anxiety, and difficulty with relationships.
Kids and spouses who are victimized by people they love are particularly susceptible to this psychological pain, often because of their dependence on the abuser. The psychological effects of abuse over a long period of time can sometimes exceed those of a one-time assault by a stranger.
In addition to the fear and psychological pain that many victims of violence feel, I must also mention the grief that victims’ family members endure as their loved ones suffer serious injury or death. I personally have shed tears with families of murder victims who miss their loved ones and struggle to make sense of the tragedies. They face a torrent of emotions from anger to despondency, and sometimes there’s no way to console them.
Although I’ve known some exceptional victim advocates, they can only do so much to help a victim deal with the lengthy, harsh reality of the criminal justice system (see the “Support of victim advocates” section later in this chapter for more info). Some of the greatest acts of courage I’ve seen have come from crime victims who were willing to endure the long process so that others wouldn’t be victimized like they were.
Economic loss
The cost of crime in the United States is difficult to quantify, but a low-end estimate puts the cost near $690 billion annually, which comes out to more than $2,000 per citizen. Some criminologists refer to this cost as a “crime tax” because of its negative effect on the economy. This $690 billion figure includes lost wages and productivity, property loss, medical bills, an estimate of the cost of pain and suffering, and long-term disability costs.
If the cost of crime in the aggregate is too overwhelming, consider the cost to an individual such as a victim in a convenience store robbery who takes a bullet in the chest. He may not have health insurance to cover the hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. He probably doesn’t have disability insurance to keep providing an income while he’s in the hospital, either. If his wife has a job, she may have to take time off to care for him, which means they’ll lose some, if not all, of her income, too. Because of crime, a family can quickly suffer economic disaster through no fault of their own.
Pinpointing Who Is Likely to Be Victimized
In Part 3, I discuss theories about why offenders commit crime, but criminologists also study why some people are more likely to become victims. Not surprisingly, who you are, where you live, and what kinds of activities you engage in play a huge part in whether you’re likely to become a crime victim.
Considering personal characteristics
The following personal characteristics have been linked to victimization in some way or another:
Age: Your age is a significant factor primarily because so many crimes are committed by young men (see Chapter 11 for more on the link between age and criminality). Thus, people who hang out in the same places that young men do are much more likely to be victimized. Someone between the ages of 20 and 24 is more than twice as likely to be the victim of a violent crime as a person older than 65. Generally speaking, the older you get, the safer you are.However, as people become elderly, they do become more susceptible to property crimes, such as fraud and theft. Scam artists throughout the world focus their energy on identifying older folks whom they can easily confuse and defraud. (For a more detailed discussion of property crimes, turn to Chapter 6.)
Race: Does a person’s race play a role in victimization? Here are some facts about the link between race and victimization in 2019:For all violent crimes in 2019, African Americans were slightly less likely to be victimized than whites.Asian Americans were the least likely to suffer violence.Considering all types of serious crimes, including property crimes, Hispanics were the most likely to be victimized. However, between blacks, Hispanics, and whites, the difference in victimization was small, less than .3 percent in 2019.Most criminologists agree that these race victimization stats reflect a number of complicated factors. For example, each community where certain racial or ethnic groups are more likely to live has its own characteristics. And each racial and ethnic group experiences its own cultural trends regarding two-parent homes, income disparities, identification with gangs, and so on.In Chapter 13, I discuss societal factors that