Victimology4
Moonpie
5 Victims’ Contributions to the Crime Problem
CHAPTER OUTLINE The Ongoing Controversy over Shared Responsibility
Repeat and Chronic Victims: Learning from Past Mistakes?
Victim Facilitation, Precipitation, and Provocation How Many Burglaries Are Victim-Facilitated? Victim Precipitation and Provocation The Frequency of Shared Responsibility in Violent Crimes Recognizing Complete Innocence and Full Responsibility
Victim Blaming versus Victim Defending
Victim Blaming Victim Defending
Victim Facilitation and Auto Theft: Is it the Careless Who Wind Up Carless?
Stealing Cars for Fun and Profit Patterns and Trends in Motor Vehicle Theft Which Motorists Should Be Most ConcernedWhen Parking? Blaming the Victim for Facilitating the Crime
Stolen Identities: Which Thefts Are Victim- Facilitated, and Which Precautions Are Reasonable?
The Nature of the Problem and How Many People Experience Its Aggravations
Losses and Suffering
Who Faces the Greatest Risks? Laws and Law Enforcement Blaming Victims for Ignoring Risk-Reduction Strategies Victim Defending: Facilitation Is Not the Heart of the Problem
Transcending Victim Blaming and Victim Defending
The Legal Importance of Determining Responsibility
Summary
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary
Questions for Discussion and Debate
Critical Thinking Questions
Suggested Research Topics
LEARNING OBJECTIVES To realize why the concept of shared responsibility is
so controversial.
To understand the distinctions between victim facili- tation, precipitation, and provocation.
To recognize victim-blaming and victim-defending arguments.
continued
119
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
The first few criminologists drawn to the study ofvictims were enthusiastic about the concept of shared responsibility as a possible explanation for why a particular person was harmed by a certain offender. By raising questions previous researchers had overlooked about victim proneness, individual vulnerability, and personal accountability for one’s misfortunes, they believed they were developing a more complete explanation about why laws are broken and people get hurt. But they also touched off a controversy within victimology that still rages today.
Throughout this chapter, arguments from both sides of the debate over shared responsibility will be presented in a balanced manner. First, the concepts of facilitation, precipitation, and pro- vocation will be introduced. Then, evidence from research into the issue of shared responsibility will be examined. After a general discussion of “victim blaming” and “victim defending,” the debate between these two schools of thought will be
explored in two specific areas: whether certain motorists whose cars were driven away thought- lessly facilitated the thefts, and whether some indi- viduals whose identities were “stolen” carelessly contributed to their own financial troubles.
Next, the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of the victim-blaming and victim-defending perspec- tives will be underscored by the presentation of a third approach, “system blaming.” The chapter will con- clude with a discussion of the importance of the ques- tion of shared responsibility within the legal system.
THE ONGOING CONTROVERSY OVER SHARED RESPONSIBILITY
Until victimology emerged, mainstream criminol- ogy had consistently ignored the role that injured parties might play in setting the stage for lawless behavior. Victimologists have pledged to correct this imbalance by objectively examining all kinds of situations to determine whether people who were harmed might have played a part in their own downfall.
Thus, victimologists have gone beyond offender-oriented explanations that attribute law- breaking solely to the exercise of free will by the wrongdoer. Victimologists suggest that certain criminal incidents be viewed as the outgrowths of a process of interaction between two parties. What has emerged is a dynamic model that takes into account initiatives and responses, actions and reac- tions, and each participant’s motives and intentions.
Several expressions coined by the pioneers of victimology capture their enthusiasm for examining interactions: the “duet frame of reference” (Von Hentig, 1941), the “penal couple” (Mendelsohn, 1956), and the “doer–sufferer relationship” (Ellen- berger, 1955). Reconstructing the situation preced- ing the incident can provide a more balanced and complete picture of what happened, who did what to whom and why, and thereby represents an improvement over earlier one-sided, static, perpetrator-centered accounts (Fattah, 1979).
LEARNING OBJECTIVES continued
To become acquainted with the suffering of people whose homes are burglarized.
To become familiar with the situation of people whose cars are stolen.
To be able to apply the concepts of victim facilitation, victim blaming, and victim defending to automobile theft.
To become familiar with the aggravation arising from identity theft.
To be able to apply the concepts of victim facilitation, victim blaming, and victim defending to identity theft.
To realize what is at stake in the debate between victim blamers and victim defenders.
To be able to see the institutional roots of crime, which overshadow the victim’s role.
To appreciate how the issue of shared responsibility impacts the operations of the criminal justice system.
120 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
A well-known line of inquiry (albeit a contro- versial one) within criminology centers on the differences, if any, between lawbreakers and law- abiding people. Criminologists ask, “What is ‘wrong’ with them? Are there physical, mental, or cultural differences that distinguish offenders from the rest of us?” Why are some groups of people (for example, young men from impoverished families) at a greater risk of getting caught up in street crimes than are other groups (say, wealthy elderly women)? In a similar vein, victimologists ask, “What distinguishes victims from nonvictims? Do individuals who get targeted think or act differently from those who don’t?” Furthermore, why are some groups of people (again, poor, young men) much more likely to be victimized (killed, shot, stabbed, beaten, or robbed) than other groups (once more, wealthy elderly women)?
Just posing these questions immediately raises the possibility of shared responsibility. Victimologists have borrowed the terminology of the legal system, traditionally used to describe criminal behavior, to describe the motives and actions of victims as well. The words responsibility, culpability, guilt, and blame crop up routinely in studies based on a dynamic, sit- uational model of interactions between two people. In the broadest sense, the concept of shared respon- sibility implies that certain victims along with their offenders did something wrong. Just adopting this framework contends that some—but certainly not all—of the individuals whowere hurt or experienced losses did not do all they could have done to reduce their odds or limit their exposure to dangerous indi- viduals or threatening circumstances.
In retrospect, certain victims can be criticized for failing to heed warning signs or take precautions:
■ A motorist shows no concern about where he parks his car, even though he knows that it ranks high on the list of most frequently stolen vehicles.
■ A college student tosses out bank statements and credit card bills without worrying whether personal information in them will end up in the wrong hands.
■ A woman gets drunk at a party even though she is among complete strangers.
■ A young man receives death threats from an adversary yet refuses to turn to the authorities for help.
Similarly, certain injured parties might be faulted for overlooking signs of an impending attack:
■ A car owner is awakened by the wail of an alarm but doesn’t check to see if his vehicle is being broken into.
■ A resident hears sounds of a prowler in the back- yard but disregards the threat of home invasion.
■ A drunk in a bar is staring at a patron who recklessly stares right back.
Victimized offenders surely bear some respon- sibility for the assaults directed against them: mobsters, drug dealers, and street gang members readily come to mind. Because their conduct antag- onized their rivals, they are largely to blame for their troubles. But what about the vast majority of innocent victims who lived law-abiding lives before they were targeted? Perhaps some behaved foolishly and later regretted their recklessness. For others, their only shortcoming was that they acted care- lessly and paid a price for their negligence. They failed to abide by well-meaning advice and decided to take their chances. In sum, instead of minimizing the risks they faced, certain individuals maximized them by making bad choices. Following this line of thought, many victims can be faulted to some degree. The circumstances under which they were harmed were partly of their own making. The unfortunate events that befell them could have been avoided—at least in hindsight.
The quest for evidence of shared responsibility captivated the first criminologists who became interested in victim behavior. Leading figures encouraged colleagues to focus upon the possibility of shared responsibility in their research and theo- rizing. Some of their statements excerpted from studies that appeared decades ago are assembled in Box 5.1.
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 121
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
Repeat and Chronic Victims: Learning from Past Mistakes?
One day in October, a woman hears someone banging on her front door. She opens it and sees her neighbor, a 21-year-old man, lying on his back. He pleads, “Call 911, I’m dying.” The ambulance rushes the man to a nearby hospital, but he is dead on arrival. Detectives discover that he had been shot at on two different occasions a few days apart back in July, and briefly hospitalized from the sec- ond attack. However, the alleged assassin in those
two prior armed assaults was in jail awaiting trial at the time of the third shooting. (Koehler, 2011)
Researchers looking for clear-cut cases of shared responsibility often focus on individuals who have suffered a series of thefts or attacks. Offenders seem to set their sights on certain indivi- duals and households more than once during a given period of time. “Repeat victims” are bur- dened twice. Suffering three or more times qualifies one for the title of “chronic victim.” Having been a victim in the past turns out to be the single best predictor of becoming harmed again in that very
B O X 5.1 Expressions of Support during Victimology’s Early Years for Inquiries into the Victim’s Role
■ A real mutuality frequently can be observed in the connection between the perpetrator and the victim, the killer and the killed, the duper and the duped. The vic- tim in many instances leads the evildoer into tempta- tion. The predator is, by varying means, prevailed upon to advance against the prey. (Von Hentig, 1941, p. 303)
■ In a sense, the victim shapes and molds the criminal. Although the final outcome may appear to be one-sided, the victim and criminal profoundly work upon each other, right up until the last moment in the drama. Ultimately, the victim can assume the role of determi- nant in the event. (Von Hentig, 1948, p. 384)
■ Criminologists should give as much attention to “victi- mogenesis” as to “criminogenesis.” Every person should know exactly to what dangers he is exposed because of his occupation, social class, and psychological consti- tution. (Ellenberger, 1955, p. 258)
■ The distinction between criminal and victim, which used to be considered as clear-cut as black and white, can become vague and blurred in individual cases. The lon- ger and the more deeply the actions of the persons involved are scrutinized, the more difficult it occasion- ally will be to decide who is to blame for the tragic outcome. (Mannheim, 1965, p. 672)
■ In some cases, the victim initiates the interaction, and sends out signals that the receiver (doer) decodes, triggering or generating criminal behavior in the doer. (Reckless, 1967, p. 142)
■ Probation and parole officers must understand victim– offender relationships. The personality of the victim, as a cause of the offense, is oftentimes more pertinent than that of the offender. (Schultz, 1968, p. 135)
■ Responsibility for one’s conduct is a changing concept, and its interpretation is a true mirror of the social, cultural, and political conditions of a given era … Notions of criminal responsibility most often indicate the nature of societal interrelationships and the ideology of the ruling group in the power structure. Many crimes don’t just happen to be committed—the victim’s negligence, precipitative actions, or provoca- tions can contribute to the genesis of crime … The victim’s functional responsibility is to do nothing that will provoke others to injure him, and to actively seek to prevent criminals from harming him. (Schafer, 1968, pp. 4, 144, 152)
■ Scholars have begun to see the victim not just as a passive object, as the innocent point of impact of crime on society, but as sometimes playing an active role and possibly contributing to some degree to his own victimization. During the last 30 years, there has been considerable debate, speculation, and research into the victim’s role, the criminal–victim relationship, the con- cept of responsibility, and behaviors that could be con- sidered provocative. Thus, the study of crime has taken on a more realistic and more complete outlook. (Viano, 1976, p. 1)
■ There is much to be learned about victimization pat- terns and the factors that influence them. Associated with the question of relative risk is the more specific question (of considerable importance) of victim partici- pation, since crime is an interactional process. (Parson- age, 1979, p. 10)
■ Victimology also postulates that the roles of victim and victimizer are neither fixed nor assigned, but are
122 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
same way—or by some other perpetrator or from some other type of offense. Furthermore, the greater the number of prior victimizations, the higher the likelihood will be of trouble in the near future. Revictimization often takes place soon after the ini- tial incident, and then the risks begin to decline as time passes. All these incidents are most likely to break out in very localized high-crime areas, dubbed “hot spots.” Just as a great many crimes can be traced back to just a few perpetrators, a relatively small number of individuals—termed “hot dots”— often suffer the brunt of these attacks. If the
police can recognize these recurring patterns by applying their knowledge of the suspected offen- ders, the likely scenes of the crimes, and the probable targets, then they can become effective guardians to head off further trouble (Pease and Laycock, 1996).
Just as criminals have careers in which they offend in various ways over the years, those on the receiving end might also be said to endure “victim careers” over the course of their lifetimes. The career consists of the frequency, duration, and seriousness of the hurtful experiences suffered by
mutable and interchangeable, with continuous move- ment between the two roles.... This position, under- standably, will not be welcomed by those who, for a variety of practical or utilitarian reasons, continue to promote the popular stereotypes of victims and victi- mizers, according to which the two populations are as different as black and white, night and day, wolves and lambs. (Fattah, 1991, p. xiv)
Calls for Research into the Victim’s Role in Specific Crimes
■ Murder: In many crimes, especially criminal homicide, which usually involves intense personal interaction, the victim is often a major contributor to the lawless act.... Except in cases in which the victim is an innocent bystander and is killed in lieu of an intended victim, or in cases in which a pure accident is involved, the victim may be one of the major precipitating causes of his own demise. (Wolfgang, 1958, pp. 245, 264)
■ Rape: The offender should not be viewed as the sole “cause” and reason for the offense, and the “virtuous” rape victim is not always the innocent and passive party. The role played by the victim and its contribution to the perpetration of the offense becomes one of the main interests of the emerging discipline of victimol- ogy. Furthermore, if penal justice is to be fair it must be attentive to these problems of degrees of victim responsibility for her own victimization. (Amir, 1971, pp. 275–76)
■ Theft: Careless people set up temptation–opportunity situations when they carry their money or leave their valuables in a manner which virtually invites theft by pickpocketing, burglary, or robbery. Carelessness in
handling cash is so persistently a part of everyday living that it must be deemed almost a national habit.... Because victim behavior today is conducive to crimi- nality, it will be necessary to develop mass educational programs aimed at changing that behavior. (Fooner, 1971, pp. 313, 315)
Victims cause crime in the sense that they set up the opportunity for the crime to be committed. By changing the behavior of the victim and potential victim, the crime rate can be reduced. Holders of fire insurance policies must meet fire safety standards, so why not require holders of theft insurance to meet security standards? (Jeffrey, 1971, pp. 208–209)
■ Burglary: In the same way that criminologists compare offenders with nonoffenders to understand why a per- son commits a crime, we examined how the burglary victim and nonvictim differ in an attempt to understand the extent to which a victim vicariously contributes to or precipitates a break-in. (Waller and Okihiro, 1978, p. 5)
■ Auto theft: Unlike most personal property, which is preserved behind fences and walls, cars are constantly moved from one exposed location to another; and since autos contain their own means of locomotion, potential victims are particularly responsible for varying the degree of theft risk by where they park and by the occasions they provide for starting the engine. The role of the victim is especially conse- quential for this crime; many cases of auto theft appear to be essentially a matter of opportunity. They are victim-facilitated. (McCaghy, Giordano, and Henson, 1977, p. 369)
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 123
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
a person from childhood until death. The total number of incidents, the date of their onset, their timing (bunching up or spreading out), and the nature of the injuries and losses sustained as they grow older might be gained by interviewing people and asking them to try to recall all their misfortunes retrospectively. Another approach would involve periodically reinterviewing them or an entire birth cohort every few years as part of an ongoing longi- tudinal study. The goal would be to empower these individuals to reduce their risks of future turmoil, to improve social support programs and police inter- ventions intended to help them, and to further the development of victim-centered theories that explain the disproportionate burdens certain per- sons endure (Farrell et al., 2001).
One implication of this focus on revictimiza- tion and victim careers is that particular individuals might be making the same mistakes over and over again. Maybe they periodically permit their judg- ment to become clouded by drinking too much in taverns, or by failing to safeguard their personal property, or by allowing themselves to become isolated from bystanders who could intervene in their behalf, or by hanging out with persons known to be armed and dangerous. The most well-documented examples include bank branches suffering holdups frequently, residences being bur- glarized a number of times, battered wives getting struck repeatedly, and bullied children picked on by a series of tormentors. Yet their unfortunate track records may not be entirely their fault, according to crime analysts working on behalf of police depart- ments who look for patterns that may indicate where offenders will strike next and precisely whom they might target. These analysts have come up with two primary reasons to account for repeat victimizations: a boost explanation that focuses on offender talents, and a flag explanation that emphasizes target vulnerability (see Weisel, 2005).
Boost explanations of repeat victimizations point out that career criminals gain important infor- mation about the people and places they repeatedly attack based on firsthand knowledge from the suc- cessful perpetration of their initial illegal act. They
use this inside information to plan their next attack against the same target. Examples of boost explana- tions would be that burglars learn when a particular home is unoccupied, or how to circumvent a certain warehouse’s alarm system. Car thieves figure out how to open the door of a specific make and model of car without a key. Robbers discover where a storekeeper hides his cash right before clos- ing time. In contrast, flag explanations of repeat vic- timizations are victim-centered. They point out that unusually vulnerable or attractive targets might suf- fer the depredations of a number of different offen- ders as opposed to the same criminal over and over. For example, apartments with sliding glass doors are easily broken into, convenience stores that are open around the clock are always accessible to shoplifters, and taxi drivers and pizza deliverers are particularly easy to rob (Weisel, 2005).
Victim Facilitation, Precipitation, and Provocation
The notions of victim facilitation, precipitation, and provocation are derived from the broader theme of shared responsibility. Each concept describes the specific, identifiable, blameworthy actions taken by certain individuals immediately before they were harmed. Provocation is the most serious charge that can be leveled at an injured party, while facilitation is the least serious. Unfortunately, these three terms have been used somewhat loosely and inconsistently by criminologists and victimolo- gists to the point that important distinctions have been blurred or buried.
Victim Facilitation The term facilitation ought to be reserved for situations in which victims care- lessly and inadvertently make it easier for a thief to steal. Those who negligently and unwittingly assist their offenders share a minor amount of blame. They increase the risks of losing their own property by their thoughtless actions. If it is assumed that many thieves were already on the prowl, looking for opportunities to grab and run, then facilitation is not a major reason why a crime took place. Facili- tation is more like a catalyst in a chemical reaction
124 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
that, given the right ingredients and conditions, speeds up the interaction. Facilitating victims attract criminally inclined people to their poorly guarded possessions and thereby influence the spatial distri- bution of crime, but not the number of incidents.
Auto theft and burglary are the two property crimes most often cited in studies of the problem of facilitation. A motorist who exits his vehicle but leaves the engine running can be considered blame- worthy if a juvenile joyrider seizes the opportunity and impulsively hops behind the wheel and drives off. Similarly, a ransacked home is the price a person might pay for neglecting to observe standard security measures. A residential burglary can be considered to be facilitated if the intruder did not need to break into the premises because a homeowner or apart- ment dweller had left a front door, back door, garage door, or window wide open or unlocked. By defini- tion, these burglaries are not break-ins; they are acts of trespass by intruders seeking to commit thefts.
How Many Burglaries Are Victim-Facilitated?
Burglaries are the most common of all serious crime tracked by the FBI. Larcenies (thefts of all kinds) are more numerous but many result merely in minor losses (petty larcenies). Burglaries are particularly upsetting and a source of emotional harm because the intruder violates the victim’s private and per- sonal space, and fears about the threat of a surprise return visit can linger for a long time.
In 2010, residents of 2.9 million households told NCVS interviewers that someone had tried or had succeeded in entering their home to steal things. Nearly 2.1 million burglaries were reported to police departments across the nation that same year (roughly 25 percent of those were of commercial establish- ments and government agencies, not residences; how- ever, many completed as well as attempted residential burglaries were not brought to the attention of the police). Burglars carted off an estimated $4.6 billion in stolen goods, yielding an average loss of over $2,000 per incident, according to the UCR for 2010.
Single-family homes are more attractive to burglars than apartments, condominiums, and
other multifamily residences because private houses have more access points and are more difficult to secure, and often contain greater rewards. How- ever, private homeowners can take their own initiatives to protect their possessions, and usually have both the incentive and the resources to do so. Intrusions are much more likely to occur during the day and on weekdays when the premises are unoccupied than on weekends and at night. Besides preferring to strike when no one is at home, it appears that burglars select targets that are familiar to them and convenient (often close to their own homes), accessible, easy to watch, and vulnerable (lacking security devices). Specifically, the most likely targets are located near potential offenders (in high crime urban neighborhoods or in the vicinity of transit hubs, shopping centers, sports are- nas, and places where young men and drug abusers congregate); either near busy thoroughfares or on the quiet outskirts of neighborhoods. Houses vacant for extended periods, homes without barking dogs, and those on corners or bordering on alleys or in secluded locations shrouded by shrubbery, walls, or fences arouse interest. Ironically, mansions with expensive cars parked outside actually dampen interest because they are more likely to remain occupied or to be protected by sophisticated secu- rity systems. Houses that were struck once are more likely to be struck again because the features that determine their attractiveness are difficult to change, because the burglar returns to remove addi- tional goods left behind during the first invasion, or because the burglar has told others about the vul- nerability of this target. Simple tools like screwdri- vers and crowbars typically are used to pry open locks, windows, and doors (Weisel, 2002).
Details about victim-facilitated burglaries appear in theNational Crime Victimization Survey.TheNCVS keeps track of three categories of household (not com- mercial) burglaries: forcible entries (break-ins), attempted forcible entries, and unlawful entries with- out force. (Attempted, unsuccessful no-force inva- sions are not counted because survey respondents usually would be unaware of these close calls.)
Throughout the 1990s and into the early years of the twenty-first century, 50 percent or more of
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 125
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
all completed burglaries reported to NCVS inter- viewers were unlawful entries without force. A reasonable implication is that the number of suc- cessful burglaries could be cut in half if residents would take greater care to lock up their homes, garages, and other entrances. If they did, burglars would have to work harder, and in some cases would be deterred, thwarted, scared off, or caught red-handed.
Some kinds of people are more likely to be “guilty” of facilitating a burglary than others, accord- ing to the breakdowns about no-force entries pre- sented in recent NCVS annual reports. The age of the head of the household turned out to be an impor- tant determinant of whether or not someone would be so thoughtless as to facilitate a burglary. Younger people were much less careful than senior citizens.
The number of people in the household mat- tered a great deal: the more people living under the same roof, the more likely carelessness would take its toll. Individuals living alone experienced fewer facilitated burglaries; households with six or more people suffered rates that were much greater. As for the race and ethnicity of the head of the household, black and Hispanic families suffered higher rates of no-force entries. Another key factor was financial: the lower-income families in the survey suffered much higher rates of no-force entries. Victims reported 44 percent of all no-force entries to the police, according to the NCVS for 2008 (BJS, 2011). But even the affluent sometimes act thoughtlessly:
Residents of an upscale urban community are jarred when they receive an e-mail from the neighborhood association alerting them that four homes in just five days experienced unlawful entries through open windows or unlocked doors. “This neighborhood is so safe, but not everybody puts on their city smarts and remembers to do the common sense thing and lock their doors,” the e-mail states. Police officers post hundreds of warning fliers and even lock several doors themselves after diamond earrings, bracelets, expen- sive watches, and electronic goods are pilfered during a crime spree by intruders who did not need to use force to enter those premises. (Robbins, 2011)
Elderly folks often talk fondly about the “good old days” when they left their doors unlocked. That practice wouldn’t be prudent these days. More and more people have become crime-conscious about residential security, according to the data assembled in Figure 5.1. Unlawful entries without force have dropped sharply over the 35-year interval, from a little more than 40 per 1,000 households down to only 12 per 1,000. The trend line shows that the rate of no-force entries reached all-time lows by 2008 (the latest figures available from the NCVS). Apparently, burglars must work harder because fewer people are making it easy for intruders to invade homes and spirit off their possessions.
About one-third of all residential and commer- cial burglaries were unlawful entries that took place without the use of physical force to break down doors or smash locks or windows, according to the UCR for 2010. Because some of these victim- facilitated burglaries were of business properties and government offices, the trend in these statistics over the years do not appear in Figure 5.1.
Figure 5.1 also shows a trend that the sellers of homeowner’s insurance and expensive security sys- tems would not want widely publicized: the risk of burglary has dropped substantially over the decades, according to both the NCVS and the UCR. The number of completed forcible entries (presumably in homes without alarm systems) tumbled by two- thirds, from about 30 per 1,000 dwellings in 1973 to a little less than 10 per 1,000 in 2008 (completed forcible entries do not appear as a separate category or trend line in Figure 5.1; they are part of the total, which includes attempted as well as completed forcible entries, plus no-force entries). The take- away message is that the preventable problem of victim facilitation has subsided substantially, and burglaries of all types are much less of a problem than they used to be.
Leaving a front door, side door, back door, sliding glass door, garage door, or window open makes a tres- passer’s tasks easier. Defending against intrusion by installing an alarm system makes an intruder’s tasks more difficult. Crime-conscious persons who have already been burglarized once, plus concerned indivi- duals who fear that they might be targeted have been
126 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
buying security systems for their residences at a rate of about 1.8 million new systems per year. Security sys- tems cost between $100 and $1200 to install (depend- ing upon their features), and monitoring services charge fees of over $400 a year. About one-fifth of all residences are guarded by alarms (Sampson, 2007).
It might be assumed that one reason why the threat of residential burglary has diminished is that more renters and owners have installed security systems—but this target hardening would not explain the simultaneous drop in murders, robber- ies, and vehicle thefts since the start of the 1990s (refer back to the discussion of the big picture in Chapter 3; some more sweeping changes in Amer- ican society must account for the “crime crash”). However, installing monitored alarms are among the most effective risk-reduction measures that former or potential victims can implement. Other effective victimization-prevention strategies include making a premise appear occupied, installing
inexpensive window bars or costly closed circuit television monitoring, or relying on barking dogs and attentive neighbors. Even the mere presence of a security company’s window sticker or lawn sign might be sufficient to deflect many would-be burglars on the prowl; they will simply seek out a more vulnerable target. The problem that arises from the widespread sale and installation of security systems is that a huge number of false alarms occur, which use up limited police resources and therefore waste taxpayers’ money. In 2002, police depart- ments across the country responded to roughly 36 million alarm activations, about 95 percent of which were false alarms, at an annual cost of $1.8 billion. Nationwide, false burglar alarm calls accounted for 10 to 25 percent of all calls for assis- tance to police departments in the early 2000s. Each alarm activation that turns out to be false wastes about 20 minutes of police time, usually for two officers. The three main causes of false alarms are
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Year
N C V S
ra te
( p
er 1
,0 00
h o
u se
h o
ld s)
U C R
r at
e (p
er 1
00 ,0
00 in
h ab
it an
ts )
19 73
19 74
19 75
19 76
19 77
19 78
19 79
19 80
19 81
19 82
19 83
19 84
19 85
19 86
19 87
19 88
19 89
19 90
19 91
19 92
19 93
19 94
19 95
19 96
19 97
19 98
19 99
20 00
20 01
20 02
20 03
20 04
20 05
20 06
20 07
20 08
20 09
20 10
0
200
400
600
1000
1400
1800
800
1200
1600 NCVS burglary rate NCVS no force entries UCR burglary rate
F I G U R E 5.1 Trends in Burglary Rates, United States, 1973–2010 NOTE: UCR figures include commercial and office burglaries. SOURCES: FBI’s UCRs 1973–2010; BJS’s NCVSs 1973–2010.
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 127
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
usererrors, faulty equipment, and improper installation; bad weather andmonitoring-centermistakes by alarm company personnel also contribute to the drain on police time. In most jurisdictions, the financial costs of responding to false alarms that repeatedly emanate from the same residential or commercial premises are not recouped by imposing fines on the crime- conscious but negligent owners. Ironically, although residential burglaries tend to be concentrated in or around poverty-stricken urban neighborhoods, the false alarms tend to come fromwell-protected affluent homes in low crime communities (Sampson, 2007).
Victim Precipitation and Provocation
A husband-and-wife team, each with a history of robbery arrests and drug abuse, embark on a dan- gerous course of action to solve their financial pro- blems. Armed with a submachine gun, they barge into storefront social clubs operated by organized crime families and seize the mobsters’ ill-gotten gains. After hitting four Mafia social clubs in different neighborhoods over three months, their highly pro- vocative and predictably short-lived crime spree comes to a sudden end on Christmas Eve. As the couple sits in their car at a traffic light on a congested street, a man walks up and shoots each robber in the head several times. Rival mob factions both claim credit for arranging the rubout until the police finally arrest one of their gangsters a dozen years later. (Rashbaum, 2005)
■ ■ ■
Two young women who seem to be intoxicated give a $50 bill to a cashier at a fast food joint. When the cashier questions its authenticity, one of the women leaps over the counter and the other goes around it. The two women curse and cuff the cashier. He grabs a metal rod and savagely beats them. Later, it is discovered that he is out on parole for killing a classmate 10 years earlier, and that one of the women may suffer permanent brain damage from being bludgeoned on the head. The cashier is fired and held on charges of felonious assault, and the two unruly customers are arrested for menacing, criminal trespass, and disorderly conduct. (Sandoval, 2011)
Victim facilitation is a possibility in burglaries, motor vehicle thefts, and other larcenies. Charges of precipitation and provocation are hurled at victims of murder, robbery, assault, and rape (see Chapter 10 for an extensive analysis). The accusation embedded in the term precipitation is that the individual who gets hurt contributed significantly to the outbreak of violence.
A charge of provocation embodies a stronger condemnation than precipitation; it accuses the loser of being more responsible than the victor for the fight that ensued. The injured party instigated an attack that would not have taken place other- wise. Someone accused of provocation goaded, challenged, or incited a generally law-abiding per- son into taking defensive measures in reaction to forceful initiatives. When the battle ended, the aggressor was the one who was wounded or killed. (Unfortunately, over the years, victimologists and criminologists have used the terms precipitation and provocation loosely, and even interchangeably, obscuring the distinction between lesser responsibil- ity for precipitation and greater responsibility for provocation.)
The first in-depth investigation of what was termed victim precipitation centered on homicides committed in Philadelphia from 1948 to 1952 (Wolfgang, 1958). Precipitation was the label applied to those cases in which the person who was killed had been the first to use force by drawing a weapon, striking the first physical blow during an argument, or in some way initiating violence to settle a dispute. Often, the victim and the offender knew each other; some had quarreled previously. Situations that incited them to violence included charges of infidelity, arguments over money, drunken brawls, and confrontations over insults or “fighting words.”
Victim-precipitated cases differed in a number of statistically significant ways from homicides in which those who were slain did not bring about their own demise. Nearly all the precipitative vic- tims were men; a sizable minority of the innocent victims were women. Conversely, few women committed homicide, but a substantial proportion
128 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
of those who did so were provoked by violent initiatives by the men they killed. Alcohol was con- sumed before most killings, especially prior to pre- cipitated slayings—usually, the victim had been drinking, not the offender.
In cases of precipitation, the one who died was more likely to have had a previous run-in with the law than in other murders. More than a third of the precipitative victims had a history of committing at least one violent offense, as opposed to one-fifth of the blameless victims.
Overall, about one murder of every four in Philadelphia from 1948 to 1952 could be labeled as victim-precipitated. Hence, in a quarter of the cases, widely held images of victims (as weak and passive individuals shrinking from confrontations) and of offenders (as strong, brutal aggressors relentlessly pursuing their prey) didn’t fit the facts as recon- structed from the police department files. In many of the victim-precipitated homicides, the character- istics of the victims closely resembled those of the offenders. In some cases, two criminally inclined people clashed, and chance alone determined which one would emerge as the winner or the loser in their final showdowns (Wolfgang, 1958).
Petty quarrels escalate into life-and-death struggles through a sequence of stages, or a series of transactions. The initial incident might be a per- sonal affront, perhaps something as minor as a slur or gesture. Both offender and victim contribute to the unfolding of such a “character contest.” As the confrontation escalates, each party attempts to “save face” at the other’s expense by hurling taunts, insults, and threats, especially if onlookers are pressuring them to fight it out (Luckenbill, 1977).
Those who lost the showdowns didn’t wel- come their fate. What might be misinterpreted as a death wish was really an adherence to the norms of a subculture of violence (see Curtis, 1974; and Wolfgang and Ferracuti, 1967). In many serious assaults, detectives often discover that both the injured party and his assailant were mutual comba- tants immersed in lifestyles that championed a willingness to use force to resolve disputes (Singer,
1986). This readiness to resort to combat to settle arguments is not a sign of psychopathology but is instead learned behavior. Lifestyles that require people to fight it out and not back down are reported to be most prevalent among Southerners (Butterfield, 1999) as well as among young men in poor, urban neighborhoods who conform to a “code of the streets” to prove their manhood and gain their peers’ respect (Anderson, 1999).
The term subintentional death is applied to situations in which those who got killed played con- tributory roles in their deaths by exercising poor judgment, taking excessive risks, or pursuing a self- destructive lifestyle (Allen, 1980). This charge—that some people want to end their emotional suffering and consciously or unconsciously enter risky situa- tions or engineer tragic events—is leveled most commonly at repeat victims. In homicide cases, the argument rests on a record of several “near misses” preceding the final violent outburst. If the deceased person’s outright dares and subliminal invitations are interpreted within this framework, victim-provoked homicide is tantamount to suicide (Mueller, in Edelhertz and Geis, 1974); it is as if a mentally disturbed individual had a death wish but could not quite carry it through without help (Wolfgang, 1959; Reckless, 1967). This assumption of hidden motives is unsympathetic to the dead people who allegedly manipulated others to kill them, and it fosters a tendency to view some victims in a harsh light—as troublemakers whose demise is not a real tragedy.
Note that according to the law, not all people wounded or killed by shootings are classified as crime victims. For example, an armed robber slain in a gun battle with a bank guard would be classi- fied as a dead offender, not a provocative victim. His demise would not be a murder but an act of justifiable homicide if the security officer acted in self-defense. Similarly, some casualties of justifiable homicides apparently committed “suicide by cop” (see Klinger, 2001) by provoking police officers to shoot them—for example, advancing in a menacing manner while brandishing an unloaded gun, and ignoring warnings of “Stop or I’ll shoot.”
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 129
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
Arrestees who are hurt by police officers using excessive force (beyond what the law allows while taking them into custody) qualify as crime victims. However, these casualties of unlawful retaliatory violence dished out on the spot by infuriated agents of the law are often condemned for having provoked the officers into using excessive force to subdue and arrest them. This image of the victim of police bru- tality as instigating an officer to beat him is reinforced if he was openly defiant and resisted arrest or even assaulted the officer. The brutality victim’s allega- tions are difficult to prove in criminal court (and in civil lawsuits) if any officers who witnessed key events abide by a “code of silence” and take part in a cover-up of misconduct—unless the incident was videotaped. Also, intense pressures to drop the bru- tality complaint are brought to bear on the injured person during plea negotiations if he was charged with crimes after suffering the injuries.
Consequently, it is difficult to assess the extent of the problem of police brutality as well as the problem of victim provocation of officers. Reliable nation- wide data and monitoring systems don’t exist. Yet charges of police brutality and countercharges of arrestee provocation must be taken seriously and investigated carefully because these divisive incidents can polarize the public, strain police–community relations, and even touch off riots.
The Frequency of Shared Responsibility in Violent Crimes
The issue of the victims’ roles in cases of street crime was systematically explored for the first time in the late 1960s by the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (NCCPV). As its name suggests, the blue-ribbon panel was search- ing for the roots of the problem and for practical remedies. If large numbers of people were found to be partly at fault for what happened to them, then changing the behavior of the general public might be a promising crime-prevention strategy. Social scien- tists working for the commission took a definition of victim precipitation derived from previous studies by criminologists and victimologists, and they applied it to four types of crimes: murders, aggravated assaults,
forcible rapes, and robberies. Then they drew a sam- ple of reports from police files from 17 cities and made a judgment in each case about whether the person who was attacked shared any responsibility with the assailant.
Victim-precipitated homicides (defined as situations in which the person who died was the first to resort to force) accounted for 22 percent of all murder cases in the 17 cities: as much as 26 percent in Philadelphia (Wolfgang, 1958), and as high as 38 percent in Chicago (Voss and Hepburn, 1968). About 14 percent of aggravated assaults were deemed to be precipitated (in which the seriously injured person was the first to use physical force or offensive language and gestures). Armed robberies were committed against precipitative individuals “who clearly had not acted with reasonable self- protective behavior in handling money, jewelry, or other valuables” in 11 percent of the holdups in the 17 cities, about the same as in a study conducted in Philadelphia (Normandeau, 1968). Only 4 percent of the forcible rapes that led to arrests were desig- nated as precipitated, in which the woman “at first agreed to sexual relations, or clearly invited them verbally and through gestures, but then retracted before the act.” However, as many as 19 percent of all sexual assaults in Philadelphia were deemed to be precipitated by females (Amir, 1967). (This controversial notion of victim-precipitated rape will be explored in Chapter 10.)
The commission concluded that instances of victim complicity were not uncommon in cases of homicide and aggravated assault, precipitation was less frequent but still empirically noteworthy in rob- bery, and the issue of shared responsibility was least relevant as a contributing factor in rapes (National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, 1969b; Curtis, 1974). Over the decades since the commission’s findings, the quest to measure victim complicity generally has fallen out of favor.
Recognizing Complete Innocence and Full Responsibility
A typology is a classification system that aids in the understanding of what a group has in common and
130 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
how it differs from others. Over the decades, victi- mologists have devised many typologies to try to illustrate the degree of shared responsibility, if any, that victims might bear in particular incidents. Some of the categories of people identified in typologies include those who are “ideal” (above criticism), “culturally legitimate and appropriate” (seen as fair game, outcasts), “deserving” (asking for trouble), “consenting” (willing), and “recidivist” (chronic) (see Fattah, 1991; also Mendelsohn, 1956; Fattah, 1967; Lamborn, 1968; Schafer, 1977; Sheley, 1979).
Up to this point, the degree of responsibility a victim might share with an offender has ranged from facilitation through precipitation to provoca- tion. But the spectrum of possibilities extends fur- ther in each direction. A typology of shared responsibility must include two more categories in order to be exhaustive. At one extreme is complete innocence. Then, after facilitation, precipitation, and provocation, the final category at the other endpoint can be labeled as full responsibility.
Several teenagers have a beef with some boys across the street. They go up to the roof of a nearby building and start shooting at the rival group using an automatic pistol. A 34-year-old mother, who is waiting to pick up her children from school, hears the sounds of gunfire and tries to shield several nearby youngsters by throwing herself on top of them. She is fatally struck in the chest, and two other bystanders are wounded by the stray bullets. (Baker and Maag, 2011)
Completely innocent individuals, such as the young mother killed in the tragedy described above, cannot be blamed for what happened to them. In some cases, they were targeted at random, and suffered simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Others were crime- conscious people who tried to avoid trouble. They did what they reasonably could to reduce the risks they faced. To avoid violence, they did nothing to attract assailants to themselves (no pre- cipitation) and nothing to instigate otherwise law- abiding people to attack them (no provocation). Blameless victims of property crimes took proactive
steps to safeguard their possessions in anticipation of the possibility of burglary, larceny, or some other form of theft. They cannot be faulted for negli- gence or even passive indifference. To make the criminals’ tasks more difficult, they “hardened their targets” by purchasing security devices and did all they could to hinder rather than help any would-be thieves attracted to their possessions (no facilitation). Of course, after the fact, it can always be argued that they did not do enough.
If taking precautions and adopting risk- reduction strategies qualifies as the basis for blame- lessness and complete innocence, then at the other extreme, total complicity becomes the defining characteristic for full responsibility. Logically, a vic- tim can be solely responsible only when there is no offender at all. Individuals who bear total responsi- bility for what happened are, by definition, really not victims at all. They suffered no harm from law- breakers and actually are offenders posing as victims for some ulterior motive. Phony complainants usu- ally seek either reimbursement from private insur- ance policies or government aid for imaginary losses. They file false claims and thereby commit fraud. For instance, someone who falls down a flight of steps might insist he was pushed by a rob- ber. Fake victims may have motives other than financial gain. Some people may pretend to have been harmed in order to cover up what really occurred. For example, a husband who gambled away his paycheck might tell his wife and detectives that he was held up on the way home.
VICTIM BLAMING VERSUS VICTIM DEFENDING
Since the 1970s, the notion of shared responsibility has become a subject of intense and sometimes bit- ter debate. Some criminologists and victimologists have expressed concern over the implications of studies into mutual interactions and reciprocal influences between the two parties. Those who raised doubts and voiced dissent might be seen as loosely constituting a different school of thought. Just as criminology (with a much longer, richer,
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 131
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
and stormier history than victimology) has recog- nizable orientations and camps within it (for exam- ple, adherents of labeling theory and conflict models), so too does victimology have its rifts and factions. To put it bluntly, a victim-blaming ten- dency clashes repeatedly with a victim-defending tendency over many specific issues. However, vic- timologists cannot simply be divided up into victim blamers and victim defenders. The situation is com- plex and people may change sides, depending on the crime or the persons involved.
Arguments that victims of crime might share responsibility with their offenders for what hap- pened due to facilitation, precipitation, and provo- cation have been characterized as victim blaming. Victim defending counters this approach by chal- lenging whether it is accurate and fair to try to hold the wounded party accountable for injuries and losses that a wrongdoer inflicted.
Two opposing ideologies might imply that there are two distinct camps, victim blamers and vic- tim defenders, but most people are inconsistent when they respond to criminal cases. They criticize specific individuals but defend others, or they find fault with certain groups of victims (for example, abusive husbands who are killed by their wives) but not other groups (such as women who are raped by their dates).
Victim Blaming
Victim blaming assumes that the offender and the victim are somehow partners in crime, and that a degree of mutuality, symbiosis, or reciprocity may exist between them (see Von Hentig, 1948). To identify such cases, both parties’ possible motives, reputations, actions, and records of past arrests and convictions must be investigated (Schultz, 1968).
Victimology, despite its aspirations toward objectivity, may harbor an unavoidable tendency toward victim blaming. It is inevitable that a careful reconstruction of the behavior of a victim before, during, and after a crime will unearth rash decisions, foolish mistakes, errors in judgment, and acts of care- lessness that, with 20–20 hindsight, can be pointed to as having brought about the unfortunate outcome.
Step-by-step analyses of actions and reactions are sure to reveal evidence of what injured parties did or failed to do that contributed to their suffering.
Victim blaming follows a three-stage thought process (see Ryan, 1971). First, the assumption is made that there is something wrong with these individuals. They are said to differ significantly from the unaffected majority in their attitudes, their behaviors, or both. Second, these presumed differences are thought to be the source of their plight. If they were like everyone else, the reason- ing goes, they would not have been targeted for attack. And third, victims are warned that if they want to avoid trouble in the future, they must change how they think and act. They must aban- don the careless, rash, or provocative patterns of behaviors that brought about their downfall.
Victim blaming is a widely held view for several reasons. It provides specific and straightforward answers to troubling questions such as, “Why did it happen?” and “Why him and not me?” Victim blam- ing also has psychological appeal because it draws upon deep philosophical and even theological beliefs. Fer- vent believers in a just world outlook—people get what they deserve before their lives end—find victim blaming a comforting notion. Bad things happen only to evil characters; good souls are rewarded for follow- ing the rules. The alternative—imagining a world governed by random events where senseless and brutal acts might afflict anyone at any time, and where wrongdoers go unpunished—is unnerving. The belief that victims must have done something neglectful, foolish, or provocative that led to their misfortunes dispels feelings of vulnerability and powerlessness, and gives the blamer peace of mind about the exis- tence of an orderly and just world (Lerner, 1965; Symonds, 1975; Lambert and Raichle, 2000).
The widely held doctrine of personal account- ability that underlies the legal system also encourages victim-blaming explanations. Just as criminals are con- demned and punished for their wrongdoing, so, too, must victims answer for their behavior before, during, and after an incident and faulted for errors in judgment that only made things worse. Such assessments of blame are grounded in the belief that individuals exer- cise a substantial degree of control over events in their
132 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
lives. They may not be totally in command, but they are not powerless or helpless pawns and should not be resigned to their fate, waiting passively to become a statistic. Just as cautious motorists should implement defensive driving techniques to minimize accidents, crime-conscious individuals are obliged to review their lifestyles and routines to enhance their personal safety. By following the advice of security experts about how to keep out of trouble, cautious and con- cerned individuals can find personal solutions to the social problem of street crime.
Victim blaming is also the view of offenders who are devoid of empathy and pity. Evidently, they are so desensitized that they do not feel the guilt, shame, remorse, or moral inhibitions that otherwise would constrain their behavior. By derogating and denigrat- ing the victim, juvenile delinquents or adult criminals can validate their hurtful acts as justifiable. Outbursts of stark cruelty and savagery become possible when the injured party is viewed as worthless, less than human, an appropriate object for venting hostility and aggression, or as an outcast deserving mistreat- ment (Fattah, 1976, 1979). According to the crimi- nological theory known as “Techniques of Neutralization,” delinquents frequently disparage their intended targets as having negative traits (“He was asking for it,” or “They are a bunch of crooks themselves”). In extreme cases, youthful offenders believe the suffering they inflict is retaliatory justice that deserves applause (“We deserve a medal for doing that”). Their consciences would burden them with pangs of guilt if they saw these same incidents in a more conventional way (see Sykes and Matza, 1957; and also Schwendinger and Schwendinger, 1967).
Defense attorneys may persuasively articulate the victim-blaming views of their clients, especially in high-profile murder cases. A “trash-the-reputation” (demonization of the deceased) approach, coupled with a “sympathy” (for the accused) defense, might succeed in swaying a jury and securing an acquittal or in convincing a judge to hand down a lesser sen- tence. For example, in cases where children slay their parents, the dead fathers and mothers may be por- trayed as vicious abusers and perverse molesters, and their offspring are portrayed as the helpless objects of adult cruelty (see Estrich, 1993b; Hoffman, 1994).
Victim Defending
Victim defending rejects the premises of victim blaming (that those who suffer are partly at fault) and challenges its recommendations (people who were targeted must change their ways to avoid future incidents). First of all, victim blaming is criticized for overstating the extent to which facilitation, precipi- tation, or provocation explains the genesis of an ille- gal act. Motivated offenders would have struck their chosen targets even if the victims had not made their tasks easier, called attention to themselves, or aroused angry reactions. Second, victim blaming is con- demned for confusing the exception with the rule and overestimating the actual proportion of cases in which facilitation, precipitation, or provocation took place. Shared responsibility is unusual, not common. A few people’s mistakes don’t justify placing most victims’ attitudes and behaviors under a cloud of sus- picion. Third, exhorting people to be more cautious and vigilant is not an adequate solution. This advice is unrealistic because it overlooks the cultural impera- tives and social conditions that largely shape lifestyles. Most people lack the opportunities and resources to alter their means of travel, their hours of work, the company they keep, the schools their children attend, or the neighborhoods in which they live. Many risk-reduction suggestions and stern admoni- tions about dos and don’ts are impractical, unrealistic, and unproven.
Over the past several decades, many victimol- ogists have embraced the tenets of victim defend- ing, and have sharply denounced crude expressions of victim blaming as examples of muddled thinking and confused reasoning about the issue of shared responsibility (see the excerpts of their arguments in Box 5.2).
Victim defending is clear about what it opposes, but it is vague about what it supports. Two tenden- cies within victim defending can be distinguished concerning who or what is to be faulted. The first can be called offender blaming. Offender blaming resists attempts to shift the burden of full respon- sibility off lawbreakers’ backs and onto victims’ shoulders. Unfortunately, victim defending coupled with offender blaming represents an inconsistent and
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 133
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
one-sided application of the doctrine of personal accountability because only the aggressor, not the target, is held responsible for the misdeed.
The second tendency is to link victim defend- ing with system blaming, wherein neither the offender nor the victim is the real culprit. To vary- ing degrees, both parties are largely products of their culture and social environment. The attitudes and behaviors of both individuals have been influ- enced by the agents of socialization—parental input, peer group pressures, subcultural prescrip- tions about what’s cool and respectable and what’s not, school experiences, media images, religious doctrines—along with criminal justice practices, economic imperatives, and many other social forces. Victim defending/system blaming is a more complex and sophisticated outlook than victim defending/offender blaming. According to this more sociological type of analysis, the roots of the crime problem are to be found in the basic institu- tions upon which the social system is built (among many others, see Franklin, 1978; and Balkan, Ber- ger, and Schmidt, 1980).
To illustrate the differences between victim blaming and victim defending coupled with
offender blaming, as well as victim defending linked to system blaming, two problem areas will be explored. First, explicit charges of victim facilitation in automobile theft will be examined. Then the focus will shift to implicit accusations that certain victims of the white-collar crime of identity theft facilitated the thieves’ tasks.
VICTIM FACILITATION AND AUTO THEFT: IS IT THE CARELESS WHO WIND UP CARLESS?
Stealing Cars for Fun and Profit
Over 600,000 households suffered a vehicle theft (or an attempted vehicle theft) during 2010, according to theNCVS. That volume of incidents translated to a rate of almost five vehicle thefts for every 1,000 households. Similarly, the UCR for 2010 indicated that police departments across the country received roughly 740,000 complaints about completed or attempted thefts of cars, vans, trucks, buses, and motorcycles from households (and also from busi- nesses and agencies, which explains why this figure
B O X 5.2 Criticisms of the Notion of Shared Responsibility
■ The concept of victim precipitation has become con- fused because it has been operationalized in too many different, often incompatible ways. As a result, it has lost much of its usefulness as an empirical and explan- atory tool. (Silverman, 1974, p. 99)
■ The study of victim precipitation is the least exact of the sociological approaches; it is part a priori guesswork and part “armchair detective fun and games” because the interpretation rests, in the final analysis, on a set of arbitrary standards. (Brownmiller, 1975, p. 353)
■ A tendency of investigators to assign responsibility for criminal acts to the victims’ behavior reinforces similar beliefs and rationalizations held by most criminals themselves.... Scientific skepticism should be main- tained regarding the concept of victim participation, especially for crimes of sudden, unexpected violence where the offender is a stranger to the victim. (Symonds, 1975, p. 22)
■ Victims of crime, long ignored but now the object of special scholarly attention, had better temper their enthusiasm because they may be more maligned than lauded, and their plight may not receive sympathetic understanding. Some victimologists have departed from the humanitarian, helping orientation of the founders of the field and have turned victimology into the art of blaming the victim. If the impression of a “legitimate victim” is created, then part of the burden of guilt is relieved from the perpetrator, and some crimes, like rape for example, can emerge as without either victims or offenders. (Weis and Borges, 1973, p. 85)
■ Victim precipitation explanations are plagued by the fallacy of circular reasoning about the cause of the crime, suffer from oversimplified stimulus–response models of human interaction, ignore incongruent facts that don’t fit the theory, and inadequately explore the
134 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
is larger than the number of vehicle thefts estimated by theNCVS), yielding a rate of nearly 240 thefts for every 100,000 inhabitants. Therefore, both official sources confirm that vehicle theft takes place much less often than larceny or burglary but is much more common than any of the serious violent crimes in the FBI’s crime index.
This problem is certainly not new—it emerged more than 100 years ago, at the dawn of the auto- mobile age. As long ago as 1919, Congress passed the Dyer Act, which authorized the FBI to investi- gate organized theft rings that drove stolen vehicles across state borders to evade local police forces with limited jurisdictions. Then, as now, cars were taken for a number of reasons.
Professional thieves steal cars for profit; joyriders take cars for a spin just for fun. Juvenile joyriding (which the law calls “unauthorized use of a motor vehicle” and treats as a delinquent act) has been a craze among teenage boys ever since cars were mar- keted with the message that owning one is a sign of manhood and a basis for independence. These ama- teurs—who seek the status, thrills, and challenge of “borrowing” cars to impress their friends—often prey upon careless motorists who leave their keys handy.
Professional thieves don’t need to rely on negli- gent drivers. It takes them just a fewminutes with the right tools to disarm alarm systems and defeat stan- dard security hardware such as door, ignition, and steering wheel locks. If necessary, they can tow away a vehicle on a flatbed truck and defeat its secu- rity system at their leisure (Hazelbaker, 2011). Working in league with commercial theft rings, these pros steal cars either to sell or to strip for parts. Steal-to-sell (retagging) operations alter the regis- tration and title documents and vehicle identification number, and then pass off the car as used. Steal- to-strip operations (chop shops) dismantle vehicles and sell the sheet metal crash replacement parts (such as the hood, trunk lid, fenders, and doors) as if they came from legitimate salvage and recycling pipelines to auto body repair shops.
Another motive for stealing a vehicle is to use it for temporary or short-term travel, often as a get- away car after committing some other crime, such as a bank robbery.
Surprisingly, some commentators mistakenly portray auto theft as the “happy crime” in which no one loses and everyone gains (see Plate, 1975). The argument goes that the thief makes money;
victim’s intentions. (Franklin and Franklin, 1976, p. 134)
■ An analytical framework must be found that salvages the positive contributions of the concept of victim pre- cipitation, while avoiding its flaws—its tendency to consider a victim’s provocations as both a necessary and sufficient condition for an offense to occur; its portrayal of some offenders as unrealistically passive; and its questionable moral and legal implications about who is the guilty party. (Sheley, 1979, pp. 126–127)
■ Crime victimization is a neglected social problem in part because victim precipitation studies typically fail to articulate the distress of the victims and instead suggest that some may be to blame for their own plight. The inferences often drawn from these studies—that some individuals can steer clear of trouble by avoiding certain situations—suffer from the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy of treating the victims’ behavior as both
necessary and sufficient to cause the crime. (Teevan, 1979, p. 7)
■ To accept precipitation and provocation as legitimate excuses for attenuating responsibility for violent crime is false, illogical, psychologically harmful to victims, and socially irresponsible.... Victim-blaming has been injected into the literature on crime by well-meaning but offender-oriented professionals. It becomes the basis and excuse for the indifference shown to supposedly “undeserving” victims. (Reiff, 1979, pp. 12, 14)
■ The eager acceptance of arguments about victim responsibility by scholars and the public alike is unde- served; these accounts of why the crime occurred often lack empirical verification, can lead to cruel insensitiv- ity to the suffering of the victim, and tend to exonerate or even justify the acts of the offenders, especially rapists. (Anderson and Renzetti, 1980, p. 325)
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 135
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
the owner is reimbursed by the insurance company and then enjoys the pleasure of shopping for a new car. Meanwhile, the manufacturer gains a customer who wasn’t due back in the showroom for another couple of years, and the insurance company gets a chance to raise comprehensive fire and theft loss pre- miums and invest that money in profitable ventures.
But in actuality, most victims of auto theft are quite upset for a number of reasons. Many motorists devote a great deal of time, effort, and loving care to keeping their vehicles in good shape. Second, the shock of discovering that the vehicle vanished touches off a sense of violation and insecurity that lingers for a long time. Third, not all owners pur- chase theft coverage, usually because they cannot afford it. Even those who are insured almost always must suffer a hefty deductible out of their own pockets, and they might owe more on the car loan than the vehicle is worth, so the insurance payoff does not cover the money owed. Personal items left in the vehicle are gone, as are any expen- sive add-ons. The loss is always unanticipated, necessitating emergency measures such as taking cabs, renting cars, canceling important appoint- ments, and buying a more expensive replacement. Finally, motorists who collect insurance reimburse- ment might find that either their premiums are raised or their policies cannot be renewed.
Victims of “grand theft auto” or “grand larceny auto” ought to notify the police immediately, since the authorities will assume that the owner was behind the wheel if that stolen vehicle is involved in a crime, such as a hit-and-run or is used as a getaway car in a bank robbery. Also, there is a chance of recovering it if the police locate the vehi- cle after it is pulled over for a traffic violation, parked, or abandoned. If it is insured for compre- hensive fire and theft damage and loss, a case num- ber from a law enforcement agency will be necessary in order to receive reimbursement.
Patterns and Trends in Motor Vehicle Theft
A truck is stolen from the parking lot of a hotel. Inside it are three presidential seals, three lecterns, and $200,000 worth of electronic equipment,
including a teleprompter. The truck is recovered a few hours later—it was abandoned in the parking lot of another hotel and looted of a high-end audio system. The Department of Defense investigates the theft of the unguarded truck from the lot, which was monitored by closed circuit TV, but is unable to determine if this was just a crime of opportunity or whether the equipment used by President Obama to deliver speeches was specifically targeted. (Geller, 2011)
The odds of a person’s vehicle being stolen were about 1 out of 270 (based on registration data for 2007). Owners in the South and West suffered sub- stantially higher theft rates than in theNorth andMid- west. Residents of urban areas reported their cars stolen more often than suburbanites and people living in rural areas. Insurance coverage for theft damages and losses cost policyholders about $140 per year (III, 2011). Collectively, vehicle thefts cost owners nearly $4.5 billion, with losses averaging about $6,150 per stolen vehicle in 2010, the UCR reported.
Changes in motor vehicle theft rates over the past few decades are shown in Figure 5.2. One trend line, based onNCVS findings, portrays yearly rates of thefts of noncommercial vehicles disclosed to survey inter- viewers, whether successful completions or failed attempts, for every 1,000 households. The other trend line, from theUCR, depicts yearly rates of com- pleted or attempted thefts of all motorized vehicles, per 100,000 people, reported to police departments across the country. Both of these sets of statistics indi- cate that rates of auto theft rose during the late 1980s, reached an all-time high at the start of the 1990s, sub- sided as the twentieth century drew to a close, and then dropped further during the first decade of the twenty-first century (tumbling an impressive 40 per- cent just from 2001 to 2010, according to the UCR.)
By contrast, however, theft rates were climbing for one type of vehicle: motorcycles. In 1998, about 27,000 were stolen. That number doubled to more than 55,000 by 2003, then soared to 71,000 in 2004 before dropping back down to 56,000 in 2009. As more motorcycles filled the roads up to 2008, and as they became more expensive, their attractiveness to thieves rose. Both sales and thefts dropped sharply
136 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
during 2008 and 2009. Motorcyclists lavish great attention on their cherished possessions by installing high-performance engines and exhaust systems, chromed parts, and specialized frames. The most often stolen brands were Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki, with Harley-Davidson in a distant fifth place. The highest theft rates were in California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia. More thefts took place in the summer than in the winter. Law enforcement agencies have not yet developed adequate responses to the surge in stealing. Most of the stolen motorcycles—about 70 percent in 2009— were never returned to their owners, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (which issued a press release with a victim-blaming headline: “Be an easy rider—not an easy target!”). Unfortunately, stolen car recovery rates also have dropped to less than 60 percent, according to FBI reports and insur- ance industry sources (Scafidi, 2006; 2010).
Which Motorists Should Be Most Concerned When Parking?
As with all crimes, risks vary dramatically. In the case of auto theft, the chances of losing a vehicle to a thief depend upon its make, model, and year. A prime consideration centers on the appeal or black market value of the various cars, SUVs, vans, and pickup trucks to those who make a living by repeatedly fencing stolen parts. Professional thieves prowl the streets looking for specific makes and models on their shopping lists. Which parked cars do they enter and drive away most often?
The answer, in the form of a ranking of vehicles, should be fairly straightforward. Consumers need to know this information when shopping for used cars (brand-new models do not yet have track records) if they are concerned about the chances of their vehicles spirited away or about the costs of insuring
0
5
10
15
20
25
Year
N C V S
ra te
( p
er 1
,0 00
h o
u se
h o
ld s)
U C R
r at
e (p
er 1
00 ,0
00 in
h ab
it an
ts )
19 73
19 74
19 75
19 76
19 77
19 78
19 79
19 80
19 81
19 82
19 83
19 84
19 85
19 86
19 87
19 88
19 89
19 90
19 91
19 92
19 93
19 94
19 95
19 96
19 97
19 98
19 99
20 00
20 01
20 02
20 03
20 04
20 05
20 06
20 07
20 08
20 09
20 10
0
100
200
300
400
500
700
600
NCVS rate UCR rate
F I G U R E 5.2 Trends in Motor Vechicle Theft Rates, United States, 1973–2010 NOTE: UCR figures include thefts of taxis, buses, trucks, and other commercial vehicles. SOURCES: FBI’s UCRs 1973–2010; BJS’s NCVSs 1973–2010
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 137
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
them—premiums to cover “comprehensive theft and fire damage” (coverage for collisions and personal inju- ries is more important and more expensive). In other words, crime-conscious motorists ought to be aware of howdesirable or undesirable their prized possessions are to thieves cruising around. But each year, the answer to the question, “Which cars are stolen themost” depends upon who is asked. Three distinct listings that bear no resemblance to each other are published annually by agencies that analyze different databases and use different criteria (see Gibson, 2004). (See Table 5.1.)
For vehicles stolen during 2010, the first listing in the second column in Table 5.1 presents the rank- ing derived from the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB). Domestic makes outnumbered for- eign manufacturers. Rather old and relatively inex- pensive cars and trucks filled the upper ranks on this list of “top 10 hot cars” that are so attractive to crooks. Some had been on the road for as many as 15 to 20 years. This pattern is surprising at first until it is realized that the older cars are stolen to be stripped of their sheet metal parts, which are then used to repair crash-damaged newer cars—unless the manu- facturer changes the dimensions of the later models. Note that the owners of many of these worn-out vehicles suffered total losses (“blue book values”) if they had stopped paying premiums for theft coverage as their vehicles aged (Scafidi, 2011).
But a distinctly different ranking of the 10 most often stolen makes/models/years emerges when an alternative database is analyzed. This second list of thieves’ preferences from the Highway Loss Data Institute (HDLI) appears in the third column of Table 5.1. It was compiled by a consortium of insurance companies (that write policies for most of the market) but includes only the vehicles that owners insured against theft that were broken into and looted or else driven away and never recovered during 2010. Expensive, very large SUVs, sedans, and pickup trucks hold the top spots on this ranking, based on the number of such vehicles on the road and the number of pol- icyholders’ claims for reimbursement. For example, a little more than 1 percent of the owners of insured Cadillac Escalades filed claims (each year during the years 2008 to 2010) for reimbursement averaging over $10,000 because thieves drove off with their prizes or broke into them (to get at electronics and even wheels). Thieves often targeted pickup trucks because of the expensive tools lying on their flat- beds (Hazelbaker, 2011).
But an entirely different listing emerges when a theft rate is calculated by taking into account not only the number of vehicles of a given make and model reported stolen to the police in 2008 but also the number of these cars (not SUVs or trucks) that were
T A B L E 5.1 Which Vehicle Owners Have the Most to Worry About?
Rank
All Vehicles Stolen During 2010
Year/Make/Model NICB
Only Insured Vehicles 2008–2010 Models Stolen During 2010
HDLI
Only 2008 Vehicles Stolen During 2008
Make/Model NHTSA
Rate Per 1,000
1 1994/Honda/Accord Cadillac/Escalade SUV Chrysler/Dodge Magnum 14 2 1995/Honda/Civic Ford/F-250 Pickup GM/Pontiac Grand Prix 7 3 1991/Toyota/Camry Chevrolet/Silverado 1500 Pickup Chrysler/Dodge Charger 7 4 1999/Chevrolet/Pickup Ford/ F-450 Pickup Mitsubishi/Galant 6 5 1997/Ford/150 Pickup GMC/Sierra 1500 Pickup Chrysler/300 6 6 2004/Dodge/Ram Chrysler/300 Chrysler/Sebring 5 7 2000/Dodge/Caravan Ford/ F-350 Pickup Hyundai/Sonata 5 8 1994/Acura/Integra Chevrolet/Avalanche SUV Chrysler/PT Cruiser Convertible 5 9 2002/Ford/Explorer GMC/ Yukon SUV GMC/Cadillac 5 10 1999/Ford/Taurus Chrysler/ 300 Hemi Chrysler/Dodge Avenger 5
NOTES: Number of stolen cars is drawn by NHTSA from the FBI’s NCIC. Theft rate is per 1,000 vehicles manufactured and sold to the U.S. public during 2008. Theft rates are rounded off to the nearest integer.
SOURCES: First list from NICB (Scafidi, 2011); second list from HDLI (Hazelbaker, 2011); third list from NHTSA, 2008.
138 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
sold during 2008. The resulting list from the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA) calculated from the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database—appears in the fourth column of Table 5.1. The car that tops the list is Chrysler’s Dodge Magnum (a little more than 200 were stolen during 2008 of the over 15,000 that were manufactured that year). Most of the very vul- nerable cars on the NHTSA list were produced by American companies.
Table 5.1 demonstrates that the key risk factors are the make, model, and year of the car; its resale value; the demand for it by chop shops that fence stolen parts; and how easy or difficult it is to steal. Insurance records confirm a counterintuitive pat- tern: for several reasons, as cars age, they are more likely to be targeted. If the model lines are not substantially redesigned, then stolen sheet-metal crash parts from the older cars can be used by illicit collision body shops to repair damaged newer ones. Also, middle-aged cars are less likely to be equipped with the latest state-of-the-art antitheft devices that thieves have not yet learned how to defeat. Another reason is that as cars wear out and depre- ciate, their owners have less incentive to maintain security devices in good working order and to vigi- lantly observe precautions about where they park their less-valuable vehicles. Because most cars have a “life expectancy” of 7 to 10 years, security experts warn owners never to let their guard down (see Clark and Harris, 1992; “NICB Study,” 1993; Krauss, 1994).
Finally, to make matters more complex, the desirability of particular vehicles on the black mar- ket varies around the country. For example, thieves concentrated on Japanese models in Los Angeles, pickup trucks in Dallas, and American sedans in Chicago, reflecting the preferences of consumers in those metropolitan areas (Sparkman, 2003). The insurance industry generates detailed lists annually of the most frequently targeted cars that are tailored for every state and even each large city, so that companies can maximize their profits by fine-tuning premiums to reflect payouts to their local customers for theft losses.
Differential risks are determined by a number of factors besides the attractiveness of the target in the stolen car market. Another set of determinants of risk must be the number of professional thieves and chop shops operating in a given area, as well as the effectiveness of the efforts by local police departments to put them out of business. The importance of the geographic factor is illustrated in Table 5.2.
This listing of vehicle theft rates for the nation’s metropolitan areas is based on data from police reports maintained in the FBI’s UCR. From a motorist’s point of view, this ranking indicates the meanest streets to park a car. Drivers in many West- ern states, and especially in certain California met- ropolitan areas, have the most to worry about when they walk away from their cars. In general, those who find parking spaces in downtown areas of an urban core have even more to worry about than those who park in that city’s nearby suburbs. Dri- vers who leave their cars in parking spots in the university towns of Madison, Wisconsin; Bingham- ton, New York; and State College, Pennsylvania, can rest assured (statistically speaking) that their vehicles will still be there when they return.
Combining the findings displayed in Tables 5.1 and 5.2, it can be concluded that motorists who drive vehicles that are on thieves’ “hottest cars” list and who park them on the meanest streets of the most dangerous metropolitan areas face unusually high risks. Victim-blamers would argue that these owners are on notice that their cars are likely targets and they ought to take extra precautions (provided that they are aware of the odds and of their options).
As previously noted (in Chapters 3 and 4), dif- ferent categories of people do not face the same risks of harm from criminals. In terms of differential risks, those who faced the greatest dangers of losing their cars were apartment dwellers, residents of inner-city neighborhoods, African-Americans and Hispanic- Americans, low-income families, and households headed by people under the age of 25. The people whose cars were least likely to be stolen were resi- dents of rural areas, homeowners, and those over age 55, according to an analysis of a database of more
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 139
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
than 12 million attempted and completed vehicle thefts disclosed to NCVS interviewers between 1973 and 1985 (Harlow, 1988). Could it be that a motorist’s spending priorities, lifestyle choices, and routine driving and parking patterns—in other words, their attitudes and behaviors—determine, to some degree, the fate of their vehicles?
Besides vehicle attractiveness and geographic location, two other factors surely influence the vul- nerability of a parked car: the effectiveness of factory-installed and after-market add-on antitheft devices, and the immediate micro-environment— such as traffic patterns, passing pedestrians, the intensity of lighting at night—surrounding the street, driveway, or lot where the vehicle sits unguarded. These two factors are under the control of individuals to some degree, except that many motorists cannot afford secure but expensive park- ing arrangements and costly antitheft hardware.
Blaming the Victim for Facilitating the Crime
No intelligent person would put from $1,000 to $5,000 in good money in the street and expect to find it there an hour later, yet that is exactly what a large number of people do when they leave an automobile in the street without locking it. Even more, not only are they leaving money at the curb but they are also putting four wheels under it to make it easier for the thief to take it.
AUGUST VOLLMER, POLICE CHIEF, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA (VOLLMER AND PARKER, 1936: 65)
Yet through all this practical, emotional, and mone- tary attachment to the automobile, there emerges convincing evidence that it is one of the motorist’s most carelessly neglected possessions.
J. EDGAR HOOVER, FBI DIRECTOR (HOOVER, 1966)
Use common sense: Lock your car and take your keys. It’s simple enough, but many thefts occur because owners make it easy for thieves to steal their cars.
FRANK SCAFIDI, NATIONAL INSURANCE CRIME BUREAU (2011)
Who or what is to blame for the theft and attempted theft of roughly 740,000 vehicles a year?
T A B L E 5.2 Vehicle Theft Rates in U.S. Metropolitan Areas, 2010
Metropolitan Area Rank
Vehicle Theft Rates per 100,000
Residents
Fresno, CA 1 810 Modesto, CA 2 750 Bakersfield–Delano, CA 3 670 Spokane, WA 4 590 Vallejo–Fairfield, CA 5 580 Sacramento, CA 6 550 Stockton, CA 7 550 Visalia–Porterville 8 540 San Francisco–Oakland, CA 9 520 Yakima, WA 10 520 Laredo, TX 11 500 Detroit–Warren, MI 12 490 Seattle, WA 13 470 Macon, GA 14 470 San Diego, CA 15 460 Myrtle Beach, NC 16 460 Las Vegas, NV 17 440 San Jose–Santa Clara, CA 18 440 Jackson, MS 19 440 Albuquerque, NM 20 440 Tucson, AZ 22 430 Los Angeles–Long Beach CA 23 420 Mobile, AL 24 410 Oklahoma City 25 400 Houston, TX 28 380 Atlanta, GA 30 380 Little Rock, AK 31 380 New Orleans, LA 32 380 Miami–Fort Lauderdale, FL 44 350 Chicago, IL 45 350 Dallas–Fort Worth, TX 47 340 Salt Lake City, UT 48 340 Memphis, TN 49 340 Honolulu, HI 50 340 Phoenix–Mesa, AZ 56 320 Denver–Mesa, CO 68 300 Baltimore–Towson, MD 70 300 St. Louis, MO 74 290 Philadelphia, PA–Camden, NJ 123 210 Tallahassee, FL 181 170 New York City–Long Island, NY; Northern NJ
198 150
Boston, MA 199 150 Atlantic City, NJ 206 150 Madison, WI 259 110 Binghamton, NY 359 50 State College, PA 366 30
NOTES: The boundaries ofmetropolitan statistical areas are defined by theU.S. Census and often include nearby counties and suburban towns. Rankings were calculated by the NICB based onUCR rates. Rates are rounded to the nearest 10.
SOURCE: NICB, 2011b.
140 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
If motorists fail to do all they can do to protect their vehicles, then they might be faulted for negligence. Car stealing seems to be the only crime for which there is an organized victim- blaming lobby, a peculiar situation that developed long ago. Composed of representatives of auto- makers, insurance companies, and law enforcement agencies, this lobby has castigated motorist care- lessness since the dawn of the automobile age. As the statements above demonstrate, victim-blamers are quick to scold negligent drivers for facilitating thefts by leaving their vehicles unlocked, or, even worse, for leaving keys in the ignition locks.
The contribution of victim facilitation to auto theft has usually been measured as the percentage of recovered stolen cars in which there was evidence that the thieves had used the owners’ keys. Although this methodology has limitations, surveys based on it show a trend that casts doubt on the continued rele- vance of negligence as a factor. Data from insurance company records from the 1940s through the 1960s indicate that between 40 percent and 90 percent of all thefts were facilitated by victims through care- lessness about locks and keys. During the 1970s, police, FBI, and insurance industry records showed that facilitation was a factor in 13 percent to 20 per- cent of all thefts (Karmen, 1979; National Institute of Justice, 1984). In the early 1990s, an insurance industry publication reported that only 13 percent of all vehicle thefts were still victim facilitated (National Insurance Crime Bureau, 1993). But law enforcement agencies as well as insurance and secu- rity companies still emphasize that outbreaks of neg- ligence leading to crimes of opportunity remain a significant problem. The Austin, Texas, police department (2011) estimated that nearly 20 percent of all stolen vehicles were taken using the keys left in them. A 2008 study of vehicle thefts in Texas deter- mined that keys were used in about 50 percent of all thefts. A 2009 study of thefts in Arizona concluded that 20 percent of the vehicles had been taken using keys. A Baltimore study of recovered vehicles deter- mined that 85 percent had been driven off using keys left inside cars in 2010 (Egan, 2011).
However, it is likely that most of the recovered vehicles in these studies were taken impulsively by juvenile joyriders who later abandoned them.
Vehicles stolen by professionals who dismantled them or resold them intact are not recovered and therefore cannot be examined for evidence of victim facilitation. Furthermore, some of the cars stolen by thieves using keys might not have been victim facil- itated thefts—the keys were bought, not left behind by negligent owners. “Jigglers”—thin pieces of metal shaped like keys—are sold over the Internet in sets as “master keys” that can open most locks, for legitimate purposes—for use by locksmiths and auto repossessors (Gardiner, 2010).
The available statistics support the following anal- ysis: At one time, when the public was less conscious about crime, facilitation may have contributed sub- stantially to joyriding escapades. But teenage amateurs are no longer responsible for most car thefts in cities and suburbs. Professionals—often working for com- mercial rings that may be affiliated with organized crime syndicates—now represent the greater threat. As the years roll by, key facilitation is declining in significance.
Facilitating a car theft by leaving keys behind in the ignition could in rare instances lead to a civil judg- ment against a victim if the thief injures someone else. Some states now require that a car be locked when- ever a motorist leaves it (see Sweet, 2011). Some insurance companies have exclusion clauses in their policies that threaten loss of coverage and reimburse- ment if the owner acts recklessly or even negligently and leaves keys dangling in unattended vehicles.
The clash in outlooks between victim blaming and victim defending is an example of a half- empty/half-full debate. Victim blaming focuses on the proportion of motorists who have bad habits. Victim defending emphasizes that the overwhelm- ing majority of people whose cars were stolen did nothing wrong; these drivers don’t have self- defeating attitudes and don’t act carelessly. Accord- ing to victim defenders, the image of the absent- minded owner that is frequently conjured up by victim-blaming arguments is an outmoded stereo- type that no longer fits (Karmen, 1980).
Up to this point, the focus of victim-blaming arguments has been placed on motorist negligence. But some who lose their cars to thieves might be even more blameworthy. Besides facilitation, it is possible to devise scenarios to illustrate precipitation,
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 141
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
provocation, and even total responsibility for a theft. A typology of different kinds of victims of a single crime, such as auto theft, can be useful to illustrate the differ- ences between complete innocence, facilitation, pre- cipitation, provocation, and full responsibility. Such a typology also makes it possible to determine estimates of relative proportions of various types or groupings of owners—what, if anything, they do wrong and how stealing might be prevented.
Conscientiously resisting victims are blameless. They bear no responsibility because they tried to protect their autos by scrupulously following the crime prevention tips suggested by security spe- cialists and by purchasing antitheft devices.
Auto security experts advise motorists to sharpen their crime awareness and then adopt a “layered approach” to “harden their targets.” The first layer involves taking standard precautions: rolling up win- dows, locking doors, and removing the key from the ignition. The second layer relies on a presumed deterrent effect of visible or audible devices that broadcast the message that the vehicle is protected by an extra line of defense: car alarms, decals warning intruders to keep away, VIN numbers etched into the window glass, microdot marking, tire deflators, tire locks, steering column collars, brake pedal locks, and wheel locks. The third level takes advantage of sophisticated technology to immobilize the vehicle against attempts to bypass the ignition and hotwire the car: fuse cut-offs; hidden kill switches; starter, ignition, and fuel pump disablers; wireless ignition authentication; and smart keys with embedded chips. The fourth and most expensive layer consists of a tracking device, perhaps with remote monitor- ing using GPS technology, that will send signals to enable the police to recover the vehicle and perhaps catch the thieves red-handed (see Scafidi, 2011).
If the defensive measures adopted by conscien- tiously resisting victims proved futile, then they must have been preyed upon by professional thieves who knew how to disarm or circumvent the most resistant locks and sophisticated alarm systems.
Conventionally cautious victims relied on the antitheft features provided by automobile man- ufacturers as standard equipment. They took the pre- cautions of removing all valuables from sight, rolled
up their cars’ windows, locked all doors, and pocketed the keys. Even though they did all they were supposed to do, experienced thieves with the proper tools had no trouble driving their cars away. These victims did nothing wrong but did not under- take additional theft-resistance efforts, so they can be faulted for not taking the threat of car stealing seri- ously enough. Thus, they can be considered largely blameless, although they are not above criticism.
Carelessly facilitating victims set the stage for crimes of opportunity through gross negligence. Their vehicles were taken by inexperienced thieves or joyriders. They made the criminals’ tasks easier by leaving the car doors unlocked, the windows open, or worst of all, the keys in the ignition. They can be considered partly responsible precisely because their indifferent attitudes and thoughtless behavior contributed to their own losses. However, they were unintentional, unwilling, inadvertent victims who bear no guilt legally.
Precipitative initiators were knowing and willing victims who deliberately singled out their vehi- cles for trouble. They wanted their cars to be stolen because they figured that they would be better off financially if they received the blue-book value (a stan- dard guide of used vehicle prices) as reimbursement from the insurance company rather than if they main- tained, repaired, or sold their vehicles. So they took steps that went beyond carelessness. They intentionally left their cars unlockedwith the keys in the ignition and parked invitingly in high-crime areas. By maximizing the vulnerability of their autos, they incited would-be thieves to strike. But the relationships between the pre- cipitating victims and the criminals were impersonal. They never met, despite the symbiosis between them. If challenged or investigated, these substantially respon- sible victims could conceal their dishonest motives and contend that they were merely negligent motorists who had left their keys in their cars accidentally.
Provocative conspirators are largely respon- sible for the loss of their cars. They are scam artists who pretend to be injured parties but actually were the accomplices of the thieves they hired to get rid of their unwanted vehicles. Without their instigations, the thefts would not have taken place. As part of a conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, these
142 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
unscrupulous owners arranged to have their cars “splashed” (driven off a bridge or pier into deep water), “squished” (compacted, crushed, and then shredded beyond recognition), or “torched” (set on fire) to collect insurance reimbursement. Provocative conspirators share the same financialmotives as precip- itative initiators, but they leave nothing to chance; they know and pay off the criminals who work with them (see Behar, 1993) in what police and insurance claims investigators call “owner give-ups.”
Fully responsible fabricating simulators are not victims at all because they never even owned cars. They insured a nonexistent vehicle (a “paper” or “phantom” car) and later reported it stolen to the authorities so that they could collect money by defrauding insurance companies. These con men
pretend to be victims and concoct a story for their own dishonest purposes.
The relative mix of these six types of auto theft victims can be roughly estimated. Carelessly facilitat- ing victims who leave their keys in their cars made up, at most, 20 percent of all victims in the 1990s but constituted a higher proportion decades ago. Another 10 percent to 25 percent were suspected of engaging in insurance fraud during the peak years for auto theft at the end of the 1980s and start of the 1990s (see Baldwin, 1988; Sloane, 1991; Kerr, 1992). The proportion of all thefts that are suspected to be fraudulent might have declined substantially to around 10 percent, according to esti- mates in a study by the National Conference of State Legislatures in 2008 (Jay, 2011). (See Box 5.3.)
B O X 5.3 Which Individuals Who Claim to Be “Victims” of Auto Theft Might Be Suspected of Engaging in Fraud by Law Enforcement and Insurance Investigators?
The following warning signs could arouse the suspicion of auto squad detectives and insurance company adjusters that the person who reports that his car was stolen might not be a genuine crime victim and that the alleged theft might be a “QC” (questionable claim) that merits closer scrutiny as a possible attempt at fraud:
Red Flags: The Auto Theft “Victim”:
■ Filed a false claim in the past
■ Received insurance reimbursement for a vehicle theft in the past
■ Is very knowledgeable about the process for filing a claim and insurance terminology
■ Owns a car that has a history of expensive mechanical repairs (a “lemon”) or gets very poor mileage (a “gas guzzler”)
■ Asserts that very expensive items were in the vehicle when it was taken
■ Has fallen behind in loan payments on the vehicle and faces repossession, has many outstanding tickets, or is beset by serious financial problems
■ Has very recently taken out the policy with this insur- ance company, the coverage is about to expire, or a cancellation notice has been sent out
■ Has recently moved into the current address or uses a post office box, does not have a telephone or only has a
cell phone, is difficult to contact, or has just been hired or just lost a job
■ Has purchased the policy by walking off the street into an insurance agency and putting down cash for a binder
■ Has paid only for minimum liability coverage but for maximum comprehensive fire/theft coverage on an expensive late model vehicle
■ Has waited several days before notifying the police of the alleged disappearance
■ Is notified that the vehicle has been recovered but was stripped, burned, severely damaged, or found with a seized engine or blown transmission but without a compromised steering column or ignition lock shortly after it was reported missing
■ Has documents (title, registration, license plate, vehicle identification number) that contain mistakes or irregularities
■ Presses for a quick settlement, but avoids making statements under oath and requests that the check be picked up by a friend or relative
■ Has contacted a salvage yard or repair shop that takes an unusual interest in the claim
SOURCES: Jay, 2011; Ohio Insurance Board, 2011; Louisiana State Police’s Insurance Fraud Unit, 2011.
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 143
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
If as many as 10 percent of all victims wanted their cars to be stolen (precipitative initiators, pro- vocative conspirators, and fabricating simulators combined) and another 15 percent or so were care- less facilitators, then conventionally cautious and conscientiously resisting motorists together add up to the remaining 75 percent, a majority of all vic- tims. Victim defenders would reject the argument made by victim blamers that emphasizes shared responsibility and would instead point out that most of the motorists whose vehicles were driven away did nothing “wrong” and should not be criti- cized for suffering these losses.
STOLEN IDENTITIES: WHICH THEFTS ARE VICTIM-FACILITATED, AND WHICH PRECAUTIONS ARE REASONABLE?
The crime of identity theft undermines the basic trust on which our economy depends. When a person takes out an insurance policy, or makes an online purchase or opens a savings account, he or she must have confidence that personal financial information will be protected and treated with care. Identity theft harms not only its direct victims, but also many businesses and customers whose confidence is shaken. Like other forms of stealing, identity theft leaves the victim poor and feeling terribly violated.
PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH, 2004 (REMARKS WHEN SIGNING THE IDENTITY THEFT PENALTY ENHANCEMENT ACT)
The Nature of the Problem and How Many People Experience Its Aggravations
Throughout history, people seeking to evade cap- ture have used disguises, false papers, and aliases to pass themselves off as someone else. Spies, sabo- teurs, infiltrators, terrorists, and fugitives from jus- tice used fictitious histories, documents, and résumés to fool authorities. But now computer databases and high-tech devices provide incentives for impersonators for a different reason: monetary gain.
The relatively new, increasingly sophisticated, and surprisingly common white-collar crime of identity theft arises from the illegal appropriation of someone’s personal information—such as the individual’s name, address, date of birth, Social Security number, and mother’s maiden name. Identity fraud is defined as the unauthorized use of another individual’s personal information to try to achieve illicit financial gain. Iden- tity thefts aremeasured as attempted aswell as successful misuses of these personal identifiers to loot an existing account (for example, a bank savings or checking account); or to open a new account (for instance, with a telephone or credit card company); plus imper- sonations for other fraudulent purposes (such as to obtain undeserved government benefits like someone else’s income tax refund) (Langton and Planty, 2011; Javelin Strategy and Research, 2011).
Even though identity theft is a relatively new type of offense, it draws upon the ill-gotten gains of traditional street crimes such as pickpocketing, thievery, robbery, and burglary of wallets as well as established white-collar crimes like forgery, counter- feiting, fraud, and impersonation. One peculiar aspect is that the offender often repeatedly preys on the same person in a variety of ways over a prolonged period of time. The Identity Theft Assumption and Deterrence Act of 1998 made it a federal crime to knowingly transfer and use any name or number without lawful authority to commit or aid and abet any illegal activity (Newman, 2004).
No one is immune from being preyed upon, not even the most wealthy and privileged, as the following example shows.
A purse, containing a checkbook and a Social Security card, is swiped from the wife of the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank while she is sitting in a coffee shop. Months later, a woman is arrested who uses wigs to impersonate her victims when cashing bad checks and draining their accounts. It turns out that she is part of a sophisticated ring that defrauded more than $2 million from hundreds of people who banked at 10 financial institutions. (Lucas and Melago, 2009).
The first question to be addressed is, “What are the yearly incidence and longer term prevalence rates?” A wide range of estimates can be found
144 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
because of variations in the definitions used (what is included and excluded) and the methods of collect- ing data (complaints filed vs. survey findings and subsequent projections to the entire population). Inconsistencies persist over definitions of the crime and its victims. Consumer and privacy groups use more inclusive definitions to dramatize the serious- ness of the problem and highlight the weaknesses of anticrime efforts undertaken to date by government agencies and businesses. Representatives of financial services companies insist that cases involving a forged check or an unauthorized credit card transaction should not be counted as full-blown identity theft (Katel, 2005). Three databases estimate the size of the problem and indicate how its dimensions are changing over time.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) operates an Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse that receives information from about 150 law enforcement agen- cies and collects details from online complaint forms and calls to its hotline (877-IDTHEFT). The FTC bases its estimates about how many people have had their identities stolen on incident reports that have been pouring in to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel monitoring system since it was set up in 1997 (FTC, 2011). From these complaints, the FTC projected that as many as 8 million Americans suffered from a brush with identify theft during 2008. That figure rose to an estimated 9 million during 2010.
The National Crime Victimization Survey is another source of estimates about the prevalence and incidence of identity theft. Questions about identity theft were added to the NCVS in 2004. About 5 percent of all respondents (age 16 and older) reported they had suffered from an identity theft incident during the two years prior to being contacted by the NCVS in 2008, yielding a nation- wide projection of roughly 11.7 million people (or halving that, to over 5.8 million attempted as well as completed thefts per year).
Different impressions can be derived from the data assembled in Table 5.3. Identity theft peaked in 2008 and then declined, according to FTC fig- ures based on complaints registered with that gov- ernment agency. Similarly, the number of households experiencing the distress of identity theft rose between 2004 and 2009, but then declined in 2010, according to the BJS’s NCVS self-report survey. But the number of identity theft victims reached new heights in 2009 before tumbling back to 2007 levels, according to an annual self-report survey sponsored by the financial services industry. Regardless of which of these three sources of data is cited, two conclusions must be drawn from Table 5.3. First, in terms of trends, identity theft is no longer steadily increasing with each passing year. Second, in terms of relative fre- quencies, the overall projected number of many
T A B L E 5.3 Estimates about the Number of Identity Theft Victims per year, 2001–2010
Source of Estimate and Year
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Complaints and Projections
National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) Households
Javelin Strategy and Research Survey American Adults
2001 86,000 not available not available 2002 162,000 not available not available 2003 215,000 15 Million = 5% not available 10.1 M = 4.7% 2004 247,000 3.6 M = 3.1% 9.3 M = 4.3% 2005 256,000 8.3 M = 3.7% 6.4 M = 5.5% 8.9 M = 4.0% 2006 246,000 7.9 M = 6.7 % 8.4 M = 3.7% 2007 259,000 7.9 M = 6.6% 8.1 M = 3.6% 2008 315,000 not available 9.9 M = 4.3% 2009 278,000 8.9 M = 7.3% 11.1 M = 4.8% 2010 251,000 9 M 8.6 M = 7.0% 8.1 M = 3.5%
NOTES: For the FTC, figures are for the number of complaints filed with the ID Theft Clearinghouse, rounded to the nearest 1,000. For the NCVS, the number refers to households with victimized persons over the age of 16. The percentage refers to a projection of all U.S. households. For the Javelin survey, the numbers and percents refer to all adult U.S. residents.
SOURCES: FTC ¼ Sentinel annual reports, 2002–2011; BJS NCVS ¼ Baum, 2006; 2007; Baum and Langton, 2010; Langton and Planty, 2011; Langton, 201; Javelin Strategy and Research, 2011.
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 145
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
millions of individuals and households afflicted by identity theft each year was many times greater than the total number suffering from serious property crimes, as recorded by the UCR as well as the NCVS. Identity theft victims far outnumber per- sons whose homes were burglarized, and whose motor vehicles were stolen.
The next question to be answered is, “In what ways can impersonators hurt their victims?”Unscrupu- lous impostors can use identifiers to max out existing charge accounts and obtain new credit cards in their target’s name and then run up huge bills that are ignored. ID thieves empty people’s savings accounts and pass bad checks (account “takeovers”). They secure car loans that will never be repaid based on another person’s credit history, and enjoy using gas heat, elec- tricity, cell phones, and landlines while disregarding the costs and consequences of overdue bills. They drive around and get tickets with a license that has their
picture but someone else’s name, apply for govern- ment benefits and tax refunds they didn’t earn, get hired for jobs by pretending to be an applicant with better credentials, and may even get arrested under an assumed name before jumping bail and disappearing.
Now that the range of possible swindles and scams has been outlined, the question arises, “How did impersonators actually harm their victims?” Table 5.4 shows the relative frequency of each of these forms of fiscal exploitation as the percentage of all complainants to the FTC’s clearinghouse. Credit card fraud was the most common category, afflicting about one-quarter of all victims; loan fraud was the least likely swindle exposed during 2006. As Table 5.4 reveals, by 2010, credit card fraud, bank account fraud, loan fraud, employment fraud, and cell phone/telephone fraud had diminished, while gov- ernment benefits fraud (filing a false tax return for a refund) plus assorted other scams had intensified.
T A B L E 5.4 How Victims of Identity Theft Were Harmed, Nationwide, 2006 and 2010
Total Number of Complaints 2006 246,000
Total Number of Complaints 2010 251,000
Nature of the Crime Percent of All Complaints Percent of All Complaints
Credit Card Fraud Charging items to existing accounts 11% 7% Opening new accounts in their names 15 9
Bank Frauds Draining existing accounts 6 3 Receiving electronic fund transfers 8 5 Opening new accounts in their names 3 3
Utilities Fraud Getting a new cell phone in their names 7 4 Getting a new telephone in their names 4 2 Getting gas, electric service in their names 6 9
Loan Fraud Taking out business/personal/student loans in their names
3 2
Taking out auto loans/leases in their names 2 1 Taking out mortgages in their names 1 1
Employment-Related Fraud Working under their victims’ names 14 11
Government Document Frauds Filing false tax returns for refunds in their names 6 16 Obtaining driver’s licenses in their names 1 1 Other Purposes and Ways, including attempts 24 29
NOTES: Complaints received by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from individuals and participating agencies were rounded off to the nearest 1,000 for the calendar year. Percentages exceed 100 percent due to rounding, and because some victims were harmed in more than one way.
SOURCE: Federal Trade Commission Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse, 2007; 2011.
146 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
Findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey show a slightly different ranking. The 2005 NCVS projected that unauthorized use of an existing credit card was the most widespread problem, more common than draining an existing savings or checking account or using personal information to open a new credit card account or to secure a loan (Baum, 2007). In 2010, themost prevalent type of scam continued to be the unauthorized use or attempted use of a credit card, experienced by 3.8 percent of all respondents, which projected to 4.6 million persons across the country. The second most common type of theft was from a bank’s debit, checking, or savings account. Perhaps as many as 1.8 percent of all households, add- ing up to as many as 2.2 million people experienced this intrusion in 2010. Between 2005 and 2010, there was a decline in the number of households that suf- fered because some impostor used fraudulent docu- ments, such as to obtain undeserved medical benefits or tax refunds, or to pretend to be the victim when stopped by the police for a traffic violation or a more serious offense (Langton, 2011).
As with most types of crimes, many cases go unreported, so all these statistics tend to be under- estimates of the problem.
Losses and Suffering
Identity theft can be viewed as going through a life- cycle. People discover they have been preyed upon when they get a call from a credit card fraud division, or when a purchase is declined at the point of sale because a card’s limit has been exceeded. Others find out when they are harassed by a bill collector demanding payment on a delinquent account, or when a monthly statement marked “overdue” arrives in the mail. Others notice unauthorized charges on credit card statements, peculiar and costly long-distance calls on phone bills, cashed or bounced checks they never wrote, or suspicious withdrawals from their bank accounts. In extreme cases, they dis- cover they have been targeted when the police take them into custody as a fugitive on an outstanding warrant, and then it becomes clear that a lawbreaker was released after showing false documents and post- ing bail. It can take weeks, months, maybe even years
before individuals become aware that they have been targeted because the crooks want to get away with the charade for as long as possible. Some don’t dis- cover the extent of the damage until they are denied new credit cards, turned down for student loans, dis- connected from utilities, or charged extra high inter- est rates for mortgages and car loans. Out-of-pocket expenses and time spent on paperwork depend on how long it takes to discover the fraud (Collins and Hoffman, 2004). Lower-income and less-educated people take longer to discover the impersonation, and therefore suffer more in terms of problems with their accounts, harassment by debt collectors, and utility cutoffs (Newman, 2004).
ID scams and swindles exact a serious toll on society as a whole, adding up to billions of dollars in losses annually. New account fraud is more costly but less frequent. Depletion of existing accounts is less common but more expensive to recover from. Businesses sustain most of the financial losses because individuals usually are not held responsible for charges that turn out to be fraudulent. But indi- viduals collectively spend billions in their efforts to repair their credit worthiness. Individuals also suffer indirect costs in the form of businesses’ expenses for fraud prevention and lost revenue that are passed on to them as higher fees; for legal bills to pay for civil litigation initiated by creditors over disputed pur- chases; and for time lost and aggravation they endure while undoing the damage inflicted by the impostor (President’s Task Force, 2007, p. 11).
Just as the different databases yield inconsistent projections about general prevalence, yearly inci- dence, and twenty-first century trends, so too are there varying estimates of the actual costs of this white-collar crime.
According to the NCVS self-report survey, over $13 billion dollars was lost due to identity thefts that took place during 2010 . Fortunately, less than 25 percent of all victimized households suffered any out-of-pocket expenses, and of those, the average cost was $1,640. About half of these targeted house- holds lost just $200 or less (Langton, 2011 ). Accord- ing to a financial services company’s annual self-report survey that used a broader definition but a smaller sample, identity frauds of all kinds cost Americans
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 147
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
$48 billion in 2008 alone, rose to $56 billion in 2009, and then fell to $37 billion in 2010. However, the average fraud loss per incident cost victims about $630 in out-of-pocket expenses in 2010, a substantial increase from the 2009 estimate of about $390 per incident. The amount of time it took consumers to undo the damage from an identity theft jumped to 33 hours from 21 hours in 2009 (Javelin, 2011). Adding business losses to consumer expenses, each incident might have cost from $2,800 to $5,100 (Piquero, Cohen, and Piquero, 2011).
The emotional toll of trying to restore their financial reputation can cause some victims to become highly suspicious of other people’s motives and profoundly distrustful of officials and agencies they had counted upon to help them. Victims can experience a wide range of reactions, from denial to humiliation to outrage. Their distress is com- pounded if the crime is never solved and the real name of the thief never becomes known. Some feel overwhelmed and powerless, as well as ashamed and embarrassed for appearing to be spendthrifts and deadbeats. Others join self-help groups that have websites to share advice and facilitate mutual support with those who know firsthand what it is like to repair a lifetime record of credit worthiness (Busch-White, 2002; and Savage, 2003).
However, the actual amount of suffering varied dramatically. Only 3 percent told interviewers that the impersonation caused significant problems at work or school. And merely 6 percent said they experienced significant relationship problems with their families and friends because of the theft in 2007, according to the NCVS (Langton and Planty, 2010).
Who Faces the Greatest Risks?
Several obstacles hamper attempts to derive accu- rate estimates of the frequency of these thefts and the profile of those who are targeted most often. First, some people do not yet know that impostors have assumed their identities. Second, some victims are not aware that the FTC has been designated as the national clearinghouse for complaints. Third, certain individuals and businesses are unwilling to report their personal financial problems to law
enforcement agencies and government hotlines for an assortment of reasons. For example, businesses might fear that disclosures will harm their reputa- tions, while individuals might decide that the time it will take will not be worth their trouble.
The average age of a victim was 42, the victim’s place of residence was a large metropolitan area, and the amount of time it took the person to detect the fraud was 14 months. Seniors were targeted less fre- quently, andAfrican-Americans tended to suffermore than other groups from check fraud and from theft of utility and telephone services, according to one statis- tical profile (see Newman, 2004). Individuals in their late teens and early twenties were the most likely to report that they had suffered an incident, yet they were least likely to observe risk reduction precautions (shredding documents and setting up computer fire- walls), according to a 2006 survey (Javelin Strategy and Research, Inc., cited in Leland, 2007).
NCVS findings yielded more details about dif- ferential risks. Rates did not vary significantly by race and ethnicity, or by marital status. But families earn- ing $75,000 or more were targeted more than those in lower income brackets, Senior citizens were taken advantage of less often than others, and inhabitants of rural areas less frequently than city dwellers or sub- urbanites, according to the 2005 NCVS (Baum, 2007). Similarly, in 2010, higher-income households suffered more because of impostors than lower- income families, and urban and suburban families more than rural ones. Rates did slightly vary by race/ethnicity (more white households than His- panic and black ones) and married households were hit more often. Once again, a greater proportion of persons between the ages of 18 to 24 experienced thefts (8.5 percent) than persons 65 and older (4.3 percent) (Langton, 2011).
As with other types of crimes, Table 5.5 indicates that where people live plays a major role in shaping differential risks. Many more reports of being imper- sonatedwere filed at the FTCclearinghouse fromFlor- ida, Arizona, and California (over 100 per 100,000 residents) than from other states. Risks were about one-third or less in New Hampshire, Maine, Iowa, and North and South Dakota. The geographic factor can be fine-tuned further by focusing on cities. The top
148 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
10metropolitan areaswhere residents faced the greatest danger of identity theft (ranging frommore than 180 to 140 per 100,000) wereMiami–Fort Lauderdale–Pom- pano Beach, Florida; Brownsville–Harlingen and McAllen–Edinburg–Mission, Texas; Madera, Merced, and Bakersfield, California; Thomasville–Lexington and Dunn, North Carolina; Columbus, Georgia; and Greeley, Colorado. Identity stealing is a greater prob- lem in theWest and South than in other regions of the country, according to both the FTC’s city and state rankings, which vary substantially from year to year.
Laws and Law Enforcement
Victims of identity theft were “discovered” during the 1990s when nearly all state legislatures criminal- ized the unlawful possession of personal identifica- tion information for the purposes of committing fraud. Hearings held by Congressional Committees during the 1990s revealed that police departments usually did not view individuals whose identities were appropriated by fraudsters as actual victims,
since the immediate monetary losses usually were incurred by credit card companies, not account holders. In 1998, Congress passed the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act, which not only imposed stiff sentences and fines on those who committed this new federal offense, but also stipu- lated that the impersonated individual was a crime victim deserving of financial protection and entitled to reimbursement via court-ordered restitution obli- gations imposed on convicted thieves. In 2000, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) urged police departments that were reluctant to accept complaints to revise their policies and provide incident reports and other forms of assistance to impersonated individuals (Newman, 2004).
The FTC was given the task of compiling the details about fraudulent transactions from complai- nants and issuing annual reports from its Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse and its Consumer Senti- nel database. A provision of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 enabled consumers to get one free credit report each year so they can check for any suspicious activity in their accounts at the three major companies (from www.annualcre- ditreport.com). Congress authorized the Depart- ment of Homeland Security to get involved when it passed the REAL ID act in 2005 (NCJRS, 2005; Kelleher, 2006; President’s Task Force, 2007).
Several problems continue to undermine the effectiveness of efforts by law enforcement agencies to come to the aid of identity theft victims. First, many officers lack necessary training, and their departments lack the needed resources to provide an adequate response. Second, multijurisdictional complications undercut an agency’s commitment to follow through on a complaint. When a victim in one city reports to a local police department that a thief has stolen personal information and is carry- ing out fraudulent financial transactions in another city, state, or country, which law enforcement agency bears primary responsibility for seeing the investigation through to completion?
Furthermore, underreporting undercuts the accuracy of official statistics. Some victims of iden- tity theft do not bring their monetary troubles to the attention of law enforcement agencies, and
T A B L E 5.5 States Where Residents Faced the Highest and Lowest Risks of Identity Theft, 2010
Rank 2010 State
Victimization Rate per 100,000 Inhabitants
1 Florida 115 2 Arizona 103 3 California 102 4 Georgia 97 5 Texas 96 6 Nevada 90 7 New Mexico 86 8 New York 85 9 Maryland 83
10 Illinois 81 Lowest risks
46 New Hampshire 38 47 Iowa 37 48 Maine 32 49 North Dakota 30 50 South Dakota 25
NOTES: Based on complaints received by the FTC from individuals and participating law enforcement agencies during 2010. Many incidents were not reported; complaints were not verified.
SOURCE: Federal Trade Commission Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse (FTC, 2011).
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 149
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
some that do seek assistance are rebuffed. An FTC survey carried out in 2003 found that only 38 per- cent of the respondents who informed financial institutions such as banks and credit card companies also filed complaints with the police. In 8 percent of these cases where individuals sought help, the police refused to fill out a report (FTC, 2005). By 2010, most persons (62 percent) who contacted the FTC to file a complaint that their identities were stolen also notified a law enforcement agency about their plight. However, 7 percent said that the police would not take their report (FTC, 2011). Report- ing rates to the police actually might be much lower when measured by a different method. Of all those who told interviewers that their identities had been stolen, only about 17 percent filed com- plaints with the authorities in 2007, according to the NCVS (Langton and Planty, 2010).
Some victims are understandably upset if authorities seem unsympathetic, show skepticism at their protestations of innocence, and appear reluc- tant to officially file their complaints and take action. Victims may sense that they are assumed to be guilty of wrongdoing as they fill out notarized forms, tele- phone merchants who are demanding payment, fend off collection agencies, and write lengthy explanations to credit rating bureaus. Victims realize that they bear the burden of proof: they are held financially responsible unless and until they can establish their innocence and clear their names.
Because law enforcement countermeasures are not yet effective, identity snatchers know that the risks of apprehension, conviction, and punishment are relatively low, while the returns are potentially high. These crimes are difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to investigate, especially when multiple jur- isdictions are involved. In fact, offenders exploit these problems by misusing the stolen information far from the original crime scene preferably another county, state, or country (Collins and Hoffman, 2004).
Blaming Victims for Ignoring Risk-Reduction Strategies
Protect your Social Security number and other personal information. [Addressing college students:]
Don’t let identity thieves rob you of your educational future!
INSPECTOR GENERAL JOHN HIGGINS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION (2005)
■ ■ ■
We’re all vulnerable to identity theft—that’s the bad news. The good news is that you can protect yourself.
FBI AGENT JEFF LANZA, 2006 (FBI, 2008)
■ ■ ■
The first line of defense against identity theft often is an aware and motivated consumer who takes reasonable precautions to protect his information. Every day unwitting consumers create risks to the security of their personal information. From failing to install firewall protection on a computer hard drive to leaving paid bills in a mail slot, consumers leave the door open to identity thieves. Consumer education is a critical component of any plan to reduce the incidence of identity theft.
PRESIDENT’S TASK FORCE ON IDENTITY THEFT (2007, P. 39)
■ ■ ■
Awareness is an effective weapon against many forms of identity theft. Be aware of how information is stolen and what you can do to protect yours, monitor your personal information to detect any problems quickly, and know what to do when you suspect your identity has been stolen. Armed with the knowledge of how to protect yourself and take action, you can make identity thieves’ jobs much more difficult.
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (2008)
■ ■ ■
The financial services industry, businesses, and law enforcement have been working harder than ever to crack down on fraud and to educate consumers about how they can protect themselves… Consumers should remain vigilant and be careful not to expose
150 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
personally identifiable information over social networks and to acquaintances.
STEVE COX, CEO, COUNCIL OF BETTER BUSINESS BUREAUS (QUOTED IN JAVELIN, 2011)
As the threat of identity theft mushrooms, a victim-blaming versus victim-defending debate is emerging. Victim blaming accentuates the many ways careless people can make the thieves’ tasks easier—facilitation—and even call attention to their vulnerability and single themselves out for trouble—precipitation. Victim defending points out the many opportunities that thieves can seize to purloin information that are beyond the ability of individuals to control or counter.
Thieves can steal information from their unsus- pecting prey during a range of routine activities. Personal identifiers can be intercepted in techno- logically sophisticated ways while victims are engaged in banking transactions online or when they are buying merchandise or tickets over the Internet. Cell phone transmissions can also be mon- itored to hijack information. Birth certificates can be obtained under false pretenses from records maintained by county governments. Crooks posing as landlords or employers conducting background checks can get other people’s credit reports (Office of the Inspector General, 2005).
As for the victim–offender relationship, the crim- inal is usually but not always a complete stranger. Thieves can resort to a range of methods to get the information they need to become effective impostors. They can employ old-fashioned methods such as grabbing wallets and purses during burglaries and rob- beries or breaking into parked cars to find personal papers and laptops. Identity crooks can commit a fed- eral offense by sorting through a person’s mail for bank and credit card statements, preapproved credit card offers, new checkbooks, telephone bills, or tax receipts. Patient criminals can even file a “change of address” form at a post office to physically divert a target’s mail to a location of their choosing. Gutsy thieves can pry loose secrets by “pretexting”: posing as representatives of a government agency or business with a legitimate need to know personal information. They can pilfer records kept by an employer or bribe
an employeewho has access to confidential files. They can engage in “dumpster diving” by rummaging through an individual’s garbage or the trash thrown away by businesses or hospitals, searching for discarded receipts and bank statements.
Besides these low-tech means, some thieves have mastered sophisticated high-tech methods. “Shoulder surfers” find out passwords by watching their marks at ATMs. Corrupt employees can use “skimmers” to scan and capture crucial information during credit card transactions at restaurants and other stores. Others obtain what they need to know via the Internet by searching agency records (especially about births, marriages, and deaths). Cyberthieves, perhaps operating on some other con- tinent, can engage in “phishing” and “pharming.” “Phishermen” try to fool, entice, or frighten e-mail recipients into disclosing account numbers, user names, and passwords on authentic-looking fake websites; they write that they need to update an existing account or repair a security breach with a bank or other financial institution. Pharmers attack legitimate websites with malicious codes that steer traffic to look-alike sites that “harvest” (intercept and decode) encrypted online transactions. “Key- stroke logging” spyware, planted inside a computer with a malicious code or virus, betrays everything an unsuspecting user types. “Screen-scrapers” can snatch and transmit whatever is on a monitor of an infected PC. Cell phone transmissions and instant messaging are current targets for a new wave of attacks (FTC, 2002; Slosarik, 2002; Collins and Hoffman, 2004; NCJRS, 2005; Shanahan, 2006). “Friendly fraud” carried out by persons known to their target—such as roommates or relatives— appears to be on the rise, especially against consumers between the ages of 25 and 34 (Javelin, 2011).
Clearly, the victim–offender relationship can range from trusted employees, former intimate partners, roommates, and estranged relatives to casual acquaintances (like dishonest bank tellers or postal workers), to total strangers like “electronic intruders” (hackers) who break into files maintained by supposedly secure websites.
College students might be especially vulnera- ble to identity theft for several reasons. They store
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 151
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
personal data in shared, largely unguarded dormi- tory rooms. Many undergraduates might not take precautions because they do not have much money or assets. They do not realize that they could be targeted for their unblemished “good names and reputations,” and not the limited amounts of cash in their bank accounts. Surveys document that lax attitudes toward handling
personal identifiers persist on some campuses (Office of the Inspector General, 2005). Many universities are striving to safeguard their massive files on their students, and hold workshops on identity theft awareness (President’s Task Force, 2007, p. 40). One theme is that users of social net- working sites are warned not to post bits of infor- mation that identity thieves and burglars could
B O X 5.4 The Dangers of Identity Theft: What to Do and What Not to Do
A virtual cottage industry has sprung up to sell identity-theft prevention and self-help guidebooks (for example, see May, 2001; Vacca, 2002; Frank, 2010; and Kelly, 2011). The recommendations are much more extensive and demanding than the advice given to individuals who want to protect their homes from burglars and their vehicles from car thieves.
Preventive Measures
Government agencies do their part in the campaign against victim facilitation by warning the public to manage personal information “wisely and cautiously.” The Fraud Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (2008) summarizes its advice about four ways to minimize risks by using the acronym SCAM.
■ Be “stingy” about giving out personal information.
■ “Check” your financial records regularly.
■ “Ask” to see free credit reports each year.
■ “Maintain” careful records of financial accounts.
The Federal Trade Commission (2008; 2011) spells out in greater detail the many precautions it recommends:
■ Keep important documents such as bank books and tax returns under lock and key, as well as computers and laptops full of personal information.
■ Stash away personal records so they aren’t readily available to roommates, party guests, domestic employees, or repairmen.
■ Use a paper shredder to destroy unsolicited preapproved credit card invitations, as well as unneeded receipts, bills, applications, forms, and account statements, to thwart dumpster divers who pick through trash and recycling bins for items revealing personal information.
■ While away from home, destroy receipts from financial transactions at banks, ATMs, restaurants, and gasoline stations.
■ Promptly remove incoming letters from a mailbox, and take outgoing bills and checks directly to post office collection boxes.
■ Devise clever (rather than easily remembered but also easily guessed) passwords using a combination of let- ters, numbers, and special characters. Substitute crea- tive alternatives for a birth date or a mother’s maiden name for electronic accounts.
■ Scrutinize bills and account statements for unautho- rized transactions.
■ Carefully review once-a-year free activity reports from each major credit bureau to check for unauthorized applications and accounts.
■ Request information about security procedures at doc- tors’ offices, businesses, educational institutions, and workplaces, such as who has access to databases, whether records are kept in a safe location, and how old files are disposed of.
■ Don’t carry your Social Security card in a wallet or write it on a check. When a Social Security number is requested in a business transaction, ask: “Why is it needed? How will it be used? What law requires that it be divulged? What measures do you take to protect my number? What will happen if I refuse to provide it?” See if a substitute number can be used on a state driver’s license or for a health insurance policy.
■ Go to the trouble of opting out of telephone solicitations, direct mail lists, and preapproved credit card offers.
■ If scrupulously abiding by this lengthy list of “dos” and “don’ts” is not sufficiently reassuring, cautious persons intent on avoiding trouble can purchase identity theft insurance package plans.
If state law permits it, a cautious person can place a “freeze” on his or her credit files with each of the three major agencies, so that third parties cannot access the account or
152 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
exploit. Examples of what should not be revealed online include addresses, dates of vacations, and information about daily routines. Telling the world about one’s place of birth, mother’s maiden name, favorite song, and even pets’ names could be providing thieves with answers to questions that are commonly asked for security purposes to sign in to internet accounts (Schultz, 2010).
Arguments that implicitly or explicitly blame identity theft victims have been voiced by govern- ment officials and representatives of the financial services industry. This point of view proceeds from the assumption that people determine their own fate and that carelessness is the most frequent cause of the problem. The individual whose iden- tity was stolen probably failed to take adequate
open a new one without permission to temporarily lift it. Cautious consumers must pay a fee for this transaction, but the expense is waived for victims of identity theft. Those who have their ID stolen can also impose a “fraud alert” that compels potential creditors to notify victims about any applications for new credit cards or loans in their name.
Red Flags
The Federal Trade Commission (2011) emphasizes the impor- tance of early detection as a way to minimize harm. It sug- gests that cautious consumers monitor their accounts regularly and be on the alert for any suspicious activities, such as the following signs that impostors may have recently stolen their identities:
■ Debits, purchases, and cash withdrawals appear on accounts that arouse suspicion.
■ Inaccurate information appears on credit reports.
■ Bills that were anticipated do not arrive in the mail, indicating that the billing address may have been changed.
■ Credit cards arrive in the mail that were not applied for.
■ Credit is denied, or high rates are imposed on mortgages or car loans, indicating elevated risks and delinquent accounts.
■ Bill collectors call about overdue debts.
■ Notices arrive referring to mysterious houses that were bought, apartments rented, or jobs held in the victim’s name.
Recovery and Restoration after an Impersonation
Individuals who have evidence that their personal accounts have been penetrated and their identities appropriated by impostors should follow these four steps in order to recover from the theft, according to advice provided by the Federal Trade Commission (2011):
1. Place a fraud alert on credit inquiries, applications, and reports with the three major companies. Monitor these accounts carefully for at least one year.
2. Close any accounts that appear to have been fraudu- lently opened or tampered with, and notify the com- pany’s security or fraud department, in writing, about the intrusion. Obtain forms to dispute any fraudulent transactions and debts, and keep records and copies of all correspondence.
3. Notify the local police and file a complaint called an “Identity Theft report” either in person, over the phone, or online, and get the report’s number. The report records all the details about the crime. If the local police are reluctant to accept the complaint, ask to file a “Miscellaneous Incident Report” or try another jurisdiction, such as the state police, or ask the state attorney general’s office for assistance. Provide reluc- tant officers with a copy of the FTC’s “Law Enforcement Cover Letter” that explains the impact of this type of crime on victims and the finance industry, as well as the FTC’s “Remedying the Effects of Identity Theft” that underscores the necessity of police reports as a way to ensure victim’s rights.
4. Contact the Federal Trade Commission, file a complaint using the online form or the hotline, and obtain an “ID Theft Affidavit,” which can be circulated to law enforcement agencies (such as the FBI, the Secret Ser- vice, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service).
Also, notify the IRS, U.S. Passport Office, and state department of motor vehicles. Speak to counselors at an FTC hotline who offer advice about the steps to be followed and how to use their standard ID Theft Affidavit to simplify the process of settling disputed charges with defrauded creditors. Persons who continue to suffer lingering consequences and repeated intrusions may appeal to the Social Security Administration for a new identification number, but this step still may not resolve all their problems (FTC, 2011; U.S. Gen- eral Accounting Office, 2002; Slosarik, 2002; and Lee, 2003a).
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 153
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
measures to protect his personal data. His inattention to details attracted dumpster divers and shoulder surfers and made their illegal information- gathering tasks much easier to carry out. A foolish lapse in judgment can set up a “mark” to be defrauded (such as giving a stranger personal infor- mation over the phone when falling for a scam about entering a contest or claiming a prize). Just carelessly losing a wallet can lead to serious trou- ble. Indeed, the implicit victim blaming underly- ing theft-prevention educational campaigns is that those who don’t observe precautions will be sorry someday when impostors hijack their identities. Victims who accept blame often obsess over how they inadvertently may have given their secrets away. What they might have done “wrong” appears in Box 5.4.
Victim Defending: Facilitation Is Not the Heart of the Problem
It has been said that the theft of one’s identity and personal information is not a matter of “if” but a matter of “when.”
ELIOT SPITZER, NEW YORK STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL, 2005 (QUOTED IN KATEL, 2005, P. 534)
■ ■ ■
Firewalls and virus protection programs are routinely penetrated by sophisticated hackers seeking ID information.
BRUCE HELLMAN, SUPERVISOR OF THE FBI’S NEW YORK COMPUTER HACKING SQUAD (QUOTED IN SHERMAN, 2005, P. 24)
■ ■ ■
Even if you take all of these steps, however, it’s still possible that you can become a victim of identity theft.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, FRAUD DIVISION, 2008
Victims of identity theft sometimes are blamed— explicitly or implicitly—for failing to take this threat seriously. They ignored the long and growing lists of dos and don’ts, did something wrong, and singled themselves out for trouble
(see Kelleher, 2006). They did not incorporate into their routines the many new suggestions for reducing risks. Because of carelessness, neglect, or foolishness, they facilitated the ruination of their credit worthiness.
The victim-defending perspective concedes that consistently following theft prevention recommendations would reduce a person’s risks by making a thief’s tasks more difficult to carry out. But this viewpoint insists that even the most scrupulous observance of all these suggestions at all times still might prove ineffective. Experts warn that no one can stop a determined identity snatcher from achieving his goal. More and more people have sharpened their “cyber-streetwise” skills. And yet even as they foil attempted scams, ID crooks devise clever new ways to rip them off (Shanahan, 2006). Therefore, it seems unfair to blame most victims because sophisticated identity pirates can overcome any obstacles cautious indi- viduals place in their paths.
Furthermore, many people would consider abiding by the long lists of dos and don’ts to be unreasonable (such as workers grilling their employers about ways of safeguarding personnel files); impractical (customers refusing to provide Social Security numbers to creditors); burdensome (like devising new passwords containing many letters and numbers every six months); or unwork- able (emptying home mailboxes at midday). Living this way in a consumption-oriented society— always alert, suspicious, vigilant—is emotionally exhausting.
A question that troubles most victims is, “How did it happen?” Unfortunately, most vic- tims never figure out, “Why me?” Several sets of answers from various sources address this issue. A study commissioned in 2005 by a credit card com- pany, an online check-clearing company, and a bank focused on the relatively small proportion that did discover how their personal identifiers were stolen. Lost or stolen wallets, credit cards, and checkbooks were the source of the problem in less than 30 percent of all identity theft cases in which victims thought they knew why it happened to them (Katel, 2005).
154 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
About 40 percent of all self-identified victims told NCVS interviewers that they thought they knew what caused their problems. The leading suspected reasons were primarily that personal identifiers were compromised during a purchase or other transaction; second, from a lost or stolen wallet or checkbook; and third, from personnel files maintained in offices (Langton and Planty, 2010). Similarly, “Why me?” remained a mystery to the majority of respondents in another survey. Only about 30 percent of “verified victims” who used the free services offered by the Identity Theft Assistance Center (ITAC) figured out how it hap- pened to them. The leading causes were computer hacking/viruses/phishing schemes, followed by lost or stolen wallets, checkbooks, or credit cards. Other less frequent explanations were data breaches beyond their ability to control; betrayals by relatives, friends, and in-home employees; stolen or diverted mail; disclosures by corrupt employees; and, lastly, burglaries of their residences—this according to a 2011 study of about 760 persons commissioned by an organization that is funded by the financial services industry and reportedly engages in victim advocacy (ITAC, 2011).
Because the bulk of ID thefts go unsolved, it is not known how the majority of impostors were able to pilfer the confidential information they were seeking. Surely, many of the thefts were beyond their ability to prevent or thwart. It might be fair to blame most of those who lost their wallets to pickpockets, thieves, burglars, or robbers because they did not act quickly enough after their personal information was taken from them directly. Victims also can be criticized for falling for e-mail phishing scams, and for tossing unshredded documents into the trash. But they can’t be held responsible if their personal identifiers are intercepted during a transaction with an online seller’s unsecure website, or are purloined by a dishonest employee at the office or behind the counter, or are swiped from their daily mail deliveries. It is debatable whether they can be condemned for unscrupulous actions by friends, roommates, and relatives who had access to their personal information.
TRANSCENDING VICTIM BLAMING AND VICTIM DEFENDING
The analysis above of auto theft and identity theft, uncovered some strengths and weaknesses of both victim blaming and victim defending. Contrary to sweeping characterizations made by some victimol- ogists, victim blaming is not inherently an exercise in scapegoating, an example of twisted logic, or a sign of callousness. It depends on which crime is the focus of attention, who the victims are, and why some people condemn that behavior. Similarly, vic- tim defending is not always a noble enterprise engaged in by those who champion the cause of the downtrodden.
Victim blamers are not necessarily liberal or con- servative, rich or poor, young or old, or male or female. Sometimes they switch sides and become victim defenders—depending on the facts of the case, the nature of the crime, and the parties involved. Individuals are not consistent; nearly everyone blames certain victims and defends others.
The strengths of victim blaming and victim defending lie in their advocates’ willingness to address specific criminal acts and real-life incidents. The two clashing perspectives dissect in great detail who said and did what to whom and under what cir- cumstances. Victim-blaming and victim-defending arguments bridge the gap between theoretical pro- positions and abstractions on the one hand, and how people genuinely think and act on the other.
Themost serious drawback of both perspectives is a tendency to be microscopic rather than macro- scopic. Victim-blaming and victim-defending argu- ments get so caught up (or bogged down) in the particularities of each case that they tend to ignore the larger social forces and environmental conditions that shape the attitudes and behaviors of both criminals and victims. Thus, whenever partisans of the two per- spectives clash, they inadvertently let the system— with its fundamental institutions (established ways of organizing people to accomplish tasks) and culture (way of life, traditions)—off the hook. Yet these out- side influences compel the actors in the drama to play the well-rehearsed roles of offender and victim and to
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 155
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
follow a well-known script in an all-too-familiar tragedy.
In the case of car theft, victim-blaming and victim-defending arguments nearsightedly dwell on the actions of motorists and thieves. What is excluded from the analysis is as important as what is included. A comprehensive battle plan must take into account how sophisticated and organized com- mercial thievery has become, and how profitable the black market for “hot” cars and stolen parts continues to be. It must also grasp how the practices of insurance companies provide incentives for thieves to steal cars for parts, and how salvage yards make it easier for thieves to infiltrate stolen items into the flow of recycled parts to auto body repair shops. An effective anticrime strategy must also come to grips with the inadequacies in record-keeping and in the stamping of serial num- bers on crash parts. These shortcomings, which have not yet been adequately resolved (see Karmen, 1980; NIJ, 1984), make it difficult for law enforce- ment officers to detect and prove thievery.
Even more important, it is necessary to go beyond victim blaming and victim defending to real- ize that the manufacturers bear responsibility for the ease with which their products are taken from their customers. Pros brag that they need just a minute or two (and an ordinary screwdriver or some shaved- down keys) to defeat standard antitheft locks on the doors and ignitions of many makes and models (see Kesler, 1992; Behar, 1993; “Auto Theft Alert,” 1994; S. Smith, 1994; and McKinley, 2006).
Perhaps blaming victims for auto theft serves to distract attention from engineering issues. The most virulent victim blaming has emanated from automo- bile industry spokespersons, insurance company representatives, and top law-enforcement officials. Who or what are they protecting? Certainly, they are not apologists for the lawbreakers, either the joyriding juveniles or the professional crooks. Appar- ently, condemning the motorists who left their cars vulnerable to thieves is intended to divert attention away from the automobile manufacturers who design and sell cars that are so easily stolen! Consid- erable evidence exists to substantiate the charge that until recently vehicle security (like passenger safety)
was assigned a low priority by automakers, probably because thefts stimulate new car sales (see Karmen, 1981a). Vehicle security is likely to remain a problem until manufacturers are compelled by law to post theft-resistance ratings from an independent testing bureau or government laboratory on new-car show- room stickers.
As for identity theft, the system-blaming per- spective proceeds from the assumption that most impersonations and counterfeit cards cannot be traced back to some act of carelessness. Conse- quently, effective prevention strategies cannot be predicated on efforts to transform thoughtless indi- viduals into crime-conscious customers one at a time. Even though most victims are not able to determine how and why they were targeted, it seems likely that a great many must be totally innocent because their identities were stolen due to a security breach, and not because of carelessness on their part.
Surprising amounts of personal information are readily available in databases accessible through the Internet. The lax security measures of some retailers puts their consumers at risk through no fault of their own. Businesses like online stores, car dealer- ships, retail chains, and regional banks are rarely held accountable for unauthorized disclosures of confidential information about their customers, and are reluctant to publicly acknowledge intru- sions into their files. Institutions often are not vigi- lant guardians of the records of their students, employees, or patients (Newman, 2004). Stolen identifiers are for sale through global black market channels. Governments must do more to compel organizations with databases (especially “data bro- kers” who sell personal information for commercial purposes) to take additional measures to protect the public from raids on files by cybercrooks and fraud- sters across the globe who seek credit, debit, and ATM card account information (like PIN codes), Social Security numbers, and birthdates. For exam- ple, from January 2005 up to the first six months of 2008, more than 234 million records containing sensitive personal information were exposed in security breaches within the U.S. alone. Each intru- sion means that millions of people were put at high risk of identity theft by the targeted government
156 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
agencies, banks, other commercial enterprises, and universities (Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, 2008). During the first four months of 2011, 112 breaches (by insiders accidentally as well as on purpose, and by outsiders such as hackers) exposed data about more than 5.4 million persons kept in the files of banking, finance, credit, educational, government, military, and medical organizations (ITRC, 2011). Many law enforcement agencies still lack experts in forensic computing and remain far behind the curve when it comes to detecting intrusions, figuring out who did it, and gathering evidence that will stand up in court. The odds are in the thieves’ favor. Convictions take place in only 1 out of every 700 to 1,000 reported identity theft cases (Katel, 2005).
Most federal and state legislation passed to date focuses on deterring and punishing offenders. It offers little protection or relief in the form of gov- ernment compensation or restitution by offenders for those who lose money, and fails to hold accountable the commercial ventures whose care- less practices enable thieves to periodically swipe databases full of confidential data. Most state gov- ernments have passed laws to compel organizations that maintain databanks to notify people put at risk when a breach of security takes place. But Congress must also pass stricter regulations that would im- pose uniform higher internal security standards on the operations of agencies and companies that suffer breaches with infuriating regularity but only reluctantly admit that intruders broke into their record-keeping systems, office files, and computer databases. Thefts of personal data from supposedly secure repositories can endanger hundreds of thou- sands of consumers at a time (Editors, New York Times, 2005; Sherman, 2005; President’s Task Force, 2007; and Consumer’s Union, 2008).
The system-blaming approach also questions the sincerity of the efforts made by the giant cor- porations (especially banks and credit card compa- nies) that seem to suffer losses when their customers fall prey to identity thieves. Even though this kind of fraud initially costs them billions of dollars annu- ally, ultimately they pass along most of these expenses to their customers by raising rates and fees, just as large stores charge higher prices to
cover “inventory shrinkage” due to shoplifting and employee theft. Any remaining losses can be written off at tax time. It appears that top executives have calculated that it is better for their businesses’ bottom line to recoup money from honest custo- mers than it is to spend more on fraud prevention or to pay more to pursue and help bring to justice impostors masquerading as someone else.
Major credit bureaus suffer no direct losses, and even gain additional revenues when fearful consu- mers sign up for credit monitoring services or pur- chase personal activity reports (May, 2002). Sensing that this problem has become a deeply entrenched feature of the financial landscape, companies have discovered that every “crisis” presents an opportu- nity to make money by marketing services to detect suspicious activity and by selling a new form of insur- ance that repays policyholders for expenses arising from misappropriations of their good names. For example, as many as 100 million users worldwide were exposed to a risk of identity theft that could last for years after hackers breached the Sony PlayStation Network, Sony Online Network, and Qriocity film and music service in 2011. The breach may have exposed customers’ names, birth dates, and mothers’maiden names (Edwards and Riley, 2011). Because it could not guarantee that credit card data had not been stolen, the Tokyo-based corporation offered its vulnerable customers within the U.S. a year of ID theft protection in the form of cyber- monitoring and surveillance of websites that traffic in personal data, plus up to $1 million in coverage for expenses arising from legal actions, restoration efforts, and lost wages (Albanesius, 2011).
Clearly, transcending the analytical confines of both victim blaming and victim defending requires that the researcher go beyond criminology and vic- timology and into the broader realm of social science: sociology, anthropology, psychology, economics, and political science. Only then can the effects of the social system on shaping the thoughts and actions of specific offenders and their victims be appreciated and understood. Doling out the proper mix of exon- eration and blame to just two people is of limited value because the influences of outside forces are eliminated from consideration.
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 157
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
THE LEGAL IMPORTANCE OF DETERMINING RESPONSIBILITY
A wife returns home late at night after having a tryst with her landscaper at a motel. Her husband, an executive and former professor, becomes enraged and slams her face into the floor of the garage, splitting her head open. The police find her blood-soaked body behind the wheel of her SUV in a creek, but when they determine that the apparent driving accident was staged, the husband is arrested. He is prosecuted for her murder, but the jury finds him guilty of the lesser charge of passion/provocation manslaughter. The judge sentences him to eight years in prison. He will be eligible for parole after five and a half years (Miller, 2005).
The process of fixing responsibility for crime unavoidably rests on judgments that are subject to challenges and criticisms. These judgments are based on values, ethics, allegiances, and prejudices concern- ing the crucial question of whether (and to what degree) the victim shares responsibility with the offender for a violation of the law. A number of important decisions that affect the fate of the offender, the plight of the victim, and the public’s perception of the crime hinge on this issue of victim responsibility.
Whether or not the victim facilitated, precipi- tated, or provoked the offender is taken into account by police officers, prosecutors, juries, judges, compensation boards, insurance examiners, politicians, and crime control strategists. Victim responsibility is an issue at many stages in the crimi- nal justice process: in applications for compensation; in demands for restitution and compensatory damages; in complaints about how crime victims are treated by family, friends, and strangers at home, in hospital emergency rooms, in court, and in the newspapers; and in the development of crime prevention programs and criminological theories.
At every juncture in the criminal justice pro- cess, judgments must be made about the degree of responsibility, if any, the victim bears for what hap- pened. The police confront this issue first. For example, when called to the scene of a barroom brawl, officers must decide whether to arrest one or both or none of the participants and what charges to lodge if they do make arrests. Often the loser is declared the victim, and the combatant still on his feet is taken into custody for assault.
When prosecutors review the charges brought by the police against defendants, they must decide if the complainants were indeed totally innocent victims. If some degree of blame can be placed on them, their
B O X 5.5 Prof Calls for Crackdown on Crime Victims
There is so much talk about crime in the streets and the rights of the criminal that little attention is being paid to the victims of crime. But there is a current of opinion that our courts are being too soft on the victims, and many of them are going unpunished for allowing a crime to be committed against them. One man who feels strongly about this is Pro- fessor Heinrich Applebaum, a criminologist who feels that unless the police start cracking down on the victims of criminal acts, the crime rate in this country will continue to rise.
“The people who are responsible for crime in this country are the victims. If they didn’t allow themselves to be robbed, the problem of crime in this country would be solved,” Applebaum said.
“That makes sense, Professor. Why do you think the courts are soft on victims of crimes?”
“We’re living in a permissive society and anything goes,” Applebaum replied. “Victims of crimes don’t seem to be concerned about the consequences of their acts. They walk down a street after dark, or they display jewelry in their store window, or they have their cash registers right out where everyone can see them. They seem to think that they can do this in the United States and get away with it.”
“You speak as if all the legal machinery in this country was weighted in favor of the victim, instead of the person who committed the crime.”
“It is,” Applebaum said. “While everyone is worried about the victim, the poor criminal is dragged down to the police station, booked and arraigned, and if he’s lucky he’ll be let out on bail. He may lose his job if his boss hears about it and there is even a chance that if he has a police record, it may prejudice the judge when he’s sentenced.”
158 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
credibility as witnesses for the prosecution becomes impaired. A district attorney may decide that the accused person would probably be viewed by a jury or a judge as less culpable and less deserving of pun- ishment and therefore has less of a chance of being convicted. Because relatively few cases are brought to trial, the prosecution will engage in plea bargaining (accepting a guilty plea to a lesser charge) if a blame- worthy victim would be an unconvincing witness. Such cases might even be screened out and charges dropped. For instance, a study of files in the District of Columbia during the early 1970s revealed that evi- dence of victim blame-worthiness halved the chances that a case would be prosecuted (Williams, 1976).
Killings that resulted from extreme provoca- tions by the deceased are likely to be considered justifiable homicides and won’t be prosecuted. Jur- isdictions use different standards to determine what constitutes provocation and justification. For exam- ple, a study of slayings in Houston, Texas, deter- mined that 12 percent were justifiable, but in Chicago only 3 percent of all killings were consid- ered justifiable by local authorities. It appears that the legal definition of justification was broader in Texas than in Illinois (Block, 1981).
If the provocation by the personwho died is con- sidered insufficient to render a homicide justifiable, it
might be treated as an extenuating circumstance. Evi- dence of victim provocation can persuade the district attorney to charge the defendant with manslaughter instead of murder. In a homicide or assault case, the victim’s provocation must have been “adequate” in order for the charges to be reduced or for the defen- dant to be acquitted on the grounds of justifiable self- defense. Inmost states, that means that the defendant’s violent responses to the victim’s provocations must have occurred during the heat of passion, before a reasonable opportunity for intense emotions to cool (Wolfgang, 1958; Williams, 1978).
If the defendant is convicted, the judge may view the victim’s provocation as a mitigating factor that makes a lesser sentence appropriate. In jurisdic- tions where restitution by offenders to victims is per- mitted or even mandated, the culpability of victims can be a cause for reducing the amount of repayment that criminals must undertake. Similarly, the judge or the jury in civil court is likely to consider a victim’s blameworthy actions as a reason for reducing the monetary damages a defendant must pay for causing loss, pain, and suffering. Parallel considerations arise when victims of violent crimes apply to a criminal injury compensation board for reimbursement. If the board members determine in a hearing that the victim bears some responsibility for the incident,
“I guess in this country people always feel sorrier for the victim than they do for the person who committed the crime.”
“You can say that again. Do you know that in some states they are even compensating victims of crimes?”
“It’s hard to believe,” I said. “Well, it’s true. The do-gooders and the bleeding hearts
all feel that victims of crimes are misunderstood, and if they were treated better, they would stop being victims. But the statistics don’t bear this out. The easier you are on the vic- tim, the higher the crime rate becomes.”
“What is the solution, Professor?” “I say throw the book at anybody who’s been robbed. They
knew what they were getting into when they decided to be robbed, and they should pay the penalty for it. Once a person has been a victim of crime and realizes he can’t get away with it, the chances of his becoming a victim again will be slim.”
“Why do people want to become victims of crime, Professor?”
“Who knows? They’re probably looking for thrills. Boredom plays a part, but I would think the biggest factor is that victims think they can still walk around the streets of their cities and get away with it. Once they learn they can’t, you’ll see a big drop in crime statistics.”
“You make a lot of sense, Professor. Do you believe the American people are ready to listen to you?”
“They’d better be, because the criminal element is get- ting pretty fed up with all the permissive coddling of victims that is going on in this country.”
SOURCE: From “Victim Precipitation,” by Art Buchwald, copyright © The Washington Post, February 4, 1969. Reprinted by permission.
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 159
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
they will reduce the amount of the award or may, in extreme cases of shared guilt and provocation, entirely reject the victim’s claims (see Chapter 12).
In some conflicts that erupt after extensive inter- action between two mutually hostile parties, the designations “offender” and “victim” simply do not apply. When both people behaved illegally, adjudica- tion under the adversary system may not be appropri- ate. Neighborhood justice centers have been set up to settle these shared responsibility cases through media- tion and arbitration. Compromises are appropriate when both disputants are to some degree “right” as well as “wrong” (see Chapter 13).
In sum, widely held beliefs and stereotypes about shared responsibility can profoundly shape the way a case is handled within the criminal justice process.
Given the limited choices of strategies derived from victim blaming versus victim defending, policymak- ing swings back and forth between attempts to control the behavior of either would-be predators or their potential prey—but not their larger social environment, which is what a system-blaming analysis of social institutions would recommend.
The frustrations of trying and failing to deter or rehabilitate criminals periodically propels public safety campaigns in the opposite, presumably easier, direction toward crackdowns on victim facilitation, precipitation, and provocation. What follows is a satire that was written decades ago but remains quite relevant, in which a fictitious professor of vic- timology puts forward preposterous proposals to solve street crime (see Box 5.5).
SUMMARY
When victims ask, “Why me?” victimologists sug- gest explanations that range far beyond the notions of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, fate, or just plain bad luck. Explanations that raise the possibility that the victim, along with the offender, shares some degree of responsibility for what hap- pened are the subjects of bitter debate.
Victim-blaming arguments focus on facilitation through negligence, precipitation due to recklessness,
and provocation because of instigation. Victim blaming insists that injured parties must change their ways if they want to live safer lives. Victim defending either places the entire blame for what happened on lawbreakers (offender blaming) or finds fault with social institutions and cultural values that shape the lives of both offenders and victims (system blaming).
KEY TERMS DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY
boost explanation, 124
carelessly facilitating victims, 142
chop shops, 135
conscientiously resisting victims, 142
conventionally cautious victims, 142
dumpster diving, 151
fabricating simulators, 143
facilitation, 124
flag explanation, 124
identity theft, 144
just world outlook, 132
justifiable homicide, 129
offender blaming, 133
pharming, 151
phishing, 151
precipitation, 128
precipitative initiators, 142
provocation, 128
provocative conspirators, 142
retagging, 135
shared responsibility, 120
shoulder surfers, 151
skimmers, 151
subculture of violence, 129
subintentional death, 129
system blaming, 134
Techniques of Neutralization, 133
typology, 130
victim blaming, 132
victim defending, 132
160 CHAPT ER 5
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND DEBATE
1. Compare and contrast victim facilitation, vic- tim precipitation, and victim provocation. Cite examples to illustrate the differences.
2. Explain victim blaming step by step, and then argue that people whose cars and whose iden- tities are stolen may have made the thieves’ tasks easier. How can they avoid revictimization?
3. Describe the victim-defending point of view, and then apply it to both vehicle theft and identity theft.
4. Explain system blaming in general, and then apply this perspective to both vehicle theft and ID theft.
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS
1. Is it possible to be too crime conscious—too concerned about being victimized? Defend your point of view by providing examples of risk reduction strategies that demand sacrifices that might be considered to be either prudent or unreasonable.
2. Review the statements for and against scruti- nizing the victim’s role that appear in Boxes 5.1
and 5.2. Select quotes from victimologists with whom you strongly agree and several with whom you strongly disagree, and explain your views.
3. Although it is impossible to prevent victimiza- tion, it is possible to reduce risks—but it will cost individuals, companies, and governments much more. Explain and give examples.
SUGGESTED RESEARCH TOPICS
1. Find out from insurance companies’ websites the makes, models, and years of vehicles stolen most often in your state and in your nearest metropolitan area. See if your vehicle is on the list of most wanted by thieves.
2. Find out from the FTC website the seriousness of identity theft in your state and in your nearest metropolitan area.
3. Find more examples of victim-blaming accu- sations for various crimes by searching through databases of newspaper and magazine articles.
V I C T IMS ’ CONTR I BUT I ON S TO THE CR IME PROBLEM 161
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
6 Victims and the Criminal Justice System: Cooperation and Conflict Part 1: The Police
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 toward a Victim-Oriented Police Department
Summary
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary
Questions for Discussion and Debate
Critical Thinking Questions
Suggested Research Projects
LEARNING OBJECTIVES To find out what the criminal justice system can
accomplish in behalf of victims.
To become familiar with the ways that the police can serve the best interests of crime victims.
To uncover issues and relationships where victims and law enforcement agencies can find themselves in conflict rather than in an alliance.
To become 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.
162
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
T hough our homes and neighborhoods are safer thanthey have been in decades, millions of Americans still become victims of crime each year. For many citizens, a sense of security remains painfully elusive, and we must continue to fight crime wherever it exists. (President Barack Obama, 2011)
The mission of the criminal justice system is to “fight crime” as well as to serve those who are harmed by offenders. Criminology and criminal justice courses focus on the actions and operations of law enforcement agencies, prosecutors’ offices, defense attorneys, judges, juries, probation and cor- rections departments, and parole authorities. Crim- inologists investigate how this system handles offenders—specifically, suspects, arrestees, defen- dants, convicts, inmates, probationers, and parolees. Victimologists explore how this same system han- dles the individuals who suffer harm due to illegal activities: 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 the special requests victims ask of them for protection and for restitution.
Sociologists who analyze social institutions from a functionalist perspective point out that the criminal justice system is supposed to serve as the first line of defense for innocent, law-abiding peo- ple against the depredations of the “criminal element.” In other words, the legal system’s mission is to protect the public, and then, failing that, to help victims recover from harm inflicted by offen- ders. But those who adopt a conflict perspective see this same system in a different light. Agencies and officials act to some extent on their own behalf and follow policies that are in their own self-interest, as well as to the advantage of more powerful interest groups that dominate society (Reiman, 2005). Therefore, from the conflict perspective, it is not surprising to discover that victims can be at odds concerning certain practices or issues with the agen- cies and officials whose ostensible mission is to pro- tect and assist them.
VICTIMS VERSUS THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
The criminal justice system is the one branch of government that comes under scathing attack from all political quarters. Conservative crime con- trol proponents, treatment-oriented liberals, civil libertarians, civil rights activists, feminists, and vic- tim advocates—all find fault with its 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, they sharply disagree over how to reform the system.
The consensus among the experts who focus on victim issues is that the criminal justice system does not measure up to expectations. It fails to deliver what it promises. It does not meet the needs and wants of victims as its clients or consumers of its services. Serious problems persist, and the indictments of the system voiced over the years still stand today (see Box 6.1).
Suppose a person is robbed and injured. What could and should the system do to dispense justice in this case?
Law enforcement agencies are at the intake end of the legal system and are the criminal justice pro- fessionals that victims initially encounter. Police officers could rush to help the complainant and provide whatever physical and psychological first aid might be needed. They could catch the culprit and properly collect evidence that will stand up in court. They could recover any stolen goods taken by the robber and speedily return these items to the rightful owner. The prosecutor could make sure the defendant is indicted and then press for a swift trial. In the meantime, the injured party, who is serving as a key witness for the government, should be protected from intimidation and reprisals. After conviction, the victim’s views about a fair resolu- tion of this case could be fully aired. The judge could hand down a sentence that would balance the victim’s wishes with the community’s desires and the robber’s needs. Correctional authorities
V I C T IMS AND THE CR IM INAL JUS T I C E S Y ST EM : COOP ERAT I ON AND CON F L I C T 163
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
could see to it that the probationer, prisoner, or parolee doesn’t harass or attack the person whose complaint set the machinery of criminal justice into motion. If the offender was ordered by the judge to reimburse the individual he harmed for his losses and expenses, then correctional authorities could insure that these payments or services are delivered in a timely fashion, as promised.
But this “best-case scenario” frequently does not materialize. Instead of enjoying the cooperation of officials and supportive services from agencies as the system handles “their” cases, victims might find themselves sorely disappointed or even locked into conflicts with the police, prosecutors, judges, war- dens, and parole boards.
WHAT DO VICTIMS WANT: PUNISHMENT? TREATMENT? RESTITUTION?
Why should victims bring their problems to the attention of the legal system? What do they want? What would be best for them? What does “justice” mean to them?
Rather than answer these questions that others must decide for themselves, the victims’ rights
movement has sought empowerment. That means the ability to have some input into important deci- sions at every step in the criminal justice process, from initially filing a complaint with the police up to the release of the offender from custody, or pro- bation, or parole. Empowerment would enable the injured parties to exercise their “agency”—taking actions in pursuit of outcomes that embody their sense of fair play, self-interest, and desire for closure.
But why demand inclusion? Why insist on having a chance to participate at key junctures in the criminal justice process?
Victims can pursue one or even a combination of three distinct goals. The first is to see to it that hard-core offenders who act as predators are pun- ished. The second is to use the justice process as leverage to compel lawbreakers to undergo rehabil- itative treatment. The third possible aim is to get the court to order convicts to make restitution for any expenses arising from injuries and losses.
Make “Them” Suffer
A serial killer terrorizes a small city by binding, torturing, and killing his victims. He taunts the local police for three decades by sending them clues, but
B O X 6.1 Notable Criticisms of How the Criminal Justice System Handles Victims
If there is one word that describes how the criminal justice sys- tem treats victims of crimes and witnesses to crimes, it is “badly.”
JAMES REILLY, DIRECTOR OF THE VICTIM/WITNESS ASSISTANCE PROJECT OF THE NATIONAL DISTRICT ATTORNEYS’ ASSOCIATION (1981, P. 8)
Crimes that terrorize take many forms, from aggravated assault to petty thievery. But one crime goes largely unno- ticed. It is a crime against which there is no protection. It is committed daily across our nation. It is the painful, wrongful insensitivity of the criminal justice system toward those who are the victims of crime.... The callousness with which the system again victimizes those who have already suffered at the hands of an assailant is tragic.
SENATOR JOHN HEINZ, SPONSOR OF THE OMNIBUS VICTIMS PROTECTION ACT PASSED BY CONGRESS (1982, P. A19)
Without the cooperation of victims and witnesses in report- ing and testifying about crime, it is impossible in a free society to hold criminals accountable. When victims come forward to provide this vital service, however, they find little protection. They discover instead that they will be treated as appendages of a system appallingly out of balance. They learn that somewhere along the way the system has lost track of the simple truth that it is supposed to be fair and to pro- tect those who obey the law while punishing those who break it. Somewhere along the way, the system began to serve lawyers and judges and defendants, treating the victim with institutionalized disinterest.... The neglect of crime victims is a national disgrace.
LOIS HERRINGTON, CHAIR OF THE PRESIDENT’S TASK FORCE ON VICTIMS OF CRIME (1982, PP. VI–VII)
164 CHAPT ER 6
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
they fail to figure out his identity until finally they trace a disk he sent them to his church’s computer. After a court hearing, the son of his tenth and final victim denounces him to reporters as “a rotting corpse of a wretch of a human hiding under a human veneer. I’m spiteful, I’m vengeful, and I relish the thought that he knows that he’ll walk into that prison but he’ll be carried out.” (Wilgoren, 2005, p. A20)
■ ■ ■
A man desperate for prescription narcotics pills robs a pharmacy and murders four employees and customers in the process. In a courtroom swirling with raw emotions at the sentencing hearing, a grandmother of one of his victims says he deserves to “burn in hell.” A representative of a young mother he killed says her daughters are too young to look into the “eyes of the beast” but would like to confront him and say, “I’m six years old, where is my mommy? Someone told me that you took her away. Will you bring her back?” The murderer’s wife, who was an accomplice, offers a tearful apology but the judge rejects her apparent remorse as “insincere” and “self-serving,” declaring, “You are more sorry for yourself than for the victims.” The mass murderer
tells the court that “I truly believe my crime is one that cannot and should not be forgiven.” The judge imposes four consecutive life sentences without parole on him, and 25 years in prison on his wife. (Stelloh, 2011)
■ ■ ■
A death row inmate is about to die for slaying a policeman. He maintains his innocence to the end, and his supporters hold a vigil outside the prison walls protesting what they consider to be a terrible miscarriage of justice. But the slain officer’s mother tells interviewers she has no doubt about his guilt. Accompanied by a friend from a support group of survivors whose relatives were murdered, she thrusts her fists in the air when informed that after 22 years of grief and anger, the execution is about to take place. “I don’t hate him,” she says of the convict. “The hate is gone. He disgusts me.” (Schneider and Hicks, 2011)
Admittedly, these terrible cases represent an extreme: 99 percent of the convictions in criminal court do not involve serial killers, mass murderers, or cop killers. But punishment is what comes to
For too long, the rights and needs of crime victims and wit- nesses have been overlooked in the criminal justice system.... we have begun to address this problem [through federal leg- islation passed in 1994 and 1996]. But those important mea- sures are not enough.
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON (1996, P. 1)
[According to a recent survey] victims often feel that they are treated as a piece of evidence, helpful only when they help prove the prosecution’s case and when they help a police officer find the bad guy. But they often feel disrespected and ignored and that their interests and concerns are irrelevant.
SUSAN HERMAN, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR VICTIMS OF CRIME (1999)
In the year 2000, Americans were victims of millions of crimes. Behind each of these numbers is a terrible trauma, a story of suffering and a story of lost security. Yet the needs of victims are often an afterthought in our criminal justice system. It’s not just, it’s not fair, and it must change. As we protect the rights of criminals, we must take equal care to protect the rights of the victims.…
But too often our system fails to inform victims about pro- ceedings involving bail and pleas and sentencing and even about the trials themselves. Too often, the process fails to take the safety of victims into account when deciding whether to release dangerous offenders. Too often, the financial losses of victims are ignored.... When our criminal justice system treats victims as irrelevant bystanders, they are victimized for a second time.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH (2002)
V I C T IMS AND THE CR IM INAL JUS T I C E S Y ST EM : COOP ERAT I ON AND CON F L I C T 165
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
most people’s minds first, when considering what “justice” entails. Throughout history, people have always punished one another. However, they may disagree about their reasons for subjecting a wrong- doer to pain and suffering. Most deliberations in court concern questions of punishment: who, why, when, where, and how much?
Punishment—imposing unpleasant and unwanted consequences—is usually justified on utilitarian grounds as a necessary evil. It is argued that making transgressors suffer curbs future crimi- nality in a number of ways. The offender who experiences negative sanctions learns a lesson and is discouraged from breaking the law again—assum- ing that the logic of specific deterrence is sound. Making an example of a convict also serves as a warning to would-be offenders contemplating the same act, provided that the doctrine of general deterrence really works. Punishment in the form of imprisonment has been promoted as a method of enhancing public safety by incapacitating danger- ous predators so that they can no longer roam the streets preying upon innocents. Another rationale for punishment by the government is that it satisfies the thirst for revenge of angry victims and their supporters, who otherwise may harbor an urge to engage in vigilantism and get even on their own. Finally, imposing severely negative sanctions also has been justified on the grounds of “just deserts” as a morally sound practice, regardless of any value it has in deterring or incapacitating criminals. According to this theory of punishment as retribu- tion, it is fair to make offenders suffer in proportion to the misery they inflicted on others. Since biblical times, people have believed in the formula of retal- iation in kind: lex talionis, or “an eye for an eye.” According to this point of view, retribution rights a wrong, evens the score, and restores balance to the moral order, as long as the severity of the punitive sanction is in proportion to the gravity of the offense.
Despite the current popularity of punishment as the antidote to victimization and the cure for crime, the punitive approach remains controversial. Utilitarian opponents have documented how
impractical, expensive, ineffective, and even coun- terproductive high rates of imprisonment can be. Civil libertarians have condemned such harsh pun- ishments as a tool of domination and oppression used by tyrants and totalitarian regimes to terrorize their subjects into submission (see Menninger, 1968; Wright, 1973; Prison Research, 1976; Pepinsky, 1991; Elias, 1993; Mauer, 1999; and Dubber, 2002).
The quest for revenge has shaped history. Incorporated into the customs and consciousness of entire groups, classes, and nations, it is expressed in simmering hatreds, longstanding feuds, ongoing vendettas, and even repeated outbreaks of retalia- tory military strikes leading to full-scale war. To feel a sense of fury and rage toward a vicious predator or cruel enemy is entirely human. Revenge fantasies can sustain individuals and even give purpose and direction to their lives. For example, people who have suffered terrible losses often can be found in the forefront of campaigns to deprive inmates of whatever comforts and privileges they enjoy behind bars so they will be even more miserable in bleak, “no-frills” prisons (see Hanley, 1994).
However, the thirst for vengeance undercuts recovery if it becomes an obsession. Even when fulfilled, acts of revenge are rarely as satisfying as had been imagined. In the hours and days following a crime, it is psychologically useful and even cathar- tic for persons nursing wounds to dream of inflict- ing pain on those who wronged them. But a chronic preoccupation with striking back needlessly prolongs angry memories and painful flashbacks about the incident. Individuals consumed by a desire to get even never break free of the pernicious influence of their victimizers. Survivors learn that the best revenge of all is to transcend their offen- der’s grip, put the experience behind them, and try to lead a fulfilling life (Halleck, 1980). The next of kin whose loved ones were murdered sometimes come to this conclusion, as the following cases indicate:
A man whose wife was killed when a right-wing extremist blew up a federal building undergoes a long and painful journey through anger, hate, and
166 CHAPT ER 6
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
ultimately forgiveness. When the killer is first captured and brought to court, he confides to a reporter, “I wanted to grab my rifle, go sit by the highway and give him a proper greeting.” But now he acknowledges that he has reached a surprising conclusion: that the execution of the bomber is wrong. “It is not about justice—it is about revenge. It’s blood lust. And if I don’t stand up now and say this, well, it’s just cowardice,” he declares. (Goodell, 2001)
■ ■ ■
Three white supremacists, hoping to trigger racial conflict, chain a black man to their truck and drag him along a country road until he is dead. Thirteen years later, one of the murderers is about to be executed. The dead man’s sister tells reporters, “I had to forgive because if I didn’t, hate would eat me up just like it ate him up.… And I refuse to live life like that. Life is too precious to just be consumed with hate.” (Miller, 2011)
Make “Them” Get Better
Some victims do not look to the criminal justice system to exact revenge by tormenting the law- breaker in their names. Instead, they want profes- sionals and experts to help wrongdoers become decent, productive, law-abiding citizens. Victims are most likely to endorse treatment and rehabili- tation services if their offenders are not complete strangers. They realize that it is in their enlightened self-interest to try to salvage, save, rescue, and cure troubled family members, other loved ones, friends, neighbors, classmates, or close colleagues at work. Rehabilitation might take the form of counseling, behavior modification, intense psycho- therapy, detoxification from addictive drugs, medi- cal care, additional schooling, and job training. “Helping” offenders remains as much a part of the justice system’s mission as making them sorry for what they did. Rehabilitation was the original motivation of critics of corporal punishment and the widespread imposition of the death penalty (like the Quakers) who invented “penitentiaries”
and “reformatories” and “houses of correction” in the early 1800s. Unfortunately, the ascendancy of a pessimistic, “nothing works” point of view (popu- larized because of a mistaken interpretation of a major study [see Martinson, 1974]) has led to dis- enchantment with the longstanding practice of investing in rehabilitation programs within prison walls.
Rehabilitation followed by reintegration into the community (“reentry”) is a long-term strategy that benefits both victims and society. Incapacitat- ing antisocial predators is a short-term strategy that merely buys time and promotes a false sense of security. Angry and frustrated inmates may pose even greater threats to public safety when they are released from custody. Victims who overcome their initial emotional outrage over what offenders did to them might become equally infuriated about inef- fective, heavy-handed punitive policies as well as inept efforts to change the personalities and conduct of inmates in jails or prisons, or of convicts on pro- bation or parole.
Make “Them” Pay Back
As a third alternative, some victims seek restitution rather than retribution or rehabilitation. They want the legal system’s help to recoup their losses and pay their bills—a necessary prerequisite for full recovery. Restitution collected from offenders can help restore victims to the financial condition they were in before the crimes occurred. Once offenders make amends monetarily, reconciliation becomes a realistic possibility (see Chapters 12 and 13).
Whether they desire that something be done to the offender (punishment), for the offender (treatment), or for themselves (restitution), victims want the professionals who run the criminal justice system—police, prosecutors, judges, wardens, pro- bation officers, parole officers—to take effective actions in response to violations of law. What they don’t want is inaction, lack of interest, neglect, abuse, empty promises, or attempts at manipulation.
V I C T IMS AND THE CR IM INAL JUS T I C E S Y ST EM : COOP ERAT I ON AND CON F L I C T 167
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
VICTIMS AND THE POLICE
Law enforcement agencies are the first representa- tives of the criminal justice system that victims encounter in the immediate aftermath of crimes. If their cases are not solved with an arrest, then police officers in metropolitan areas and sheriff’s deputies in rural areas will be the only criminal jus- tice professionals with whom victims will have contact.
These first responders can help out in many ways. The police can arrive quickly when sum- moned and can provide on-the-spot first aid. Detectives can launch thorough investigations and solve crimes by taking suspects into custody, recov- ering stolen property, and gathering evidence that will lead to convictions in court.
Victims are direct consumers of police services. Their opinions, based on their direct experiences, can greatly influence police–community relations. Unfortunately, these “clients” or “customers” can become bitterly disappointed with the performance of law enforcement agencies ostensibly committed to “serve and protect” them if officers are slow or reluctant to respond, don’t believe their accusations, conduct superficial investigations, don’t solve their cases by making arrests, and fail to recover their stolen property.
Whether victims expect too much or receive too little, their grievances against the police can contribute to community relations problems. Administrators of departments have proposed police professionalism as the solution. This involves upgrading the caliber of academy recruits, using psychological tests to weed out potentially brutal or corrupt members of the force, devising regula- tions and procedures to cover every kind of anticipated emergency, monitoring on-the-job performance, and offering in-service training and specialized squads to handle problems inadequately addressed in the past.
Satisfaction with a police department’s services is greater if officers act in a professional manner, if they arrive faster than expected, and if they make a serious effort to investigate property crimes, according to a survey of more than 400 victims
in a Midwestern city (Brandl and Horvath, 1991). However, a survey carried out in 12 cities during 1998 revealed that a problem persists. Among those who had never called the cops for help, 86 percent described themselves as satisfied with the perfor- mance of their local police force. But only 69 per- cent of the victims of violent crimes who had dealt with the police in the aftermath of their incidents expressed satisfaction with the way the officers and detectives hired to serve and protect them had acted in response to their calls for assistance (Smith et al., 1999). Given the commitment to forging partnerships as the foundation for com- munity policing that has developed in recent years, victims and their self-help organizations as well as service providers must be permitted to become more involved in devising solutions to neighborhood problems (see Ready, Weisburd, and Farrell, 2002).
Reporting Incidents
Criminal justice authorities want people to “report, identify, and testify.” Officials fear that if would-be predators believe that their intended prey won’t complain to the authorities about their depreda- tions, then the deterrent effect of the risk of getting caught and punished will be undermined. Further- more, if the public provided more complete infor- mation about where and when crimes were committed, then crime analysts working for the police could more effectively anticipate where career criminals will strike next. In other words, victims who fail to report incidents actually are endangering others. Also, they forfeit important rights and opportunities, such as eligibility for ser- vices and reimbursement of losses through com- pensation plans, tax deductions, and insurance policies. Despite these appeals to self-interest incentives and civic responsibility, most individuals still do not tell the authorities about incidents in which their property was stolen, and just half call on the police when they are harmed by violent offenders. Within these two broad categories, cer- tain types of incidents are more likely to be reported than others (see Table 6.1 for information
168 CHAPT ER 6
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
about the reporting rates for various types of crimes since the NCVS began in 1973).
Of all the crimes inquired about on the NCVS, completed auto theft emerges each year as the cat- egory with the highest reporting rate (close to 90 percent of cars driven off, about 50 percent of all attempts). Most vehicle owners notify law enforce- ment agencies about their loss for several sound reasons: There is a good chance their missing cars, SUVs, and trucks will be recovered if officers are aware of the disappearance; filing a formal com- plaint is required for insurance reimbursement; and motorists do not want to be held responsible for any accidents or crimes involving their vehicles. (For example, detectives will assume that the owner was behind the wheel of a getaway car used in a bank robbery.)
The lowest reporting rates were registered for thefts of household property worth less than $50. As for the category of violent crimes, robberies and
aggravated assaults were reported most frequently, and simple assaults and rapes least often. The only reporting rate that changes substantially from year to year is for rapes and other sexual assaults. Some- times it approaches one-half of all incidents dis- closed to NCVS interviewers, but during other years the reporting rate tumbles to less than one- third of all known rapes (Harlow, 1985; Rennison, 1999; Catalano, 2005; and Truman, 2011).
Besides variations by type of crime, NCVS findings document the existence of several addi- tional dimensions that fall under the heading of dif- ferential reporting rates. First of all, particular groups of people are more inclined to bring their troubles to the attention of the police than others. Second, certain big city departments are more likely to be informed about lawless behavior within their jurisdictions than others. Victims are more inclined to tell the authorities about incidents in which they are confronted by offenders brandishing weapons,
T A B L E 6.1 Trends in Reporting Crimes to the Police, Selected Years, 1973–2010
Percentage of Victimizations Disclosed to NCVS Interviewers That Also Were Reported to the Police
1973 1978 1983 1988 All crimes 32 33 35 36 Rapes 49 49 47 45 Robberies 52 51 53 57 Aggravated assaults 52 53 56 54 Simple assaults 38 37 41 41 Burglaries 47 47 49 51 Household larcenies 25 24 25 26 Motor vehicle thefts 68 66 69 73
1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 All crimes 36 38 39 41 na Rapes 32 32 54 41 50 Robberies 55 62 71 57 58 Aggravated assaults 52 58 57 59 60 Simple assaults 36 40 43 44 47 Burglaries 51 49 58 50 59 Household larcenies 27 29 33 32 32 Motor vehicle thefts 78 80 86 81 83
NOTES: Figures include reports of both attempts and completed acts. Survey redesign influenced rape reporting rates after 1992. na = not available any longer. Reporting includes information provided by third parties, such as eyewitnesses, family members, school authorities, or officers at the crime scene.
SOURCES: Bastian, 1993; Truman, 2011. (BJS’s NCVS, Criminal Victimization in the United States, selected years, 1990–2010).
V I C T IMS AND THE CR IM INAL JUS T I C E S Y ST EM : COOP ERAT I ON AND CON F L I C T 169
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
and/or sustain physical injuries, and/or suffer con- siderable financial losses. Also, completed acts are brought to the attention of the police more often than mere attempts (according to figures not pre- sented in Table 6.1).
Different groups of victims aremore or less likely to bring their problems to the attention of the authorities. During the 1990s, females were more inclined to report violent incidents than were males, and older people were more willing than younger ones (especially teenagers). Those who had never been married were less inclined to file complaints than their married or divorced counter- parts. Urban residents notified their local police a little more often than suburbanites. In general, reporting rates were higher for victims of violence who were injured (especially shot), confronted by an armed assailant, attacked by a stranger, or harmed by someone who seemed high on drugs or alcohol. Reporting rates were relatively lower for incidents involving offenders thought to be gang members. Despite public misimpressions, lower-income peo- ple were somewhat more willing to call the police than higher-income individuals, and black victims reported attacks more readily than white or Asian victims (Hart and Rennison, 2003).
Victimologists have long suspected that report- ing rates vary from department to department, depending on the closeness of the working rela- tionships between local law enforcement agencies and the residents they are supposed to protect and serve. Those suspicions were confirmed when the NCVS carried out a comparative study of reporting rates in 12 cities during 1998. Fewer victims of vio- lence called the cops in Spokane, Washington (31 percent), and New York City (32 percent) than in Washington, D.C. (50 percent) or Springfield, Missouri (58 percent). A smaller percentage of the people who suffered property crimes filed complaints in SanDiego, California (28 percent), andNewYork City (29 percent), than in Kansas City, Missouri (45 percent), and Savannah, Georgia (47 percent) (see Smith et al., 1999).
Note that these differential reporting rates from department to department undercut the accuracy of making city-to-city comparisons of crime rates
based on the FBI’s UCR compilation of crimes “known to the police.” Police forces that success- fully cultivate closer ties to their communities learn about a greater proportion of the crimes committed within their jurisdiction. “User-friendly” depart- ments that have won the trust of local residents wind up penalized in the form of apparently rising crime rates because of improving reporting rates. A department that suddenly becomes victim- oriented might appear to be engulfed by a crime wave. Ironically, departments that alienate the peo- ple whom they are supposed to protect and serve look better by comparison—they may seem to be effectively suppressing illegal activities when the actual reason for the low numbers of reported inci- dents is that a smaller proportion of the inhabitants turn to them for help. City-by-city rankings of murder rates don’t depend on voluntary reports by victims, of course.
Ever since the Compstat approach to manag- ing police departments was pioneered by the NYPD in the middle 1990s and then adopted by law enforcement agencies worldwide, up-to-date crime statistics have been monitored as closely as companies keep track of sales and profits. Precinct commanders are largely evaluated on their ability to continuously reduce the number of crimes known to have been committed in their jurisdictions. Obviously, this is a positive development because Compstat-oriented departments now are constantly striving to devise effective ways to improve public safety. However, the pressures to come to a meet- ing with the latest numbers of reported crimes being even lower than the last time has tempted some commanders and their subordinates to try to artificially lower measures of criminal activities. Some ways reduce the apparent crime rate is to discourage victims from reporting about their mis- fortunes, to refuse to accept their complaints into the record-keeping system, or to downgrade serious charges into minor offenses whose numbers are not closely monitored (see Bader, 2010; Rayman, 2012; Eterno and Silverman, 2012). The NYPD set up a watchdog panel in 2011 to review the numbers of reported offenses in its Compstat system after a city councilman declared, “I believe that the
170 CHAPT ER 6
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
statistics were in fact being manipulated. I have spoken to many current and former police officers who unfortunately refused to go on the record but have corroborated that fact. And I’ve spoken to many civilians whose valid complaints were not accepted by the Police Department” (Baker and Rashbaum, 2011). In Houston, a team of investiga- tive reporters called for an audit into what they charged was “a pattern of deceit” to keep publicly published numbers down. They claimed that they uncovered in 2010 several “hidden homicides”— deaths due to arson which were not counted as murders, and deaths ruled as suicides in which the deceased was shot several times. When the police department reluctantly reopened certain recent cases of suspicious deaths and ended up reclassifying some as murders, the next of kin of 20 deceased persons became eligible for victim compensation payments from a state fund (Greenblatt and Razio, 2010).
Police departments generally want recent immigrants—both those who arrived in the United States legally as well as those who did not—to report attacks upon them and to serve as witnesses for the prosecution. For that reason, many departments do not want to be compelled to engage in the enforce- ment of federal immigration laws because that activ- ity would undermine trust and cooperation with recent arrivals to their community (Preston, 2011). Another potential problem is that language barriers can cause confusion and conflict during stressful interactions such as emergency calls and filing com- plaints (as well as in stop-and-frisks, car stops, inves- tigations, arrests, bookings, and interrogations). Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Justice has car- ried out about 50 routine audits of police depart- ments that serve substantial populations of inhabitants with limited proficiency in English to determine if the police are complying with civil rights laws mandating fair and equal treatment of all persons. Officers might find themselves unable to make sense of accusations and unable to commu- nicate their own requests or orders to disputants, complainants, and suspects. Solutions to this communication problem include having linguists on standby to translate what is said during 911 calls
or at crime scenes; finding third-party bystanders to speak to victims in their native language; and hiring more multilingual officers. One particularly difficult situation involves intervening in domestic disputes. Officers unable to find an interpreter might refuse to accept a complaint and will fill out “uncooperative” or “refused” in the space on the form that is labeled “victim’s statement” (Rivera and Zraick, 2010). A review of the NYPD by the Justice Department’s Office for Civil Rights in 2010 concluded that the department often failed to ensure that New Yorkers seeking assistance had critical access to certified interpreters if their first language was not English (most commonly, it was Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Italian). For instance, despite having many Spanish-speaking officers, the NYPD had only 12 certified Spanish interpreters on call in its multi- lingual database, one for every 75,000 Spanish- speaking residents in its jurisdiction (Rivera and Zraick, 2010).
TheNCVS asks victims to explain why they did or did not report to the police the very same inci- dents that they are willing to disclose to survey inter- viewers. Different reporting rates reflect rational calculations about advantages and disadvantages that can vary from group to group (see Biblarz, Barnowe, and Biblarz, 1984; Greenberg and Ruback, 1984; Gottfredson and Gottfredson, 1988). When victims reported violent crimes, their leading reasons were “to prevent future violence,” “to stop the offender,” and “to protect others.” Smaller percentages of respondents told interviewers their motivations were “to catch and punish the offender” and “to fulfill their civic duty.” When people did not file complaints, their most common explanations were that the incidents were “a private/ personal matter,” “not important enough to involve the police,” or “some other officials were notified;” and that the offenders were unsuccessful in achieving their intentions. Insurance coverage was not a signif- icant factor in deciding whether or not to report incidents (Hart and Rennison, 2003; BJS, 2011a).
As for trends, reporting rates are supposed to go up as the years go by. Criminal justice officials launched a campaign to promote calling the police for help decades ago (see “Crime Control Needs,”
V I C T IMS AND THE CR IM INAL JUS T I C E S Y ST EM : COOP ERAT I ON AND CON F L I C T 171
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
1985). At the start of the twenty-first century, a gov- ernment publication accentuated the positive by emphasizing how reporting rates, particularly for acts of violence, had risen modestly over the years (see Hart and Rennison, 2003; also Catalano, 2005). But in 2010, the BJS concluded that any prog- ress had stalled, and no statistically significant improvements in reporting rates for violent offenses had been achieved since 2001 (Truman, 2011).
A victim advocacy group (National Center for Victims of Crime, 2003) argued that the public should be shocked—rather than reassured—by these trends. Their interpretation accentuated the negative, pointing out that the millions of incidents that victims decide not to bring to the attention of the authorities each year reflect a continuing and widespread lack of confidence in the criminal jus- tice system. The persistence of this underreporting problem can be taken as evidence that police forces across the country have had only limited success over the decades in enlisting the public to cooperate more closely with law enforcement.
In most jurisdictions, victims are not legally obliged to inform authorities about violations of law committed against them or their property. But if they go beyond silence and inaction, and conspire or collaborate in a cover-up to conceal a serious crime (like a shooting), they can be arrested themselves and charged with misprision of a felony. The failure of witnesses to report certain
kinds of offenses, especially the abuse of a child or an elderly person, is a misdemeanor in many juris- dictions (Stark and Goldstein, 1985).
Responding Quickly
When victims call for help, they expect officers to spring into action immediately. To meet this chal- lenge, police departments have 911 emergency sys- tems. But incoming calls have to be prioritized by dispatchers who determine each one’s degree of urgency. Obviously, reports about immediate danger —such as screams for help in the night or concerns about prowlers or shots fired—merit a higher priority than calls about cars that have disappeared from park- ing spots. If officers reach crime scenes quickly, they have a better chance of rescuing someone who is in grave danger, catching the culprit, recovering stolen property, gathering crucial evidence, and locating eye- witnesses. Police departments have been experiment- ing with ways to reduce response times to emergency calls for decades. But NCVS findings fuel suspicions that a substantial proportion of victims might be dissat- isfied with the amount of time it took officers to arrive at crime scenes. Table 6.2 shows average nationwide response times, as estimated by people caught up in violence who called for help, for selected years from 1990 through 2008. (Note that questions about this aspect of police performance were not part of the NCVS until 1990 [Whitaker, 1989].)
T A B L E 6.2 Trends in Police Response Times to Violent Crimes, Selected Years, 1990–2008
Police Response Times To Calls About Violent Crimes
Year Within 5 Minutes Within 6 to 10 Minutes Within 11 to 60 Minutes Total within One Hour
1990 28% 31% 32% 91% 1994 31% 29% 31% 91% 1998 26% 29% 32% 86% 2000 28% 26% 31% 85% 2003 31% 29% 29% 89% 2006 27% 32% 30% 89% 2008 28% 30% 34% 92%
NOTES: Percentages refer to proportion of incidents. Some victims each year could not recall police response times. Percentages rounded to nearest integer.
SOURCE: BJS’s NCVS, Criminal Victimization in the United States, 1990–2008.
172 CHAPT ER 6
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
Over the years, not even one third of all persons who were under attack told survey inter- viewers that the rescuers arrived within five min- utes, according to Table 6.2. Furthermore, no improvement in response times has materialized since the early 1990s, even though crime rates and consequently workloads have fallen sharply across the nation, and many police forces have grown in patrol strength. In 1990, the police arrived at the scene of a 911 emergency within 10 minutes nearly sixty percent of the time (28 + 31 = 59 percent); by 2008, their track record was no better (28 + 30 = 58 percent). In roughly 90 percent of all calls for help in the midst or aftermath of a violent incident, an officer came within 60 minutes, but in certain explosive confrontations that response certainly would not be fast enough.
To be fair to the officers responding to 911 calls, travel time is only one reason for delays. More importantly, precious moments are lost most often when people at the scene hesitate before reporting a crime in progress. There are several rea- sons for such delays on the part of “civilians”: onlookers and even participants might be confused about whether an illegal act really occurred; injured parties and eyewitnesses might want to first cope with emotional conflicts, personal trauma, and physical wounds, and then regain their composure before informing the authorities of what happened; or they couldn’t locate a telephone (Spelman and Brown, 1984). However, with the ubiquity of cell phones since the 1990s, access should rarely be a problem. As for policy, reducing the time elapsed on the police department’s end remains a matter of life and death and ought to be a priority for pro- victim organizations to tackle.
Handling Victims with Care
Detectives need ongoing cooperation from indivi- duals who have reported crimes, for without their help, the cases are more difficult to solve. But 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 might seem remote, uninvolved, even
unconcerned about the victims’ plight. Second, the police may conclude that the complainants’ charges lack credibility and as a consequence may discontinue their hunt for clues and suspects.
Some victims might be deterred from seeking assistance by their fear of a type of psychological police brutality. After the first injury (the suffering inflicted by the criminal), victims are particularly susceptible to a second wound. Expecting the police to comfort them and help with their pro- blems, they sometimes find that officers unwittingly make them feel worse. These slights also can be delivered by care providers such as emergency room personnel, or by friends and relatives.
In the aftermath of a street crime, victims are likely to feel powerless, disoriented, and infuriated. Fear, guilt, depression, and revenge fantasies engulf them. They expect authority figures to calm and console them, to help them restore their sense of equilibrium, and dispel lingering feelings of help- lessness. But if officers and detectives act callously and prolong suffering needlessly, victims feel let down, rejected, and betrayed by those they counted on for support (Symonds, 1980b).
Studies of police work suggest that what vic- tims are encountering is the protective coating of emotional detachment that officers develop to shield themselves from becoming overwhelmed by the misery they routinely see around them. If they seem distant and disinterested, it is part of a “working personality” they must develop because of the potential for danger in a hostile environment and the need to maintain objectivity in the face of complicated situations and conflicting witness accounts. A frighteningly unusual event for the vic- tim can be a rather unexceptional incident for a seasoned officer (Ready, Weisburd, and Farrell, 2002). To avoid burnout, law enforcement officers (like others in “helping” professions) sense that they must inhibit their impulses to get deeply involved in their cases. The paramilitary nature of police organizations and the bureaucratic imperatives of specialization and standardization reinforce the inclinations of officers to deal with tragedies as impersonally as possible. In addition, the “macho” norms of police subculture—with its emphasis on
V I C T IMS AND THE CR IM INAL JUS T I C E S Y ST EM : COOP ERAT I ON AND CON F L I C T 173
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
toughness, camaraderie, suspicion of outsiders, insider jokes, graveyard humor, and profound cyn- icism—put pressure on members of law enforce- ment agencies to act businesslike when dealing with profoundly upsetting situations (Ahrens, Stein, and Young, 1980). But some crime scenes can be so blood-soaked and revolting that even veterans can be repulsed and profoundly upset, as in this case:
An 18-year-old son kills his mother and two other family members in an unusually grisly manner. The police chief describes the crime scene as “gruesome” and observes that, “The job exposes police officers to horrible things on a regular basis.” He reassures the public that his department has programs in place to help responding officers “debrief” and cope with what they see firsthand. (Schiavone, 2011).
If officers appear unmoved by the suffering that surrounds them, it might be that they fear “contam- ination” (Symonds, 1975). People who regularly come into close contact with the casualties of natu- ral and social disasters tend to isolate and ostracize the victims as if they had a contagious disease. Such “distancing” is a defense mechanism to preserve the helper’s faith that ultimately justice prevails: Misfor- tunes happen only to those who somehow deserve them.
Many departments have initiated training pro- grams to prepare at least a portion of their force to act sensitively when they deal with victims with acute needs. Officers and detectives are taught how to administer “psychological first aid” to peo- ple in distress. They are instructed to respond swiftly, listen attentively, show concern, and refrain from challenging the victims’ versions of events or judging the wisdom of their reactions while the crime was in progress. Officers are told to not show any skepticism when a rape victim is not badly bruised or bleeding, a child did not report a molestation immediately, an elderly person has trouble communicating, or a blind person offers to assist with the identification of a suspect. At the conclusion of training sessions, officers should be informed that responsiveness to victims carries a high priority within the department and has
become a criterion for evaluating performance and a consideration in granting promotions (Symonds, 1980b; President’s Task Force, 1982; National Sherrifs’ Association, 1999). By 2000, more than 70 percent of all big-city police departments (serv- ing more than 250,000 residents) had set up special victim assistance units, and more than 90 percent had officers on call who were trained to handle cases of child abuse, missing children, and domestic violence (Reaves and Hickman, 2002).
One of the most emotionally draining tasks in police work is notifying the next of kin of people who have been murdered. Anecdotal evidence indicates that many officers are inept at delivering bad news in plain language and with compassion. To rectify this problem, some departments have developed guidelines and manuals so that survivors are not further traumatized by disturbing memories of clumsy and uncaring behavior by officers carry- ing out these most unpleasant death notification obligations (Associated Press, 1994d).
Challenging the Victim’s Version of Events
When people fill out a complaint form in a police station, they want officers to accept without ques- tion their versions 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 “presump- tive” victims until they pass a credibility test to weed out those whose stories are bogus.
It is always possible that the person alleging to be a bona fide victim is making a fraudulent claim for some ulterior purpose. People might falsely swear under penalty of perjury that they were harmed by criminals for a number of reasons. An angry person may exact revenge against an enemy by getting him in trouble with the law. An individual who did something improper may want to cover up the true circumstances surrounding an event (for example, when a husband claims he was robbed to account for the loss of his pay, which he actually spent on a prostitute or gambled away). Another motive is to commit insurance fraud. For example, tourists may
174 CHAPT ER 6
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
dishonestly claim that they were robbed of their cash-filled wallets or expensive cameras as part of a scam to get reimbursement for nonexistent losses from insurance policies sold to travelers (Associated Press, 1999b).
The following examples demonstrate that occasionally individuals who appear to be victims may attempt to manipulate the authorities and mislead investigators to conceal their roles in a seri- ous offense or for another sinister or self-serving reason
A man and his estranged girlfriend are sitting in a car arguing over visitation arrangements concerning their 14-month-old son, who is in the back seat. A robber comes up to them, shoots her fatally and then shoots him in the leg. When he tells slightly different versions of events to detectives, they become suspicious. When he is visited in the hospital by a cousin who closely fits the description of the gunman, they are both arrested and charged with murder. (Baker, 2008)
■ ■ ■
A 20-year-old Army private tells detectives at a hospital that he was shot in the knee during a robbery. But the police investigators determine that he arranged to be wounded to avoid having to return to combat duty in Iraq. He pleads guilty to the misdemeanor of falsely reporting an incident, and receives a sentence of one year in jail. He also is ordered to return to his military base, where he may be subjected to a court martial. His wife and the accomplice who shot him for a fee of $500 also face conspiracy, assault, false reporting, and illegal gun possession charges. (Chan, 2007)
■ ■ ■
The founder and leader of a nationwide civilian anticrime patrol receives favorable coverage when he tells reporters that he was injured when he tried to capture three rapists at a subway station. Years later, after nearly dying from a shooting, he admits that he conspired with other members of the newly formed group to stage a series of publicity stunts to
further the organization’s reputation for courage and effectiveness. About a dozen years after that, this acknowledged fabrication is used by a defense attorney to undermine his credibility with a jury when he testifies against a mob boss who, the prosecution alleges, ordered his assassination for mocking and taunting the Mafia on his talk-radio show. (Gonzalez, 1992; Preston, 2005)
■ ■ ■
A woman recounts how she escaped the inferno of the World Trade Center after terrorists crashed two hijacked airplanes into the skyscraper hundreds of times to journalists, fellow survivors, and college audiences. But investigative reporters discover that none of the details of her account can be verified. Members of the nonprofit survivors’ network for which she served as president cannot fathom why a person who did not go through that ordeal would make false claims and then lead visitors on tours to Ground Zero, and take part in numerous fundrais- ing efforts. (Fernandez, 2007)
Two categories of errors are possible in han- dling complaints from people insisting they are innocent victims. The first type, illustrated above, occurs when detectives initially believe a person who later is exposed as a liar. The other type of mistake, illustrated below, is to disbelieve the account of someone who really is telling the truth.
A 26-year-old mother of two accepts a ride from a stranger who kidnaps her. For the next two months, this retired handyman with an ailing wife holds her captive in a concrete bunker in his backyard and repeatedly rapes her. When he finally releases her, she runs to the police and tells of her ordeal as a sex slave. They don’t take this kidnap and rape victim’s story seriously, finding it hard to believe. Eventually, four additional young runaways and drug abusers recount horrific tales that are similar. Finally, the police launch an investigation, locate the bunker, and arrest the man who quickly pleads guilty to these vicious crimes. (Jacobs, 2003; Smalley and Mnookin, 2003)
V I C T IMS AND THE CR IM INAL JUS T I C E S Y ST EM : COOP ERAT I ON AND CON F L I C T 175
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
Unfounding, illustrated by the above case, is a process in which the police reject a person’s claim about being harmed by a criminal as unbelievable or at least unprovable in court. Defounding means that detectives believe an offense really did take place, but it was not as serious as the com- plainant described (Lundman, 1980). For example, what was initially reported as a burglary might upon further investigation be classified as merely an instance of criminal trespass—which is a misde- meanor rather than a felony—if nothing of value was stolen.
Just as individuals might have a motive to lodge a false charge, police investigators might have an incentive to declare a report of a crime completely unfounded or to defound it down to a lesser offense. By defounding and unfounding complaints, detectives can reduce the number of serious crimes recorded in their precincts, perhaps because their supervisors want to convince the public that the crime rate is decreasing impres- sively. Scattered instances of this kind of statistical manipulation, particularly the defounding of initial charges by precinct commanders under great pres- sure to produce “results,” have been exposed in New York City since the mid-1990s (see Levitt, 2004). If they are under pressure to meet departmental performance targets, some detectives might cut down the number of difficult cases they must try to solve by abusing their discretion and writing off legitimate pleas for help. For example, for more than 20 years, Chicago detectives dis- missed about 21 percent of their complaints about serious crimes as unfounded; the average rate for other big-city departments was less than 2 percent, according to the FBI. Detectives were inclined to dismiss victims’ accounts as unfounded because they would receive higher ratings and faster pro- motions if they “closed” more cases. Auditors reviewing these police files concluded that as many as 40 percent of the rape, robbery, burglary, and theft reports disregarded as unfounded proba- bly did take place as the victims claimed. The kinds of cases that were prime candidates for official disbelief involved victims who were difficult to
contact, knew their assailants, or did not lose much money (“Chicago Police,” 1983; “Burying Crime in Chicago,” 1983).
In Oakland, California, overworked detectives in the late 1980s dismissed 24 percent of the rape complaints they received as unfounded. At that time, the FBI reported that other departments across the country disbelieved about 9 percent of all rape charges. After a newspaper article ques- tioned why there was such a disparity in the unfounding rate, the police chief conceded that perhaps 200 cases were tossed aside too quickly and merited reexamination. But detectives in this California city advanced several arguments in their own defense. First, they asserted that the nation- wide figure of 9 percent was a misleading standard for comparison, since many departments keep the unfounding rate artificially low by classifying cases as “filed pending further investigation” (not offi- cially closed) rather than “closed due to baseless or false charges.” Second, they pointed out that because of budget constraints, the sexual assault unit’s six investigators were so swamped with cases that they had to prioritize their workload. They felt pressured to disregard complaints from women who would appear uncooperative, untruthful, or unsympathetic in court, such as pros- titutes and drug abusers who would be inclined to lie about the circumstances surrounding the sexual assaults for fear of getting in trouble for solicitation or possession of controlled substances. Finally, the detectives insisted that many of the complainants refused to agree to medical examinations and failed to appear for follow-up interviews, making the investigation of their charges difficult, time con- suming, and unlikely to lead to convictions (Gross, 1990).
People who knowingly fill out false complaints are breaking the law in most states if they “gratu- itously” volunteer unsolicited, incorrect informa- tion to the police. The laws that make it a misdemeanor to file a false instrument (statement) are intended to deter perjury and thereby protect innocent individuals from the embarrassment and hardships caused by untrue accusations. A lying
176 CHAPT ER 6
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
complainant who instigates a wrongful arrest for an improper motive such as revenge also can be sued in civil court for malicious prosecution.
However, to encourage citizen cooperation with law enforcement, most jurisdictions have adopted a doctrine of witness immunity that shields complainants who furnish information to the police “in good faith” from any subsequent lawsuits by innocent individuals they mistakenly identified as suspects (Stark and Goldstein, 1985). But those who waste the time and money of law enforcement agencies by filing patently false accusations can get into legal trouble, as the following example demonstrates.
A young woman mysteriously disappears while jogging just four days before her elaborate wedding. Hundreds of neighbors, wedding guests, and police officers search the area and pass out missing person flyers, while bloodhounds scour the banks of a nearby river and media outlets across the country broadcast her description. Her fiancé, the last person to see her, comes under suspicion but resists pressures by the police to take a lie detector test. Several days later and hundreds of miles away she reappears; she calls 911 and tells the authorities that she just was released by a Hispanic man and a white woman who had kidnapped her. A few hours later, the “runaway bride” admits she had gotten “cold feet” and had taken a long bus ride. Her friends, family, and neighbors are both relieved and furious that she was not a victim of foul play. Their views and her problems become the fodder for talk shows and tabloid headlines. In court, she pleads no contest to one felony count of making a false statement to the police, and the judge imposes a sentence of two years on probation, 120 hours of community service, plus a fine. (Johnston, 2005)
Police departments do not want to be manipu- lated or deceived. Even though lie detector tests are not admissible in court because their findings are not considered reliable, NYPD detectives received
authorization in 2005 to use polygraphs during the early stages of an investigation to test their suspicions that a suspect, a witness, or a complainant was lying to them (Celona, 2005).
Investigating Complaints and Solving Crimes
Victims who report crimes expect their local police and sheriff’s departments to launch investigations that successfully culminate with the apprehension of suspects and the seizure of solid evidence point- ing to their guilt.
The FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report (refer back to Chapter 3) calculates and publishes average clearance rates for each of the seven index crimes for police departments across the country. In gen- eral, clearing crimes means making arrests. FBI guidelines instruct police departments to consider cases to be solved when they are “closed” by taking suspects into custody, lodging charges against them, and turning them over to courts for prosecution. Exceptional clearances take place when situations beyond the control of law enforcement agencies prevent them from arresting and formally charging someone, even though sufficient evidence has been gathered and the exact whereabouts of the suspect are known. For example, the suspect cannot be arrested because he has died or is otherwise beyond reach (such as, he can’t be extradited) or the victim refuses to further cooperate with the prosecution. Old cases that are closed by an arrest count toward the current year’s clearance rate. In calculating clearance rates, the UCR program counts the num- ber of reported offenses that have been closed and not the number of persons charged with these crimes. The arrest of just one person may clear sev- eral crimes, and yet the arrest of several partners in crime may close only one reported incident (FBI, 2011).
Note that the police consider the crime solved even if one arrestee is not ultimately convicted of the original charge or even any lesser charge. If the accused is found not guilty after a trial, the case
V I C T IMS AND THE CR IM INAL JUS T I C E S Y ST EM : COOP ERAT I ON AND CON F L I C T 177
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
usually is not reopened. Police departments rou- tinely compile the percentages of cases that are closed by arrests because this indicator of effective- ness must be calculated and submitted to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting division. These clear- ance rates are used to evaluate the performance of individual detectives, specialized squads (such as those concentrating on homicide, burglary, and sex crimes), and the department as a whole.
But these same statistics can be interpreted from a different angle and for a different purpose. From a victim’s point of view, the police have successfully completed their mission when, acting on sufficient evidence, all the wrongdoers in a particular incident have been charged with what they really did. The proportion of cases that are solved can indicate the percentage of complainants who have a solid basis for being satisfied or dissatisfied with the investiga- tory services provided by local police forces. Vic- tims want their cases to lead to arrests because taking suspects into custody symbolizes that “justice has been served.” An arrest means that their mis- fortunes have been considered significant enough to warrant official action, and their request for assis- tance has been taken seriously by those in authority. Victims who report crimes and cooperate with investigations want someone to be held directly accountable for the injuries and losses they have suffered. That person might be ordered by the judge to make restitution to repay losses and expenses. Besides restitution, injured parties might
demand retribution in order to gain solace from the knowledge that the government is punishing the wrongdoer in their behalf. Also, those with a sense of civic responsibility might want to see the offender removed from society and incapacitated behind bars in order to make the streets safer for others. For all these reasons, solving cases by mak- ing arrests can be considered a high-priority issue and a crucial performance measure from the stand- point of victims who report crimes and cooperate with law enforcement authorities.
By the conclusion of most movies and televi- sion shows, the wrongdoer has been captured, rein- forcing the message that crime doesn’t pay. But victimologists need to ask, “In real life, how often do law enforcement agencies figure out (and also, fail to figure out) who did it?” Data from selected years over the past five decades appear in Table 6.3. These statistics summarize the overall accomplish- ments of roughly 17,000 law enforcement agencies during the second half of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first. The most recent solution rates appear in the last column.
Accentuating the positive, the figures for 2010 reveal that police forces nationwide had greater suc- cess at solving violent crimes, which are more serious and threatening to public well-being than property crimes. Accentuating the negative and looking at these numbers from the victims’ point of view, it is obvious that the vast majority of people who go to the trouble to report thefts to the police will not be
T A B L E 6.3 Trends in Clearance Rates, United States, Selected Years, 1953–2010
Percentage of all reported cases that were solved by arrest, or by exceptional means
Type of Crime 1953 1963 1973 1983 1993 1998 2003 2006 2010
Murder 93% 91 79 76 66 69 62 61 64 Rape 78 69 51 52 53 50 44 41 40 Aggravated assault 75 76 63 61 56 59 56 54 56 Robbery 36 39 27 26 24 28 26 25 28 Burglary 27 27 18 15 13 14 13 13 12 Larceny 20 20 19 20 20 19 18 17 21 Vehicle theft* 26 26 16 15 14 14 13 13 12
NOTES: *Since the 1970s, this category of the Uniform Crime Report has included the theft of all motorized vehicles, including trucks, vans, motorcycles, and buses.
Arson, the eighth index offense, is excluded from this compilation because the FBI considers these numbers incomplete and unreliable; many fires of suspicious origin may have been intentionally set.
SOURCES: FBI’s, UCRs, selected years, 1953–2010.
178 CHAPT ER 6
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
pleased with the outcome of their cases: the investi- gations will be discontinued before any arrests are made. Put another way, in 2010, 79 percent of lar- ceny complainants, 88 percent of persons reporting that their vehicle was stolen, and 88 percent of bur- glary complainants were frustrated because their offenders escaped the long arm of the law.
Similarly, 72 percent of those who reported robberies also experienced the aggravation of learn- ing that no one was apprehended for accosting them. Of the girls and women who had the cour- age to tell the authorities in 2010 that they had been raped, 60 percent did not experience the relief of knowing that their attackers had been arrested. Presumably, these assailants who remained at large were mostly strangers and not the perpetrators of acquaintance rapes. Of all those who endured an aggravated assault like a shooting or stabbing, 44 percent were disturbed to find out that no arrests were made in their cases (FBI, 2011).
The highest clearance rates of all are achieved by homicide squads. But even these best detectives on the force who devoted considerable time and effort to selected cases were not able to figure out who carried out the slaying in a little more than 35 percent of the killings that took place in 2010. To put it dramatically, that means that almost one out of every three killers each year does not get caught. Thousands of dangerous assailants annually join the ranks of those who have gotten away with murder, and are still roaming the streets.
As for changes over time, the UCR clearance rates compiled in Table 6.3 reveal a disturbing national trend. For every one of the seven index crimes, a general downward drift is evident from the early 1950s through the first decade of the twenty-first century. During the 1950s, police departments were able to solve practically all murders and most rapes and aggravated assaults. Clearance rates for these three violent crimes as well as for rob- beries dropped sharply during the crime wave of the late 1960s. During the 1970s and 1980s, the solution rates for rapes and serious assaults remained stable, while the ability of the police to solve murders con- tinued to decline. These statistics from the FBI’s UCR reveal a shocking conclusion: during the
twenty-first century, police departments are having more trouble than ever in solving cases despite break- throughs in forensic science (like DNA identifica- tion), the proliferation of surveillance cameras, and the establishment of massive databases of known offenders and their fingerprints. Taken collectively, the nation’s 17,000 federal, state, county, andmunic- ipal law enforcement agencies have never before had such a disappointing track record as they did during the first decade of the twenty-first century.
Burglaries and auto thefts were closed by an arrest roughly twice as often in the 1950s as in the 1990s. Grand and petit larcenies (major and minor thefts of all kinds) have always been difficult to solve. During the early 1990s, clearance rates hit new lows across the board, but then improved slightly by 1998 (for murders, serious assaults, and robberies), as crime rates and consequently detectives’ caseloads fell throughout the nation. Disappointingly, solution rates (especially for murder and rape) dipped again at the beginning of the twenty-first century. By 2006, the overall ability of police departments to solve a reduced volume of street crime cases of vio- lence and theft had sunk to an all-time low, but recovered just a bit in a few categories by 2010.
Translating these statistical trends into human terms, most victims have good reasons to be dissatis- fied with the performance of their local police and sheriffs’ departments. Because property crimes vastly outnumber violent offenses, and relatively few thieves are caught, most victims will be disappointed if they count on law enforcement agencies to arrest somebody for harming them. Ironically, decades ago, long before the victims’ rights movement began to demand improved services, local law enforcement agencies were much more effective at accomplishing their basic mission of catching culprits.
As might be suspected, some police forces have a better track record than others when it comes to catching culprits. UCR statistics confirm the exis- tence of differential rates for solving crimes from department to department. As Table 6.4 indicates, some urban police forces were able to solve a much greater percentage of murder cases than their coun- terparts in other large cities. Some departments caught killers at rates substantially above the national
V I C T IMS AND THE CR IM INAL JUS T I C E S Y ST EM : COOP ERAT I ON AND CON F L I C T 179
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
average for cities of a quarter of a million inhabitants or more (which was 60 percent in 2003 but sunk to 54 percent in 2006 before bouncing back to 61 percent in 2010). The families and close friends of people killed in these cities were more likely to experience the closure of learning that someone was charged with the slayings of their loved ones. On the other hand, the kin of murder victims in cities with subpar performance records were likely to remain tormented by the inability of their local police departments to arrest any suspects.
According to the data assembled in Table 6.4, the clearance rate for murders achieved by police departments in a few cities remained remarkably consistent from year to year (for example, in Los Angeles, and perhaps Houston), while in most
other jurisdictions the proportion of solved cases rose and fell quite dramatically from year to year (especially in Las Vegas, Detroit, Boston, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Denver, San Jose, and San Diego). As for trends, average homicide clear- ance rates generally have slipped steadily through- out the decade until 2010 in “Group 1” cities with populations over 250,000 residents. In a number of urban centers, dramatic changes in solution rates took place over the years (for example, improving in Las Vegas while tumbling ominously in Detroit and drifting downward somewhat in Baltimore, Indianapolis, and San Diego). Note that the two largest police forces in the nation, in New York and Chicago, did not participate in the UCR’s vol- untary reporting program during these years.
T A B L E 6.4 Clearance Rates for Homicide Cases (Murder and Manslaughter) in Major U.S. Cities, Selected Years, 2003–2009
City and State 2003 2004 2005 2006 2009
All cities of 250,000 or more 60 58 57 54 61 Phoenix, AZ 41 34 41 40 63 Los Angeles, CA 57 56 57 57 58 San Diego, CA 58 92 88 56 48 San Jose, CA 79 83 96 62 71 Denver, CO* 49 51 — — 71 Washington, D.C. 60 61 61 64 75 Jacksonville, FL 61 54 62 65 79 Chicago, IL* — — — — — Indianapolis, IN 82 87 80 74 65 Baltimore, MD 76 59 54 53 55 Boston, MA 64 28 29 47 56 Detroit, MI 50 37 30 28 23 Las Vegas, NV 38 54 74 68 79 New York, NY* — — — — — Columbus, OH* — 37 56 — 52 Oklahoma City, OK 63 97 63 64 75 Portland, OR 44 45 45 60 37 Philadelphia, PA 65 65 63 56 75 Memphis, TN 80 79 72 66 70 Dallas, TX 64 59 74 81 66 Houston, TX 57 60 59 70 70 San Antonio, TX 67 78 70 — 87 Seattle, WA 78 71 72 70 100** Milwaukee, WI 80 82 63 59 78
NOTES: *The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Division did not receive statistics from the police departments in Chicago, New York City, Denver, and Columbus for certain recent years.
**The clearance rate in Seattle exceeded 100 percent because unsolved murders from previous years were cleared by arrests in 2009.
SOURCE: “Return A Record Cards,” 2002–2009, FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Division, released to the author by special request.
180 CHAPT ER 6
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
A number of factors might account for the wide range of clearance rates. The ability to solve homicide cases depends in part on practices and policies that a department can control, such as ensuring that the first officer who arrives at the crime scene is trained to follow proper procedures, assigning a sufficient number of detectives to a case, having them respond quickly, and devoting a sub- stantial amount of resources to homicide investiga- tions. Clearance rates also depend on factors beyond a department’s control, such as the particular mix of difficult versus easy-to-solve cases in its jurisdiction (Wellford and Cronin, 2000). For example, mur- der/suicide cases virtually solve themselves, such as when a husband kills his wife and then himself and leaves a note behind. “Smoking gun” cases are also cleared on the spot. On the other hand, murders among mobsters, rival street gangs, or drug dealers are much more difficult to successfully close because of the lack of cooperation of witnesses and other knowledgeable people. Even the best departments find murders of robbery victims by complete strangers to be tough to solve.
Furthermore, victims and witnesses who are immersed in the “code of the streets” that prevails in poverty-stricken neighborhoods generally view helping the authorities solve crimes as “snitching.” Consequently, one strategy to boost clearance rates would be to improve police–citizen interactions in a way that restores the legitimacy of the police (see Stewart et al., 2008). However, several factors widely assumed to be crucial—who the victim was, where the slaying took place, and the detec- tive’s workload and degree of experience—actually may not significantly affect homicide clearance rates, according to a study of more than 800 killings between 1984 and 1992 (Puckett and Lundman, 2003).
Of all the homicide cases that are eventually solved, half are closed within a week, and 93 per- cent are solved within a year, according to a study of nearly 800 cases in four large cities during 1994– 1995 (Wellford and Cronin, 2000). Even though the prognosis is not promising if no one has been identified as a suspect after one year, departments seeking to boost their clearance rates establish cold
case squads to take a fresh look at old unsolved serious crimes.
With the passage of time, some positive devel- opments might take place: investigators who were overly focused on the wrong suspects might be reassigned or retire; eyewitnesses who originally were afraid to talk might become more coopera- tive; former partners in crime might experience a falling out; old evidence, as long as it is not con- taminated, might be retested in police labs using powerful new techniques; and formerly overbur- dened detective squads now might have more time to do thorough investigations. Media coverage of an unsolved case can stimulate renewed public interest and persistent relatives who keep checking in and inquiring about any new clues can pressure homicide detectives to take a second look (Dahl, 2011).
Because there is no statute of limitations for murder, on rare occasions a deceased person’s rela- tives might be relieved to learn that a killer who thought he had escaped the long arm of the law has been brought to justice, as these two examples demonstrate:
The mother of an 18-year-old woman is sexually assaulted and then strangled in her apartment. Twenty-five years later, an ex-convict is arrested when his DNA matches evidence found at the crime scene. The woman’s 43-year-old daughter tells reporters, “I’ve called these guys so many times to try and keep this case alive. If there are any other families out there, they need to do whatever it takes.” After a sleepless night, she declares, “This was the happiest and saddest day of my life.” (Charkes, 2008)
■ ■ ■
A young woman serving as a federal intern leaves her apartment building to go off jogging and then disappears. Under unrelenting pressure from the media and her parents, the police search for her fruitlessly for a year, until a man stumbles upon her remains in a nearby park. Accusations are hurled at her hometown
V I C T IMS AND THE CR IM INAL JUS T I C E S Y ST EM : COOP ERAT I ON AND CON F L I C T 181
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
congressman, with whom she was secretly having an affair. He vehemently denies any involvement, but the revelations ruin his political career. Ten years after her slaying, a jury, basing its verdict largely on the testimony of another inmate who says he heard a confession, convicts a man—who had served time for attacking other women—of first degree murder. Before the judge sentences him to 60 years, the young woman’s mother calls him a “hideous creature” who is “lower than a cockroach.” She asks, “Did you really take her?” and then insists, “Look into my eyes right now and tell me!” He asserts “I am very sorry… but I had nothing to do with it. I am innocent.” (Tavernise, 2011)
On the other hand, family members and close friends can suffer endless frustration and anguish if a killer gets away with murder:
The parents of a little girl who wins beauty contests wake up early one morning to prepare for a family vacation—and discover a ransom note on the staircase inside their home. The kidnapper demands $118,000: exactly the amount that the father had just received as a bonus from his company. Shortly after they summon the police, the father discovers the child’s body in the basement. She had been sexually abused and then strangled. Because inexperienced officers do not conduct an effective investigation and no one is ever arrested for the murder, a cloud of suspicion hangs over the grieving parents and her brother. Years later, a new, highly sensitive test is performed on traces of DNA on the murdered child’s clothing and her father, younger brother, and mother (now deceased) are officially eliminated as suspects in her slaying. These secondary victims, who suffered additional emotional turmoil as the subjects of conspiracy theories for over a decade, receive a note from the district attorney’s office, stating, “No innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion.” (Ramsey and Ramsey, 2000; Bellamy, 2005; and Johnson, 2008)
To sum up, after fruitless searches for clues and leads, most victims of property crimes and many who suffered interpersonal violence will wind up feeling defeated by the lack of closure in their cases. If more criminals were brought to court, then a higher proportion of residents would be satisfied with the performance of their local police or sheriff’s department on this most fundamental aspect of a law enforcement agency’s mission.
Arresting Suspects and Seizing Evidence
When victims formally lodge complaints, they expect action in the form of thorough investiga- tions and the collection of evidence culminating in an arrest—in a legal, proper manner that will hold up in court. When police professionalism falls short of expected standards, judges might rule that crucial evidence should be excluded because government officials violated constitu- tional safeguards concerning the rights of the accused. When that happens, offenders benefit, police officers and their superiors are embarrassed, and victims suffer needless frustration. The fol- lowing case illustrates how a guilty person almost escaped conviction due to a detective’s mistake.
A registered sex offender kidnaps and rapes a 9-year-old girl who lives near him. He then ties up the third-grader and buries her alive in a shallow grave. When the police interrogate him, he quickly confesses to these horrific crimes. But his confession was not admissible in court because a detective mistakenly did not honor the suspect’s request to consult with a lawyer. However, a jury convicts the little girl’s killer on the basis of forensic evidence, and the judge imposes the death penalty, but he dies from an illness in prison. (Aguayo, 2006; CNN, 2009; AP, 2007c; and Goodnough, 2007).
When police officers carry out custodial inter- rogations or make arrests, they have a legal obligation to inform suspects of their Miranda rights to remain silent and to be represented by a lawyer. When victims file complaints, they immediately discover
182 CHAPT ER 6
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
that the police are under no comparable constitu- tional pressure to read them their “rights” about their obligations and opportunities. To start with, victims need to know the names and badge numbers of the officers and the detectives handling their cases, where and when they can be reached, case identifi- cation numbers, whether suspects have been appre- hended, and if so, whether they are being detained in jail or are being released on bail.
But findings from the NCVS indicated that a large percentage of victims during the 1980s never were informed whether their cases were solved and arrests were made. Even when police were success- ful in closing a case with an arrest, they might not have shared this news with these most interested parties (FBI, 2007; Whitaker, 1989). To guarantee that these basic rights (endorsed by a presidential task force in 1982) are respected, a number of states have passed statutes that specify that police depart- ments must keep victims posted on the status of their cases. But in the remaining states, victims must depend on departmental policies and the good will of individual detectives.
Dissatisfaction also can arise when detectives deem a complainant’s misfortunes to be too minor to merit official action. It is difficult to justify the expenditure of the department’s limited human resources, time, and money to solve minor cases. Some departments issue directives that specify cutoff points below which no action will be taken beyond simply making a formal note of the complaint. For example, in Dade County, which includes Miami, Florida, reports about stolen cars were taken solely over the telephone and only during certain hours (Combined News Services, 1993). In New York City during the 1980s, a detective from the burglary squad was assigned to a case only if the reported loss exceeded a figure of several thousand dollars (Gutis, 1988). Sometimes the police might be reluctant to expend much effort if victims are likely to receive insurance reimbursement.
Many complainants discover that with the pas- sage of time, their cases have been closed even though they remain unsolved. How long an investigation remains open depends on the workload in the juris- diction and the seriousness of the offense. If the police
are unable to establish the identity of a suspect or can- not obtain sufficient evidence to justify an arrest, then they can exercise their discretion to discontinue any active effort to solve the crime. Victims have no for- mal means of compelling law enforcement agencies to continue to work on unsolved mysteries. Dissatisfied complainants have been unable to convince judges to intervene in matters of police discretion unless a pat- tern of noninvestigation reflects racial or religious dis- crimination on the part of government officials sworn to serve and protect the public (Austern, 1987).
Even when a trail of evidence leads to a sus- pect, an arrest is never automatic. Police officers exercise a great deal of personal and departmental discretion in deciding whom to take into custody and book, and whom to let go, especially for mis- demeanors. The factors that influence these deci- sions include pressures from colleagues and superiors, the individual predilections of officers, the nature of the offense, and the relationship of the victim to the suspect. Victims can become angry when officers don’t arrest these suspects.
One solution for victims is to convince judges to issue arrest warrants based on their sworn com- plaints which officers must then carry out. A second solution is to exercise the dangerous do-it-yourself option known as a citizen’s arrest. Private citizens are empowered to use whatever force necessary to prevent a suspect from escaping until the police arrive to take charge of the situation. Civilians must directly witness the offenses, apprehend and detain their suspects immediately after the crimes are committed, and turn their captives over to the authorities without delay. Police officers are gener- ally obligated to accept custody of suspects taken prisoner by victims or bystanders. In some states, citizens can make arrests only for felonies, but in other jurisdictions they may act even if the offense they directly witnessed is only a misdemeanor (Cic- chini and Kushner, 2010).
But citizen’s arrests are risky undertakings. Suspects are likely to resist capture and endanger victims or onlookers who intervene. In cases of mistaken identity, even victims who acted with probable cause and in good faith can be sued in civil court for false arrest and false imprisonment in some states. The use of
V I C T IMS AND THE CR IM INAL JUS T I C E S Y ST EM : COOP ERAT I ON AND CON F L I C T 183
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
excessive force can also be grounds for a lawsuit, even if the wrongdoer is later found guilty. Police officials generally discourage civilians from thinking of them- selves as deputized to make arrests. They point to the lengthy training sworn officers receive in self-defense tactics, the use of firearms, the application of laws gov- erning arrests, the seizure of evidence, and suspects’ rights. Because attempts to make citizen’s arrests can easily devolve into acts of vigilantism, law enforcement officials encourage activist-oriented civilians to become involved in police auxiliary units or neighborhood anticrime patrols instead (Hall, 1975; Stark and Goldstein, 1985; and Cicchini and Kushner, 2010).
Clearance rates tend to be overestimates of the proportion of criminals who are “brought to justice” and made to “pay” for their crimes because the FBI and local departments do not track what eventually happens to these cases at later stages of the criminal justice process, The actual outcome for each of the seven index crime categories is even worse than these clearance rates imply. Just because a suspect is arrested doesn’t mean that this individual is ultimately found guilty of the charges lodged at the time of arrest. Some charges are dropped by prosecutors or dis- missed by judges, freeing those arrestees. Of those who are prosecuted, many engage in negotiations via their defense attorneys and plead guilty to lesser charges, or are not convicted by a jury after a trial (see the leaky net diagram in Chapter 12).
Recovering Stolen Property
Besides catching culprits, the police can satisfy vic- tims’ needs by recovering their stolen items. Just as
clearance rates indicate the approximate percentage of victims who receive optimum service in terms of arrests, recovery rates show how often the police succeed in retrieving stolen goods. Unfortunately, unlike clearance rates, recovery rates are not rou- tinely tabulated and published by police depart- ments or the FBI. (The UCR merely notes the overall dollar value of recovered stolen goods for all reported incidents of a particular index crime.) However, recovery rates for various crimes are available from the NCVS.
Interviewers ask respondents whether all or part of the money and property taken from them was returned to them (not counting insurance reimburse- ment). Police recovery rates can then be estimated. But the figures will be biased upward because some victims are able to get back their stolen property through their own efforts. Unfortunately, this statistic cannot be refined further to determine the percent- age of victims who recovered items by themselves and what percentage was retrieved by the police. Therefore, these rough approximations overestimate the ability of the police to return stolen goods to their rightful owners. Furthermore, these estimates com- bine partial and full recoveries, again biasing the sta- tistics upward and presenting the abilities of police departments across the nation as more effective than they really are. Partial recoveries might not satisfy victims; a discarded wallet emptied of any cash or credit cards, for example, or a badly stripped automo- bile with a traceable vehicle identification number would count as partial recoveries.With these reserva- tions in mind, Table 6.5 shows estimated police recovery rates for selected years from 1980 to 2008.
T A B L E 6.5 Trends in Stolen Property Recovery Rates, United States, Selected Years, 1980–2008
Type of Victimization 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2003 2006 2008
Robberies 24% recovered 27 21 18 20 18 21 16 24 Burglaries 12 10 9 10 8 8 8 12 7 Household larcenies 12 9 8 8 9 10 9 11 8 Motor vehicle thefts 65 70 73 72 71 67 65 70 58
NOTES: Percentages represent the proportions of all cases in which victims get back stolen items. Recovery may be total or partial. An unknown proportion of the recoveries were accomplished by victims without police assistance. Figures were calculated from NCVS data on theft losses. Only incidents that resulted in theft losses were considered.
SOURCE: BJS, Criminal Victimization in the United States, selected years, 1980–2008.
184 CHAPT ER 6
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
The data assembled in Table 6.5 reveals that this aspect of police work will leave most people who suffered robberies, burglaries, and household larcenies dissatisfied with the outcomes of their cases. The recovery rates are very low. Further- more, these disappointing percentages are overesti- mates because some recoveries are only partial and some should be credited entirely to victims who did not receive help from the police. Only owners of stolen vehicles are likely to get back some or all of what was taken from them. But these statistics don’t indicate the condition the vehicles were in when found—the recovered cars may have been severely damaged or stripped.
As for changes over time since the start of the 1980s, the data shows considerable stability, perhaps with some trends in a disturbingly downward direc- tion. Even though crime rates have fallen substan- tially across the nation since the 1990s, enabling detectives to have more time to investigate the remaining cases, the ability of police departments to retrieve stolen goods apparently has not improved. Except for an uptick in the recovery rate for possessions grabbed during robberies, the ability of police departments to retrieve property taken by thieves, especially stolen vehicles, sunk to new lows in 2008, according to the NCVS sta- tistics compiled in Table 6.5.
Even if the police recover stolen property, some victims might not get it back for a while. Law enforcement agencies have the authority to hold seized items if they are of value in continuing inves- tigations. Prosecutors are allowed to maintain cus- tody of pieces of evidence until after the trial or even until those convicted have exhausted all appeals. Victims frustrated by that delay are now assisted in some states by statutes that compel the police to return stolen property “expeditiously”— as soon as it is no longer needed for law enforcement purposes. In a growing number of jurisdictions, laws direct the police and prosecutors to promptly pho- tograph the evidence and then return the actual item whenever it is feasible. But in states without these kinds of procedural directives, the release of property seized as evidence requires the explicit approval of the police department property clerk or the
prosecutor’s office or even the judge hearing the case. Those who are denied prompt repossession might have to appeal the decision of the official maintaining custody of the property to some higher criminal justice authority. If the items are damaged, destroyed, or lost by the police department property clerk’s office or the prosecutor’s office, they can go to civil court to file claims for monetary compensa- tion (Stark and Goldstein, 1985).
Scattered studies suggest that many victims encountered this problem decades ago, before new procedures were mandated as the result of the rise of a victims’ movement. In a Wisconsin jurisdiction, 31 percent of complainants who had been seriously harmed reported difficulties in get- ting back stolen property held as evidence (Knud- ten, Knudten, and Meade, 1978). In California, a survey of victims determined that in 30 percent of the cases in which stolen property was recovered by the police and used in court as evidence, the items were never returned to their owners (Lynch, 1976). Follow-up studies are needed to establish whether this problem persists.
As noted above, sometimes victims themselves deserve credit for retrieving stolen items, as these cases illustrate:
A young man advertises on a popular website that his car is for sale. A prospective buyer takes it for a spin, but doesn’t return. The trusting soul reports the theft to the police but soon becomes impatient when he sees a new posting about a car for sale that suspiciously resembles his on the same website. He arranges with the “owner” to meet at a gas station to take it for a test drive. The do-it-yourself sting operation succeeds when the thief drives up in the stolen car, the victim calls the police, and they arrest the crook red-handed as he bolts from the vehicle. (Doyle and Fredericks, 2011)
■ ■ ■
A young man’s laptop is stolen by a burglar. The owner activates a built-in spyware program that snaps pictures of the thief and captures screenshots of
V I C T IMS AND THE CR IM INAL JUS T I C E S Y ST EM : COOP ERAT I ON AND CON F L I C T 185
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
his e-mail, including a business address of a com- pany. The owner searches for the company’s address and then plots its exact location on a mapping website. Then he notifies the local police department in that jurisdiction; however, the police deem the theft of his laptop to be a very low-priority matter. So he posts pictures and details about the apparent thief on a website, and then mobilizes his friends via social networking until the story goes viral. He is invited to appear on a national television network’s morning news program, and vents his frustration about law enforcement’s inaction. Shortly after his appearance in the mainstream media, he receives a call from the local police department that the thief has been arrested and that his laptop has been recovered. (Lindzon, 2011)
Measuring Progress toward a Victim-Oriented Police Department
The adoption of a “community policing” approach by many departments symbolizes a commitment to granting residents a larger say in guiding the opera- tions and policies of a branch of local government that is supposed to protect and serve them. Com- munity policing also has opened the door to a more victim-oriented approach within law enforcement. What would a “consumer-centered” or “user- friendly” model entail? What performance measures indicate that a department is effectively carrying out its mission to protect and serve the residents of its jurisdiction?
First of all, a victim-oriented department would extend outreach efforts to neighborhood residents to build their confidence that they will be appropriately received when they bring their problems to a police station. A user-friendly depart- ment would facilitate the process for lodging complaints, making it as painless and as streamlined as possible. Complaints about very minor matters might even be taken over the phone or by fill- ing out a form online. If a greater proportion of victims become encouraged to come forward, an indicator of success would be a temporary rise in the crime rate because a higher percentage of inci- dents would be reported and recorded. (A localized
version of the National Crime Victimization Survey could be used to discover what percentage of vic- tims still are not reporting various types of crimes, and why.)
When victims come forward, they expect to be handled with care. To achieve this goal, a depart- ment would have to train its officers to handle death notifications with compassion, to better com- fort traumatized victims, to provide physical and psychological first aid, and to avoid delivering a second wound because of insensitivity or victim- blaming accusations. The special needs of victim- ized children, battered women, rape victims, and disabled persons also would be addressed effectively (see Chapters 9 and 10). Officers could also be bet- ter trained to spot a complainant who is making a false charge, so that all complainants would not be greeted with skepticism as possible fakers and liars, and detectives would not subject them to needless, accusatory questioning. Customer-satisfaction sur- veys could be an appropriate way to measure whether victims felt departments were handling their cases with care.
A victim-oriented department would dispatch officers quickly to 911 calls for help. Statistics show- ing downward trends in response times to emer- gencies would indicate progress along this front. Presumably, police forces constantly work to solve as many crimes as possible. But victim-oriented forces would not only seek to make arrests in high-profile cases that merit intense media cover- age, but also in the much more common minor cases that revolve around stolen property. Clearance rates should rise in departments that are becoming more user-friendly, indicating that victims and wit- nesses are cooperating with investigations to a greater degree, sharing all they know, looking at mug shots, and picking suspects out of lineups. Similarly, local law enforcement agencies would make greater efforts to recover stolen property and return it to its rightful owner after it is no lon- ger needed for court proceedings. Officers and detectives must gather evidence properly so that it can be entered as a prosecution exhibit against the accused. Court records about the percent of charges at the time of arrest that are later dropped by the
186 CHAPT ER 6
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
prosecutor, or dismissed by the judge, or that are dramatically reduced because of improperly obtained evidence can be examined to monitor progress along this front.
An overall criterion for evaluation could be this: Does a department that claims to be victim- oriented do all that it can to provide the same
high-quality services to the public as it delivers to fellow officers and to members of their families when they are harmed by criminals? If the depart- ment falls far short on this bottom-line performance indicator, then it needs to reconsider its priorities and revamp its operations.
SUMMARY
In their pursuit of justice—whether they seek pun- ishment or treatment for the offender, or restitution for their losses—victims might find themselves in conflicting rather than cooperative relationships with police officers and detectives.
When they report crimes, victims want the police to respond quickly, administer psychological and physical first aid effectively, believe their accounts, apprehend suspects, gather evidence that is admissible in court, and get back any property that was taken from them. However, uniformed
officers and detectives might be slow to arrive, han- dle victims insensitively, consider their versions of events unbelievable or exaggerated, fail to solve their cases, and be unable to recover their stolen goods. Various statistical measures collected by the NCVS and the UCR (such as reporting rates, response times, clearance rates, and recovery rates) can be used as performance indicators to provide some rough estimates about how often victims receive the services and assistance they seek from their local police and sheriff ’s departments.
KEY TERMS DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY
burnout, 173
citizen’s arrest, 183
clearance rates, 177
cold case squads, 181
community policing, 168
Compstat, 170
defounding, 176
misprision of a felony, 172
performance measures, 186
second wound, 173
unfounding, 176
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND DEBATE
1. Make up some details about robbery or bur- glary incidents, and then explain why, in your opinion, it is in their best interest for victims to seek either punishment, offender rehabilitation, or restitution in these particular cases.
2. Make up some details about robbery or shooting incidents, and then discuss what an
ideal police department could do for the injured parties in these cases. Then reverse the outcomes, and highlight every problem with the local police that could further compound the suffering of victims in these particular cases.
V I C T IMS AND THE CR IM INAL JUS T I C E S Y ST EM : COOP ERAT I ON AND CON F L I C T 187
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS
1. From the viewpoint of police chiefs, argue that victims have unrealistically high expectations and make unreasonable demands in terms of the department’s priorities, resources, and personnel.
2. Speculate about the causes of the falling clear- ance rates for solving crimes of violence in recent decades.
SUGGESTED RESEARCH PROJECTS
1. Interview local residents who have suffered crimes such as robberies, vehicle break-ins, petty thefts, and burglaries, and find out whether they reported the incidents to the police. Question them about why they did or did not. Ask those who reported crimes whether they know if their cases were solved by an arrest.
2. Meet with local police officials and discover what your department’s clearance rate is for the seven index crimes, its response time to 911 calls, the percentage of auto theft or robbery complaints that were determined to be unfounded, and the recovery rate for stolen motor vehicles. See if this information is con- tained in a publicly available annual report or
on a departmental website. If these statistics are not made public, should they be?
3. Draw up a comprehensive checklist of all the victim-oriented services that could and should be offered by a user-friendly police depart- ment. Rate your local department on how well it provides each form of assistance and support to crime victims.
4. Evaluate the websites of a number of police departments of interest to you. Does the information that is posted on the Internet appear in a victim-friendly format (for exam- ple, what to do if…, how to…) and is some of it translated into different languages?
188 CHAPT ER 6
R O D D Y , A N T H O N Y I S A A C 3 7 2 7 B U