The Ideology of Victim Precipitation

Abstract

A review of the explicit and the implicit uses of the concept "victim precipitation" in criminology and the criminaljustice system is presented. The pervasiveness of the "ideology of victim precipitation" indicates that it is much more fundamental to the official American justice system and its crime prevention programs and strategies than is generally recognized or suspected. An analysis of the various contexts in which the concept is utilized or implied suggests that it is preceded, either directly or indirectly, by a particular political judgment about the nature of crime and its control or prevention. Specifically, criminological and justice system uses of "victim precipitation" assume consistently that crime is individually generated and, therefore, can only be individually prevented. At least two repressive ideological effectsflowfrom these assumptions of "victim precipitation": (1) an extreme form of victim-blame where the victims of crime are said to be a primary cause of their own victimization, and (2) underlying supportfor ineffective official crime prevention strategies and programs (in reality, "victim prevention" strategies and programs) that instruct citizens to take responsibility for their own criminal victimization ("dress less seductively," "leave your lights on," "lock or bar your window," etc.). The "ideology of victim precipitation" by blaming the individual crime victim only serves to divert attention and resources away from the structural causes of crime and the structural changes required by a less criminogenic society, and renders the existing social, political and economic orders more legitimate. In this way, the social relations required by capitalist society are reproduced by this ideology. It is concluded that the ideology of victim precipitation has no place in a progressive criminology or progressive criminal justice system that attempts to identify how crime is generated and prevented structurally. This criminology and criminal justice practice attempts to spot those social, political, and economic, institutional sources of crime in American society that must be transformed if crime is to be significantly controlled or prevented.