Character Of Victim Research Articles

Victim Impact Evidence in Capital Cases: Does the Victim's Character Matter?1

Victim impact evidence is introduced by the prosecution during the penalty phase of a capital case to describe the character of the victim and the emotional, financial, and physical impact of the victim's murder on survivors. In 1987, the Supreme Court voiced concern that this evidence would permit the capital sentencing decision to turn on jurors' perceptions of the victim's respectability. This study assesses that concern. Mock jurors watched a reenactment of the penalty phase in the case of Booth v. Maryland. We manipulated the respectability of the victim described in the victim impact evidence and found that jurors' judgments of the victims, victims' survivors, and severity of the crime were all affected by this description. We speculate on the way that these moderating variables could, in turn, influence the capital sentencing decision.

The effect of evidence factors and victim characteristics on prosecutors' charging decisions in sexual assault cases*

Feminists contend that legally irrelevant victim characteristics determine the outcome of sexual assault cases. They argue that criminal justice officials base their decisions on stereotypes of rape, and that only “real rapes” with “genuine victims” are taken seriously. Our empirical study of Detroit prosecutors' charging decisions in sexual assault cases confirms this: We found that the only significant predictors of charging were victim characteristics. Prosecutors were much more likely to file charges if the victim was an adolescent or an adult rather than a child. Charging also was affected by the victim's moral character and her behavior at the time of the incident. Moreover, these victim characteristics influenced charging regardless of the strength of evidence in the case or whether the crime was classified as an aggravated or a simple sexual assault. Overall the results of this study suggest that Detroit prosecutors regard victim characteristics as relevant to convictability in all types of sexual assault cases. They suggest that prosecutors attempt to avoid uncertainty by screening out sexual assault cases unlikely to result in a conviction because of questions about the victim's character, the victim's behavior at the time of the incident, and the victim's credibility.

Characteristics of Homicide Victims and Victimizations in Prisons: A Canadian Historical Perspective

This article presents an analysis of some of the characteristics of homicide victimizations in Canadian federal correctional institutions. Two historical periods are compared; from 1967 to 1978 and from 1979 to 1984. The findings suggest the incidence of prison homicides has increased over the years, and the character of victims and victimizations has changed. More recent prison homicides were more likely to have been carried out by multiple assailants, were more commonly associated with revenge motives or drug and gambling debts, and involved victims were more likely to have violent backgrounds. The article concludes that a more complete understanding of the causes of prison homicides will require detailed analysis of the process of conflict escalation in these settings.

Left-Right Ideological Differences in Blaming Victims

In the first of two experiments conducted with liberal and conservative university students (so designated on the basis of their scores on Tomkins' Polarity Scale) men and women made attributions of responsibility to a welfare client. Overall, conservatives blamed the victim more than liberals. The second study extended this finding to the victim of a theft. Liberals were particularly lenient when the victim was described as emotionally upset, supporting Tomkins' ideas about left-right affective differences. In both studies, conservatives derogated the victim's character to a greater extent than liberals.

Relative preference and adaptiveness of behavioral blame for observers of rape victims.

Observers viewed one of nine dramatized videotaped interviews of a rape victim describing her rape. Information in the interview varied the prudence of the victim's behavior (careful, careless, no information provided) and the respectability of her character (good, bad, no information provided). Behavioral blame was significantly greater than characterological blame when the victim was careless or when no information was provided about behavior, regardless of the victim's character. When the behavior was careful, behavioral blame was equal in magnitude to characterological blame. In no case was characterological blame preferred. The adaptive value of behavioral blame for preserving a belief in a controllable and meaningful world was examined using a hierarchical multiple regression. After removing the effects of the prebeliefs of the subjects and the independent variable manipulations, only behavioral blame was significantly related to the maintenance of adaptive beliefs. Implications of the adaptive value of behavioral blame are discussed along with the importance of distinguishing observers' behavioral and characterological blaming strategies in the victimization literature.

Alcohol and Rape

This study examined the effects of victim and offender intoxication on attributions of blame in a rape incident. Participants read scenarios of a rape incident in which victim, offender, both, or neither were intoxicated. The male offender was attributed less and the situation was attributed more responsibility when the offender was drunk than when he was sober. In addition, participants derogated the female victim's character and assigned her greater responsibility when she was drunk than when she was sober.

Rape and responsibility: How and how much is the victim blamed?

In two separate experiments, subjects made attributions after reading a brief description of a rape. Attributions of responsibility were made more strongly to the victim's character for unrespectable victims, and to chance for respectable victims. Also, males placed more blame on the victim's character than females, while females emphasized the role of chance more than males. These results have implications for the treatment of rape victims within the court system.

The Absurd Professor in the Theater of the Absurd

SINCE INCONGRUITY CHARACTERIZES THE PROFESSOR whenever he appears on a conventional Western stage, one wonders what happens to this traditionally absurd figure when he enters the theater of the absurd with Ionesco and Adamov. One anticipates an answer based on the algebraic model of two "negatives" combining to yield a "positive." But this proves to be absurd mathematical reasoning worthy of Ionesco's professor, that is, mostly, though not entirely, false. Negative and positive poles are particularly hard to determine in this case. The professor resists congruity even when he is featured in a sentimental or happy ending. His incongruity is congenital and absolute; he is at odds not only with his surroundings, but with his own self; he is a two-sided figure, combining, for instance, the character of victim with that of executioner, or concealing an intensely active nature under a contemplative mask; his absurdity is a function of his ambiguity; being a simulacrum, all words and pose, he is ideally suited to any theater and can make the most contrived action around him on stage pass for real life. The theater of the absurd could not make the absurd professor seem logical any more than it could make him blend harmoniously with his surroundings. However, by accentuating and accelerating the disjointedness of character, setting and situation, the displacement, as Simone Benmussa would call it, the theater of the absurd turned the professor into a central figure for the representation of man's condition in the modern world, in a way neither Mr. Chips nor his cousins, Moliere's Docteurs, could have represented it.