NCJ Number
129085
Journal
Social Justice Volume: 17 Issue: 3 Dated: (Fall 1990) Pages: 25-42
Date Published
1990
Length
18 pages
Annotation
While a positivist approach to victimology works to identify and respond to victimizing events, critical victimology draws attention to the social processes which victimize some persons and not others. This article discusses how a radical left realism approach to critical victimology could also take into account feminist movement concerns over the structural powerlessness of women and children.
Abstract
The main weakness of left realism in terms of criminology is its reliance on local criminal-victimization surveys which the author maintains hide the objective reality in which individual responses are constructed. Case studies demonstrate the power of multinational corporations and the powerlessness of children in the face of sexual abuse, two areas which need to be considered more closely by radical left realists. A proposed methodology to improve the left realist position is provided which uses fear of crime as a sample issue. The focus of any critical victimology research should be to examine the factors that cause patterns of victimization and the strategies people use to survive them. 46 references