THE RISKS OF VICTIMIZATION AND MEASURES OF PREVENTION

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (2004), victimization occurs when “…a person suffers direct or threatened physical, emotional, and/or financial harm.” Victimization can include physical violence, sexual violence, psychological or emotional abuse, and neglect. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledges such victimization as a serious and preventable public health problem.Victimologists hypothesize that a number of individual victimologist factors determine a person’s- the perpetrators of the crime to commit an act. Motivation at a particular point in time is the result of interactions over a person’s life course between biological, socio-cultural, and developmental factors—as well as contemporaneous opportunity. Psychological factors are the result of interactions between biological and socio-cultural factors. Victimologists do not imagine that some simple consitutional factor is a satisfactory explanation for mativational factors.Multilevel (or contextual) analyses have been proposed as one solution to these limitations and a variety of studies have been conducted to study individuals’ risk for crime within and across different types of communities. Ecological factors involve interactions between people and their activities. This category includes things associated with the physical environment such as geography and topography, crowding, pollution, and recreational opportunities. These ecological factors can affect how people develop physically and emotionally over their lives as well as the level of hostility, fear, or well-being they feel from moment to moment as they experience (For example: a crowded subway, dark lonely parking lot, or serene park). Discussion focuses on theoretical, methodological, and policy implications.