Research Guides: CJ 3300: Victimology: Theories of Criminal Victimization

Search Strategies

Whether you're using OneSearch or another library database, learning a few key search strategies will make your search process more effective. When using search engines like Google, you can type in whole questions or long phrases. But library databases are designed differently and require adjusting our search process. Use the following examples to help you brainstorm search terms and to find information relevant to your topic!

Search Terms

"lifestyle theory"
"routine activities theory"
"victim precipitation theory"
"deviant place theory'"
"structural-choice"
"victimization surveys"
"victim typologies"
"offender motivation"
"proximity to crime"
exposure
"target attractiveness"
guardianship

Searches

"lifestyle theory" AND gender
"lifestyle theory" AND income
"lifestyle theory" AND (victim OR offender)
"routine activit* theory" AND (theft OR steal* OR stole)
"social change" AND "routine activit*"
("lifestyle exposure" OR "routine activit*") AND "target selection"

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Partially peer reviewed. Some full-text content. Videos. Audio Recordings.
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National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts [United States DOJ] This link opens in a new window
Partially peer reviewed. No full-text content. Open access.
Focuses on the field of criminal justice, including corrections, courts, crime, law enforcement, and more. Contains summaries of federal, state, and local government reports, as well as articles, books, research reports, and unpublished research.
Criminal Justice [Gale] This link opens in a new window
Partially peer reviewed. Some full-text content.
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This database focuses on psychology and explores topics like psychiatry, pharmacology, linguistics, treatments, counseling, addiction, and more. Contains APA journals and articles

Scholarly Articles

Understanding Theories of Criminal Victimization
Current theories of victimization have generated a sizable body of empirical research, mostly within the last two decades. The two most widely known perspectives, lifestyle-exposure and routine activities theories, have been the object of much current thinking and empirical testing, but their maturation has been hampered by many of the same problems impeding theories of criminality. These include inadequate attention to variation by type of crime, compartmentalized thinking, poor links between theory and data, inadequate measures of key concepts, and failure to specify clearly functional relationships between sets of variables. Many of these problems can be addressed by closer examination of the interrelationships among victims, offenders, and criminal situations. Victimization theories should be incorporated into comprehensive integrated theories of crime.
Understanding Bullying, Victimization, and Bystander Behaviors Through Resource Control Theory
Resource control theory posits that individuals may utilize prosocial and/or coercive strategies to access social resources. Resource control theory has utility for understanding adolescents' engagement in bullying role behaviors. Objective: The current study examined direct associations between bullying role behaviors (i.e., bullying, victimization, assisting, defending, and outsider behavior) and resource control strategies (i.e., prosocial and coercive resource control), as well as differences in bullying behaviors among groups of resource controllers identified through latent profile analysis (LPA).
All victims are equally innocent, but some are more innocent than others: The role of group membership on victim blaming
The present research aimed to deepen our insight into the role of group membership on victim blaming by incorporating the Belief in a Just World (BJW) theory in a system justification perspective.
"You Should Have Known Better": The Social Ramifications of Victimization-Focused Sexual Assault Prevention Tips
Common sexual assault prevention strategies emphasize individuals' responsibility to protect themselves from victimization. Using a feminist theoretical approach, the present study was the first to assess the unintended, negative consequences that result when taking a victimization-focused approach to sexual assault prevention.
Associations Between Victimization and Adolescents' Self-Reported Responses to Peer Provocation Are Moderated by Peer-Reported Aggressiveness
Many early adolescents experience peer victimization, but little research has examined how they respond to aggression by peers. Thus, in a large sample of early adolescents , we examined the associations between peer-reported victimization and self-reported responses to peer provocation, and whether these associations were moderated by peer-reported aggression. In particular, we predicted that the reported use of assertion, a strategy generally viewed as socially skillful, would be associated with less victimization, but only for youth low on peer-reported aggression. Results were consistent with this hypothesis. Moreover, seeking adult intervention was associated with greater victimization for youth high on peer-reported aggression. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Aggression, Psychopathology, and Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration: Does Gender Matter?
The present study sampled college students who completed measures of IPV perpetration and victimization, trait aggression, and psychopathology. Participants then completed a learning task, during which half were randomly selected to be provoked. The interactive effects of condition, gender, and perpetrator status on mood and aggressive responding were explored. Results indicated that perpetrators of both genders had similar emotional responses to provocation, but behavioral responses to
provocation varied. Results were discussed in terms of their implication for future research and batterer intervention.
Reaping What They Sow? Victim-Offender Overlap Perceptions and Victim Blaming Attitudes.
Examining the tendency to attribute blame to crime victims reveals a striking dichotomy. Some types, such as children, elicit intense emotional reactions from the public. Alternatively, others, such as the typical victims of street crimes, garner substantially less concern. According to the “just world” hypothesis, these latter groups may be perceived by the public as criminally involved, and so “blameworthy” for their victimization. We test this hypothesis—specifically, we evaluate whether perceptions of the extent of victims’ involvement in crime are associated with dispositional attributions for victimization.
The Influence of Sexual Orientation on Attributions of Blame Toward Victims of Sexual Assault.
The purpose of the current study is to examine perceptions of blame toward a female sexual assault victim and to determine whether the victim's sexual orientation impacts the level of attributed blame.

Books

An Introduction to Criminological Theory, Penology, and Crime Prevention (Ebook) by Ishmael Mugari
Publication Date: 2021
This book combines three key issues in the field of criminology: criminological theory, penology, and crime prevention. The book addresses three fundamental criminological aspects, namely: explaining the causes of criminal/deviant behaviour, explaining the process of dealing with deviants/criminals, and articulating ways for preventing criminal activities.
Beyond Blurred Lines (Print Book) by Nickie D. Phillips
Publication Date: 2016
Beyond Blurred Lines traces ways that sexual violence is collectively processed, mediated, negotiated, and contested by exploring public reactions to high-profile incidents and rape narratives in popular culture. The concept of rape culture was initially embraced in popular media mass media, social media, and popular culture and contributed to a social understanding of sexual violence that mirrored feminist concerns about the persistence of rape myths and victim-blaming. However, it was later challenged by skeptics who framed the concept as a moral panic
Child Abuse and Neglect (Ebook) by Michelle Martinez
Publication Date: 2016
Child abuse and neglect (CAN) continues to be a serious public health problem in the United States, affecting approximately 19% of victims and costing approximately $124 billion to society. When a child is removed from their parent's custody due to parental abuse or neglect, the child is sometimes placed in temporary custody through dependency court. Difficult and emotionally laden legal decisions occur within dependency court, including determining whether (and where) a child should be temporarily placed or whether a child should be returned to the parent's custody. Over 6 million children experienced some type of child maltreatment in 2013, with 144,000 receiving foster care services (Child Maltreatment, 2013). Legal decision-makers, including judges, case workers, and social workers have the important task of determining what placement is in the best interest of the child. What factors shape decisions in child custodial cases?
New Criminal Justice Thinking (Ebook) by Sharon Dolovich and Alexandra Natapoff (Editors)
Publication Date: 2017
After five decades of punitive expansion, the entire U.S. criminal justice system—mass incarceration, the War on Drugs, police practices, the treatment of juveniles and the mentally ill, glaring racial disparity, the death penalty and more&mash;faces challenging questions. What exactly is criminal justice? How much of it is a system of law and how much is a collection of situational social practices? What roles do the Constitution and the Supreme Court play? How do race and gender shape outcomes? How does change happen, and what changes or adaptations should be pursued? The New Criminal Justice Thinking addresses the challenges of this historic moment by asking essential theoretical and practical questions about how the criminal system operates. In this thorough and thoughtful volume, scholars from across the disciplines of legal theory, sociology, criminology, Critical Race Theory, and organizational theory offer crucial insights into how the criminal system works in both theory and practice

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Subjects: Criminal Justice, Emergency Services