Victimology: Dynamics of Victim and Offender

What role, if any, did Abel play in the Cain-Abel homicide? Was he, as Wolfgang (1969) asks, an “unsuspecting, helpless, passive victim stalked by a cold, calculating killer,” or does the victim play “an active part in a surprisingly large number of cases, so active that he seems deliberately to have brought about his own death” (p. 55)? This question must be asked, no matter how difficult and unsettling the answer may be. Unfortunately, some (partially informed) individuals regard victimology as an attempt to blame victims or to encourage people to see themselves as victims. In fact, the study of victims is undertaken not to assign blame or to provide rationalizations but to help investigators understand the interpersonal dynamics involved in certain types of crimes (Karmen, 2001).

Some research findings strongly suggest a close connection between victim and offender. In Wolfgang’s (1958) classic sociological study of 588 murders that occurred in Philadelphia between 1948 and 1952, 25% of victims and offenders were relatives, 28% close friends, 14% acquaintances, and about 20% husbands and wives. Forty-one percent of all women killed were killed by their husbands, but only 11% of husbands were killed by their wives. Wolfgang concluded that a woman who commits a homicide is more likely than a man to kill her mate; when a man is killed by a woman, he is most likely to have been killed by his wife.

A review of the UCR over the past 40 years shows relative stability in these findings. Most contemporary murders are committed by men (87%), and most victims are also men. Almost half of all murder victims knew their assailants with less than 10% killed by strangers. Husbands or boyfriends were identified as the murderer in about a third of the time when the victim was a woman, but less than 5% of male victims were slain by wives or girlfriends.

Since the majority of murderers and victims know each other well and associate with each other frequently, it is not surprising that most homicides are intraracial. Since victims and offenders are closely connected, it is logical that arguments would trigger about one-third of the murders, since familiarity often results in animosity. Other close victim-offender connections have been documented by the UCR over the years, including homicides as a result of romantic triangles, parents killing children, children killed by babysitters, and arguments between victims and offenders over money or property.

The same statistics that show a close connection between victim and offender in the United States have also been duplicated in research conducted in different countries, in different cultures, and at different time periods. For example, Svalastoga (1956) studied 172 murders that occurred in Denmark. In this study 90% of the victims were relatives, friends, or acquaintances. The 52 female murderers in his sample rarely went outside the family to commit a homicide, and none had killed a stranger. Similarly, East (1950) found that only 6% of 300 murderers who were judged to be insane, and only 16% of 200 murderers found sane, killed strangers. The vast majority killed family, friends, and acquaintances. Bohannan (1960) found the same offender-victim relationship pattern in homicides among various African tribes.

On the basis of his findings, Wolfgang (1958) ultimately concluded that about 26% of the victims appeared to precipitate their own death and did so not by subtle or covert signs but by some overt physical (usually aggressive and provocative) behavior. He cited many examples to demonstrate his contention. A man who repeatedly beat and threatened his wife finally invited her to stab him with a knife, and she did so. In another case, a man who repetitively beat his wife handed her a knife and dared her to use it. She said she would if he hit her again. He slapped her in the face, and she stabbed him to death. In still another case, an intoxicated man got into an argument with another man and brandished a knife. The other man displayed a gun, the victim dared him to shoot, and he did. Wolfgang (1969) concluded that, in these and many similar cases, the victims were (unconsciously) attempting to commit suicide—a view also held by others (Ellenberger, 1955; MacDonald, 1986). More recently, the phenomenon of suicide-by-cop (wherein a person seriously threatens a police officer, who then shoots him) is receiving a great deal of attention and is thought to involve similar (but perhaps not unconscious) suicidal dynamics (Dewey, Allwood, Fava, Arias, Pinizzotto, and Schlesinger, 2013; Pinizzotto and Davis, 1999).

Even before Wolfgang’s study, Von Hentig (1941) had published an article focusing on the interaction (sometimes symbiosis) between victims and offenders. He concluded that the victim is one of the causes of a crime: “In a sense the victim shapes and molds the criminal... to know one, we must be acquainted with the complementary partner” (p. 12).

Several years later, Mendelsohn (1956, 1963) coined the term “victimology.” He illustrated his concept (Mendelsohn, 1963) by discussing the case of a man who killed his wife and her paramour after he found them together in bed. Mendelsohn concluded that the wife’s “perverse” and provocative conduct had prompted the homicide. The history of victimology, which is now a well-recognized interdisciplinary specialty, has been reviewed recently by Karmen (2012) and Doerner and Lab (2012).

In addition to the sociological studies of von Hentig and Mendelsohn, the contributory role of the victim in criminal acts has been recognized in poetry and literature. For example, poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran (1923) wrote in The Prophet, “The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder, and the robbed is not blameless in being robbed” (p. 41). In Franz Werfel’s (1920) novel Not the Assassin but the Victim Is Guilty (discussed by Ellenberger, 1955), a young boy kills his cold and tyrannical father after years of coping with the father’s obnoxious behavior which left the son hating him bitterly. Following the murder, the young man stated, “I, the assassin, and he, the victim, are both guilty! But he is a little more guilty than I.” The contributory role of the victim is more subtly explored in Shiga Naoya’s (1993) short story Han’s Crime. In this story, the protagonist’s wife becomes pregnant by her cousin, a close friend of the husband, and then kills the baby in order to hurt her husband even more. Despite the deterioration of their marriage and “amazingly cruel” relations between the two, she continues to serve as her husband’s assistant in his circus knife-throwing act. Ultimately, he severs her carotid artery with the knife during a performance.

Victims also have been studied from a psychodynamic point of view. MacDonald (1986) argues that some people become victims as a result of various unconscious needs and conflicts: “Just as there are accident prone persons, so also there are persons who are prone to become victims. Thus, there may be a symbiotic relationship between the criminal and his victim” (p. 59). According to MacDonald, the types of individuals especially susceptible to becoming victims are depressives, masochists, and tormentors. Depressed individuals often seek punishment and frequently get killed in the process—behavior that can be viewed as fundamentally suicidal. Neustatter (1957) cites the strange case of a depressed psychiatric patient who repeatedly asked other patients to kill him; eventually one did. Masochists derive pleasure from being abused and thus constantly place themselves in dangerous situations. MacDonald cites the case of a young woman who consistently returned to her abusive boyfriend and eventually was killed by him. This author describes the tormentor as a person who usually dies at the hand of a family member whom he has persistently badgered. As an example, he reports the case of a woman who suffered for years from the behavior of her alcoholic husband. Provoked beyond all measure, she impulsively killed him during an argument.

Perhaps the most practical approach to victimology—an approach that has the most relevance to understanding sexual murder—comes from law enforcement. Mental health professionals seek to explain the personality and behavior of a murderer through psychological concepts, whereas law enforcement officers seek to apprehend unidentified offenders through investigative concepts (Douglas, Ressler, Burgess, and Hartman, 1986; Geberth, 1981; Jackson and Bekerian, 1997; Rossi, 1982). Since it has long been recognized that there is usually a close relationship between offender and victim, a study of the victim may unearth clues to the identity of the offender. Even in cases where a murderer does not know his victim, his selection of that victim rarely is random (Lunde, 1976). Thus, from an investigative perspective, information about the victim is as essential as any other type of information obtained from a crime scene.

Table 1.3 Background Information Needed to Assess Level of Victim Risk

Source: Adapted from Douglas, J.E., Burgess, A.W., Burgess, A.G., and Ressler, R.K., Crime Classification Manual, Jossey Bass, San Francisco, 2013, pp. 17-18.

Investigative profilers and behavioral analysts therefore attempt to gather a complete history of the victim (see Table 1.3), including background, habits, and resistance ability, in an attempt to answer a central question: Why did this person become the victim of a sexual murderer? Key to the answer is an assessment of victim risk: the level of risk (high, moderate, and low) in which the victim placed herself (either intentionally or unintentionally) prior to becoming a victim (Douglas, Burgess, Burgess, and Ressler, 1992). For example, some sexual murderers seek high-risk victims (such as hitchhikers or prostitutes), whereas others seek out low-risk victims (e.g., people whose habitual lifestyles, such as a preference for staying at home, make them relatively inaccessible as targets). Thus, information on victim risk, as well as on the level of risk the offender takes to commit the crime, helps investigators generate a profile of the unidentified offender being sought.