victim blaming

(verb)

when the victim of a crime, an accident, or any type of abusive maltreatment is held entirely or partially responsible for the transgressions committed against him or her (regardless of whether the victim actually had any responsibility for the incident)

Related Terms

Examples of victim blaming in the following topics:

  • Rape

    • Often, victims blame themselves for rape.
    • Although self-blame might seem like an unusual, intensely individual response to rape, it is rooted in social conceptions of rape and victimhood.
    • In the case of rape, victim blaming generally refers to the belief that certain behaviors on the part of the victim, like flirting or wearing provocative clothing, encourage assault.
    • Legal systems may perpetuate victim blaming.
    • Leaders of the feminist movement started some of the first rape crisis centers, which not only provided basic services to victims, but also advanced the idea of rape as a criminal act with a victim who was not to be blamed.

  • Family Violence

    • All forms of domestic abuse have one purpose: to gain and maintain control over the victim.
    • Abusers use many tactics to exert power over their spouse or partner: dominance, humiliation, isolation, threats, intimidation, denial, and blame.
    • Physical abuse can also include behaviors such as denying the victim of medical care when needed, depriving the victim of sleep or other functions necessary to live, or forcing the victim to engage in drug/alcohol use against his/her will.
    • Emotional abuse can include humiliating the victim privately or publicly, controlling what the victim can and cannot do, withholding information from the victim, deliberately doing something to make the victim feel diminished or embarrassed, isolating the victim from friends and family, implicitly blackmailing the victim by harming others when the victim expresses independence or happiness, or denying the victim access to money or other basic resources and necessities.
    • Economic abuse may involve preventing a spouse from resource acquisition, limiting the amount of resources to use by the victim, or by exploiting economic resources of the victim.

  • Homelessness

    • Popular perception often blames the victim, suggesting these individuals are at fault for becoming homeless.

  • Sexual Violence

    • Most victims of sexual violence do not report it because they are ashamed, afraid of being blamed, concerned about not being believed, or are simply afraid to relive the event by reporting it.
    • Most countries and many NGOs are undertaking efforts to try to increase the reporting of sexual violence as it so obviously has serious physical and psychological impacts on its victims.

  • Child Abuse

    • Effects of child sexual abuse include guilt and self-blame, flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, and fear of things associated with the abuse.
    • Neglect is a passive form of abuse in which a perpetrator is responsible to provide care for a victim who is unable to care for himself or herself, but fails to provide adequate care.
    • Neglect may include the failure to provide sufficient supervision, nourishment, or medical care, or the failure to fulfill other needs for which the victim is helpless to provide for himself or herself.

  • Current Research

    • Folk devils allow us to channel our blame and fear, offering a clear course of action to remedy what many believe to be a growing problem.
    • The fact that these violent offenders are white and middle class threatens the "innocence and safety of suburban America," which means it requires a folk devil culprit, absolving white, middle-class America of the blame.
    • The US Federal government has raised concerns about this issue and various reports have found that colleges and universities are not addressing sexual violence as they should.For instance, many universities fail to investigate allegations of sexual assaults, they fail to encourage victims to report sexual assaults, they fail to provide adequate sexual assault training, and there are inadequate resources for the survivors of sexual assault.
    • In fact, in-depth analyses of sexual violence on college campuses generally reveals that sexual assault has become a normal aspect of college experience, culture, and structure for many American women, that on average 1 in 5 college women will be sexually victimized in some way during their college careers, and that common forms of college leisure activity, such as Greek, Party, and Drinking cultures and habits on campuses, often facilitate the normalization of college sexual assault.

  • Sexual Harassment

    • The person intimidating a victim about his or her sexuality could be male or female; men and women can both be perpetrators of sexual harassment.
    • Regardless of whether the content of the sexual harassment is about sex or gender, both victim and harasser can be either male or female and the victim and the harasser can be the same gender.
    • Even though sexual harassment is less violent than other forms of sexual violence such as rape, victims still suffer serious consequences.
    • Sexual violence that is expressed in terms of some sort of physical assault against a victim has become a condemnable act; victims of physical violence are more likely to find others who are sympathetic to their understandable distress.
    • Victims will often encounter opposition who claim that the harassment was mere teasing.

  • Violent Crime

    • A violent crime is a crime in which the offender uses or threatens to use violent force upon the victim.
    • According to the BJS, the rate of violent crime victimization in the United States declined by more than two thirds between the years 1994 and 2009. 7.9% of sentenced prisoners in federal prisons on September 30, 2009 were in for violent crimes; 52.4% of sentenced prisoners in state prisons at yearend 2008 were in for violent crimes; and 21.6% of convicted inmates in jails in 2002 were in for violent crimes.
    • A violent crime is a crime in which the offender uses or threatens to use violent force upon the victim.
    • With the exception of rape (which accounts for 6% of all reported violent crimes), males are the primary victims of all forms of violent crime.
    • According to the BJS, the rate of violent crime victimization in the United States declined by more than two thirds between the years 1994 and 2009.

  • Crime Statistics

    • The two major methods for collecting crime data are law enforcement reports and victimization statistical surveys.
    • The U.S. has two major data collection programs: the Uniform Crime Reports from the FBI and the National Crime Victimization Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
    • The National Crime Victimization Survey has its use, but it also limited in its scope.
    • One way in which victimization surveys are useful is that they show some types of crime are well reported to law enforcement officials, while other types of crime are under reported.
    • The U.S. has two major data collection programs: the Uniform Crime Reports from the FBI, and the National Crime Victimization Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

  • Violence in Schools

    • In 2001, students between the ages of 12 and 18 were the victims of 2 million crimes at school, and 62% of those crimes were thefts.
    • In 2001, students between the ages of 12 and 18 were the victims of two million crimes at school, but 62% of those crimes were thefts.
    • Often, victims are targeted based on their appearance, their gender, or their sexual orientation.
    • Verbal bullying is any slanderous statements or accusations that cause the victim undue emotional distress.
    • Emotionally bullying is any form of bullying that damages a victim's emotional well-being, such as spreading malicious rumors, giving someone the silent treatment, or harassment.