Short essay on the victims of Crime in India

Information about the victims of crime

In this research, I had studied 189 crimes of rape, abduction, dowry death, wife-battering, and murder. I will mention here only a few important findings in each of the five types of crimes (against women).

The findings in respect of rape or criminal assault cases are:

1. About 56 per cent rape victims are in the age group of 16-30 years, 23 per cent in the age group of 10-16 years, 4 per cent are below 10 years and 17 per cent are above 30 years. Thus 8 out of 10 victims are adolescents and young girls.

2. Criminal assault does not always occur between total strangers. In about half of criminal assault cases, the assault victim is known to her assailant (as a relative, neighbour, family friend, co-worker, boss, teacher, acquaintance).

3. Though criminal assault is generally a situational act but in four out of every ten cases criminal assault is a fully or partially planned event.

4- Pair and group assault cases or multiple offender victimisation accounts for one-fourth of the total assault cases.

5. Criminal assault is victim-precipitated only in a very small number of cases. In a majority cases, victims are not responsible for their victimisation.

6. While in a large number of cases, temptation and verbal coercion are used to subdue the victim, in some cases physical violence too is used to coerce her.

The findings in kidnapping and abduction cases are:

1. Unmarried girls are victims of kidnapping/abduction more than married women.

2. Both abductors and victims are generally young in age. A little less than three-fourths victims belong to the age-group of 16-21 years and about one-fourth to the age group of 22-25 years. Against this, 80 per cent of the abductors belong to the age group of 18-29 years.

3. Abductors and the abducted victims are slightly acquainted with one another rather than being total strangers.

4. The initial contact between the abductor and his victim frequently occurs in their own homes and neighbourhoods rather than in public places.

5. As motivating factors, sex and marriage are more important in abduction than economic gain.

6. There is a significant association between victims of abduction and the social class to which the abductors belong.

The findings in dowry-deaths are:

1. Middle-class women have a higher rate of victimisation than lower-class or upper-class women.

2. Almost all girls, who are killed over the dowry issue, belong to the age group (21-24) in which they can be considered rather mature not only psychologically but socially and emotionally too.

3. Households headed by dominant mothers-in-law and uncompromising husbands have higher victimisation rates.

4. Before actual murder, several forms of harassment and humiliation are perpetrated against the young brides who show the chaotic patterns of social adaptation of the members of the victim’s family of procreation.

5. Killers in dowry deaths are brutal and authoritarian and the murder of the victim is only one expression of the offender’s personality maladjustment and abnormality.

Lastly, the findings pertaining to female murders are:

1. In a large majority of cases, murderers and victims are members of the same family, and a large number of murders by men are wife murders.

2. About half of the murder victims are women with long-standing relationships with the male murderers.

3. The ratio of malicious female murders with or without an explicit intention to kill to non-malicious emotional or accidental murders is 4:6.

4. Familial maladjustment in general and marital relations in particular is very crucial in female homicides. Arguments and altercations precipitating homicides generally related to money, treatment of in-laws, care of children, and illicit relations.

5. Only one-fifth of the murders tend to be victim-precipitated. Taking all five types of crime cases together, it may be generalised that the victims of violence are generally women:

i. Who have the feelings of helplessness, depression, poor self-image, and suffer from self-devaluation or self-deprecation; or who are ’emotionally consumed’ by the perpetrators of violence or violators of law; or who suffer from ‘altruistic powerlessness’.

ii. Who live in stressful family situation and are economically dependent on others.

iii. Who lack social inter-personal skills because of which they face behavioural problems?

iv. Whose husbands/in-laws have pathological personalities; and

v. Whose husbands are frequent alcohol-users?

Male criminals or exploiters or perpetrators of violence

The male criminals or women’s exploiters or the perpetrators of violence are generally those who:

Are victims of violence in childhood;

Face stressful situations in family;

Have depressions, inferiority complex, and low self-esteem;

Lack resources-skills, talents-and are sociopathic;

Have personality disorders and are psychopaths;

Have possessive, suspicious and dominant nature; and

Are frequent users of alcohol.

Types of Crimes or Exploitations

If we were to develop the typology of crimes against or exploitation of women, we can give five types of crime and exploitation:

i. Crime which is the result of stressful family situations.

ii. Crime which aims at pleasure-seeking.

iii. Crime which is the result of criminal’s pathology.

iv. Crime which is victim-precipitated.

v. Crime which is alcohol influenced.