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Listening to Victims of Crime: Victimisation Episodes and the Criminal Justice System in Scotland: An Examination of White and Ethnic Minority Crime Victim Experience

NCJ Number
176196
Author(s)
M D MacLeod; R G W Prescott; L Carson
Date Published
1996
Length
206 pages
Annotation
Structured interviews of 255 self-selected people who had been crime victims in Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, Scotland during 1991-92 collected information on contextual and victim information to determine the impacts of crime on victims and their attitudes toward crime and the criminal justice system.
Abstract
Victims with a previous history of victimization were more likely to report feeling depressed or upset (18 percent) and feelings of resignation (8 percent), compared with victims of a single incident (3 percent and 1 percent, respectively). In contrast, victims for whom the target incident was the first victimization were more likely to feel shocked or surprised (23 percent) and worried, scared, or helpless (17 percent) in comparison with those who had been victimized before (12 percent and 8 percent, respectively). Males tended to feel anxiety and anger, whereas females typically felt anxiety and vulnerability. Sixty percent of victims' concerns related to negative feelings, but 19 percent of the concerns related more to the case outcome than to the aftermath of the incident. Some victims were most upset by the feeling that the criminal justice system had let them down. Victims tended to have favorable attitudes toward the police and to disagree with the court decisions. Minority victims were less satisfied with police action than were white victims. Victims also expressed opinions about crime causes and the role of the courts. Tables, figures, appended instrument and additional information on the sample, list of other publications from the same organization, and 139 references