Psychology of criminal victimisation

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According to the poet Elias Canetti, "All the things one has forgotten / scream for help in dreams." To the ancient Egyptians they were prophecies, and in world folklore they have often marked visitations from the dead. For Freud they were expressions of "wish fulfillment," and for Jung, symbolic representations of mythical archetypes. Although there is still much disagreement about the significance and function of dreams, they seem to serve as a barometer of current mind and body states.

In this volume, Deirdre Barrett brings together the study of dreams and the psychology of trauma. She has called on a distinguished group of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers--among them Rosalind Cartwright, Robert J. Lifton, and Oliver Sacks--to consider how trauma shapes dreaming and what the dreaming mind might reveal about trauma. The book focuses on catastrophic events, such as combat, political torture, natural disasters, and rape. The lasting effects of childhood trauma, such as sexual abuse or severe burns, on personality formation, the nature of memories of early trauma, and the development of defenses related to amnesia and dissociation are all considered. The book also takes up trauma and adult dreams, including Vietnam veterans and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Holocaust survivors and perpetrators, rape victims, and firestorm survivors. Finally, this volume concludes with a look at the potential "traumas of normal life," such as divorce, bereavement, and life-threatening illness, and the role of dreams in working through normal grief and loss.

Taken together, these diverse perspectives illuminate the universal and the particular effects of traumatic experience. For physicians and clinicians, determining the etiology of nightmares offers valuable diagnostic and therapeutic insights for individual treatment. This book provides a way of juxtaposing the research in the separate fields of trauma and dreams, and learning from their discoveries.

The aim of the present study was to examine to what degree different mechanisms of moral disengagement were related to age, gender, bullying, and defending among school children. Three hundred and seventy-two Swedish children ranging in age from 10 to 14 years completed a questionnaire. Findings revealed that boys expressed significantly higher levels of moral justification, euphemistic labeling, diffusion of responsibility, distorting consequences, and victim attribution, as compared with girls. Whereas boys bullied others significantly more often than girls, age was unrelated to bullying. Moral justification and victim attribution were the only dimensions of moral disengagement that significantly related to bullying. Furthermore, younger children and girls were more likely to defend victims. Diffusion of responsibility and victim attribution were significantly and negatively related to defending, while the other dimensions of moral disengagement were unrelated to defending.

Shadow projection, as the transference of personal inferiority, and the related concept of ‘sin transference’, lie at the heart of the mystery of evil. Socially corrosive projection neither stems from “misunderstandings” in the micro-social context nor from predatory instincts. It is an archaic method of ego emancipation by which the transgressor’s unconscious suffering is transferred to the victim. It aims at maintaining ego firmness. By reason of their capacity of free thought, intellectuals are often targets of shadow projection. It is really a projection of Promethean guilt, as the intellectual may call into question the established order. An answer to the machinations of evil has been formulated in Christian theology. The ego’s suffering is laid on the shoulders of Christ, who carries the sins of the world. The Christ figure is understood as the inner Self (“life-giver”). This helps to promote spiritual awareness (“Christ lives in me”, Galatians 2). A regress to pre-Christian cultural values implies a rebound of scapegoat psychology, as exemplified by the collective shadow psychology of the Third Reich. Western civilization today undergoes changes which undermine our awareness of the spiritual Self. If our sins aren’t carried by the inner Self anymore, then they must be carried by other human beings, with foreseeable consequences. The article discusses the notion of an instinctual foundation of evil.

Keywords: wickedness, the shadow, Self, sin transference, group narcissism, intellectuals, scapegoatism, Christian love, Orlando massacre.

he COVID-19 global health crisis has led to inexplicit responses from the communities on the psycho-social as well as psychological domains. The imposition of various restrictions including physical distancing norms have been reported to have caused a catastrophic impact on the lives of sexual and gender minorities. With their source of employment lost at the gravity of the pandemic accompanied with dreadful instances of stigma and discrimination projected onto them, the transgender and sex worker communities have been bearing the brunt of inequality since the outbreak of the pandemic. Bridging the gap between the studies highlighting the plight of marginalized communities in the wake of the
COVID-19 pandemic, this study would advance the knowledge into their experiences and struggles. The aim of the study is to fill the gap in literature pertaining to the understanding of the impact of COVID-19
on transgenders and sex workers in India.

Muchos estudios analizan el riesgo de conducta violenta en personas con trastornos mentales (TM). Sin embargo, su riesgo de victimización es un tema al que se ha prestado poca atención. Este sesgo en la investigación contribuye a mantener estereotipos sobre los trastornos mentales y a perpetuar la estigmatización y el aislamiento social de quienes los padecen. Según los estudios analizados, las personas con TM corren un riesgo de victimización violenta significativamente superior al de la población general, especialmente en períodos de sintomatología activa. Este artículo teórico analiza la otra cara de la relación entre trastorno mental y violencia, centrándose en la epidemiología del problema, los factores de riesgo más relevantes (victimización previa, consumo de drogas, exclusión social, comorbilidad/gravedad de los síntomas y trastornos del desarrollo) y algunas formas de victimización frecuentes (suicidio, violencia contra la pareja, violencia sexual, acoso escolar y abuso infantil). Se espera contribuir a una mejor comprensión de los riesgos de victimización en estas personas, lo que puede traducirse en unas estrategias más adecuadas de prevención y de tratamiento.



A great deal of research has been conducted into the risk of violent behavior among people with mental disorders. However, their risk of victimization is a subject that has received little attention. This research bias helps to maintain stereotypes on mental disorders and perpetuate the stigma and social isolation of the people involved. According to the studies reviewed, such people are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the general population, especially during periods when the symptoms are more acute. This theoretical article examines the other side of the relationship between mental disorder and violence, focusing on the epidemiology of the problem, the most significant risk factors (prior victimization, drug abuse, social exclusion, comorbidity/symptom severity and development disorders) and some common forms of victimization (suicide, domestic violence, sexual violence, bullying and child abuse). The aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the risks of victimization in these people, which may lead to more appropriate prevention and treatment strategies.

Dreams about 9/11 -- Paper presented at the 19th Annual International Conference for The International Association for the Study of Dreams, Tufts University, Medford, Boston, Massachusetts; 05/2002
An analysis of trauma dreams collected after 9/11

This study investigates factors underlying adoption of safety behaviours among vicarious victims of Boko Haram terrorism in Sabon Gari, a predominantly Christian community in Kano State. Using the Health Belief Model, data were generated from non-indigenes in Sabon Gari. Findings indicated that participants felt susceptible to being direct victims with expressions such as 'nobody is safe or sure of tomorrow' because of their identities as Christians and non-indigenes. Loss of lives, destruction of business, weakened bonds, and feelings of imaginary dangers captured perceived severity. Perceived cost of adopting safety behaviours included an outright ban on evangelism, utilization of visitation and isolation. Adopting cues to action, participants avoided crowded places, and relocated family members to reduce collateral damages of anticipated victimization. Implementation of personal (avoidance of vain talks) and institutional preventive measures (purchase of scanners and organization of security training) constituted control measures to prevent victimization. In conclusion, perceived susceptibility facilitated adoption of safe and secure behaviours.

In press with International Review of Victimology

Abstract
Many people do not regard violence against them as a crime, but the factors that influence this response are unknown. Understanding how the ‘crimeworthiness’ of violence is interpreted allows an insight into how victims make sense of their experience, how communities influence attitudes towards victimisation and the reporting of crime to the police. A pooled cross-sectional sample of respondents to the Crime Survey for England and Wales was used to identify factors associated with the decision to label or discount a violent incident as a crime. Individual and neighbourhood-level effects were estimated using multilevel modelling. Harm, the perceived unjustness of the incident and victim-offender relational distance predicted labelling, while frequency of victimisation and victim initiation of the incident predicted discounting. Neighbourhood and neighbourhood crime had little effect on victims’ interpretations of the ‘crimeworthiness’ of violence. When victims interpret violence against them, they appear to do so unencumbered by social norms, but are influenced by the impact of the violence, the ‘prototypicality’ of the incident as a crime and their previous experience of violence.

Keywords: victimisation; violence; crime; labelling; multilevel modelling; neighbourhood effects

Safety within your own home alone at night is seen as a right; nobody should have a higher fear than another. Through this study a relationship between social class and how safe participants feel in their own home is explored, due to the fact of conflicting evidence in which on one hand it is supported that the higher class have better social ties within their neighbourhood so would feel safe, (Conklin, 1975) yet all classes have services available that are free to make them feel more safe in their homes (HomeSafe, HomeWatch). Females report high amounts of fear of crime repeatedly, and it is generally reported the higher the worry of being victimised the less safe feel within the home. Using data from the British Crime survey, in which 19, 411 answered, bivariate correlations were carried out between social class and fear within the home, gender and fear within the home, and five worry variables against how safe feel within the home with gender differences noted. Results indicated if you are of higher social class you feel safer within the home, if you worry about being victimised you feel less safe in the home, males feel safer in general than females within the home however a difference was shown between males and females on which worries had a stronger correlation with feeling safe within the home. One implication of this study is that the focus is on groups of people and has not looked at the individualistic aspect, which is much harder to examine.