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All too often, society is inclined to allow criminals to receive leniency for their crimes as a result of the environment in which a person may have existed. Even if the criminal was not influenced by their environment to commit the crime, the criminal is liable to adopt the persona of the victim in order to gain sympathy.
This is often successful because when more well-off individuals are in the presence of those that are considered to be less fortunate, they may feel guilt. In many cases, this guilt is not necessary. However, if an individual begins to express their opinion that by adopting the role of a victim the criminal is dodging the responsibility of the crime, they will likely be criticized greatly for their thoughts.
Victimology, even if it is sincere, is often a way in which individuals justify a crime to themselves and to others. For example, one of the most commonly held beliefs within the United States of America is that of the great American dream, in which everyone is happy, living in a nice house and the parents have stable occupations making a comfortable living for their families. This does not at all reflect the reality of inner-city slums and poor rural areas. By clinging to the belief that no matter what, even without trying in some cases, individuals deserve to experience the American dream, they may be inclined to take what they feel they deserve rather than try to work for it. Some people will rationalize that they have no means to work for this dream, and they had no choice but to act out in the way that they did. However, this blaming of society does not change the reality of the situations. By allowing one person to get away with a crime because of a victim mentality would be a slap in the face to the people that do work to succeed.
Herein lays the most important parallel between victimology and Criminology. While it is simple to blame society for one’s troubles, this does not begin to solve the problem. Individuals from all sides need to think about how society may impact the role of the criminal and to take steps in order to change things. This way, when an individual tries to adopt a victim mentality, we can state as a society that there were other options. By outlining the different options in such a setting, even more, people can be exposed to the ways in which society is working to stabilize equality between different categories of individuals and work to reduce crime as a product of environment or surroundings. Criminology works to examine how society and the criminal interact, and this needs to be looked at under extreme scrutiny in order to find the causes of problems and work toward successful solutions.
There are also instances in which those who are perceived to be in a seat of power will become corrupt. It is important to look at this too. Individuals may attempt to adopt a victim role in this scene as well in order to appeal to the sympathetic public. Aside from sociopaths, individuals have moral standards that will tell them what is wrong and what is right. For anyone to adopt the role of the victim in order to gain sympathy is a ploy against the considerate nature of others. When it comes to crime, the people that should be playing the role of the victim are those who were victimized during the act of the crime. For individuals that live, they are many times much stronger than people may have believed them to be, and it is nauseating that the criminal will then try to adopt a role that the person they violated will not even take on in the courtroom.
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