The Victimology Project posted by Ellisha Shelsta leaves an ambivalent impression due to her application of a humorous attitude to a real-life situation. However, the video can be considered an excellent example of the study of victimology. The case revealed victims of the crime, described the behavioral pattern of the offender and provided insights into the relationship between the perpetrator and the injured party. The video portrayed the victims, their social habits, and personalities, which explained in part why they had fallen victims in the case in question. According to the video, both victims were kind-hearted people, always willing to help others, and the offender took advantage of their good nature. This offers clues about an offender’s thought process in choosing his or her next victim.
The victim statement proved that Lydia Blanco (the offender) had a strong personality since during the kidnapping she did not bother to hide her face and she seemed willing to take risks in an attack; these factors also gave police additional clues about her behavior patterns (Karmen, 2016). The victim reported how the offender, Blanco, was acting, which enabled the police to compare her to a suspect in other cases and to subsequently catch the perpetrator.
The victim provided investigators with the context and details of the crimes (bullying and possible murder) and outlined connections between the victims and the offender. Due to the victim’s plight, the investigators were able to determine which risk group might more easily fall victim to bullying (Doerner & Lab, 2014). Thus, the video illustrated the first stage of this rediscovery process. It revealed what is an overlooked issue—that of bullying as well as street crimes – and called focused attention to this problem (Karmen, 2016). However, subsequent stages were not illustrated in the video. Objectivity is of particular importance when examining the
victim’s plight because in order to avoid taking sides during the analysis, the observer must be fair and unbiased. Objectivity enables one to draw fair conclusions and to reason entirely from the facts, all while staying impartial.
In the video, objectivity was not fully achieved, since conclusions about the offender were not drawn from solid evidence. Moreover, instead of analyzing data, police officers allowed their personal assessment to influence their decision-making processes (Karmen, 2016). In order to achieve objectivity in this case, the police should have analyzed why the boys became victims in the first place. The interaction of the officers with the victim does not seem unbiased, even when in this situation, the police should remain impartial. Moreover, the police should compile the characteristic profile of the crime victim to get a full range of data, which would in turn help define the primary predictors of the victims (Doerner & Lab, 2014). In the current case, the victims’ profiling has been overlooked; for that reason, objectivity was not achieved when examining the victim’s plight.
According to the first stage in the rediscovery process, activists address the public about illegal situations that regularly take place in society. It should be noted that various social groups and specific movements have also brought attention to the crime of bullying. One of the well-known movements is the Anti-Bullying movement active in the United States, which raised the specific topics of bullying and harassment in schools; however, these efforts often face criticism for being overly judgmental and based on preconceived notions. In addition, the movement of Watchdog journalism addresses such acute problems. The Watchdog organization communicates existing issues and occurrences in society and announces possible changes to anti-bullying legislation.
References
Karmen, V. (2016). Crime victims: An introduction to victimology. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Doerner, W.G., & Lab, S.P. (2014). Victimology. Waltham, MA: Anderson Publishing.