Immigrants as Victims: A Framework
| Published date | 01 January 2007 |
| Author | William F. McDonald,Edna Erez |
| Date | 01 January 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026975800701400101 |
International
Review
ofVictimology.
2007,
Vol.
14,
pp.
1-10
0269-7580/07$10
© A B
Academic
Publishers
-
Printed
in
Great
Britain
IMMIGRANTS AS VICTIMS: A
FRAMEWORK
WILLIAM
F.
McDONALD*'
and
EDNA
EREZ
11
t
Georgetown
University,
USA
11
University
of
Illinois
at
Chicago,
USA
Keywords:
immigrants
-
victimology
-
hate
crime
-
domestic
violence
-
frauds
Criminological research
on
immigrants
has
focused
on
the criminality
of
immigrants
(for
review
see
Martinez
and
Lee,
2000).
Concern
for
immigrants
as
victims
of
crime
or
immigrant victims' access to justice has
been
scarce (for
exceptions
see
Davis
and
Erez,
1998;
Davis
et a/.,
2001
).
1 This
is
remarkable
given that
(a)
we
are living
in
an
age
of
migration (Castles and
Miller,
1998)
and
that (b) pioneer victimologist,
Hans
von
Hentig,
an
immigrant
himself:
listed 'the
immigrant'
as
one
of
the thirteen categories
in
his typology
of
victims.
Von
Hentig
noted that it takes
many
painful years to adjust
to
a
new
lifestyle and
only
then
is
it possible
to
escape
victimization.
He
pointed out that
the vulnerability
of
the
immigrant
is
often apparent to otherwise respectable
people
who
seem
to
be
unable
to
resist exploiting immigrants
(Von
Hentig,
1948:
p.
404-438).
The lack of research
on
the
victimization
of
immigrants is undoubtedly
re-
lated
to
the difficulty
of
obtaining valid data
on
the immigration status
of
crime
victims
(Hagan
and Palloni,
1998:
p.
382).
2 Information about
crimes
against
immigrants
is
mostly anecdotal
coming
from
either
news
reports
or
the
experi-
ences
of
immigrant
service providers. There are
no
official
crime
statistics
on
this matter
in
the
United States3
or
Australia (Mukherjee,
1999).
Such
data are
available,
however,
in
some
European countries but not uniformly (Barbagli,
2002;
Goodey,
2000;
Oakley,
2005:
p.
19ft).
Another
reason
for
the
lack
of
research
on
immigrants
as
victims
is
what
re-
searchers
working
within
the
social constructionist tradition would describe
as
the process of defining victim categories
and
of
'making claims' (Spector
and
Kitsuse,
1977)
on
behalf
of
those categories. Victim-activists
have
been
re-
markably successful
at
placing a variety
of
victim categories
and
victim issues
on
the public agenda including elder
abuse
(Baumann,
1989),
hate
crime
(Jacobs,
1998;
Jacobs and
Henry,
2000),
child abuse
(Best,
1987),
intimate
*
William
McDonald
is
Professor,
Department
of
Sociology
and
Anthropology
and
Co-Director.
Institute
of
Criminal
Law
and
Procedure.
Georgetown
University.
Washington
D.C.
20057-1037,
USA.
Edna
Erez
is
Professor
and
Head
of
the
Department
of
Criminal
Justice
at
the
University
of
Illinois
at
Chicago.
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