Predictors of Engagement with Support Services in a Sample of UK Victims of Violent Crime
| Author | Michelle Lowe, V. J. Willan, Roxanne Khan, Matthew Brooks, Phaedra Robinson, Nicola Graham-Kevan, Rachel Stokes, May Irving, Marta Karwacka, Joanne Bryce |
Introduction
One of the major developments in United Kingdom criminal justice in the last 40 years has been the shift toward the needs of victims as a primary focus (Burrows, 2014), with an escalation of services funded by central government (Spalek, 2005). Despite such commitments, current research suggests that confidence and engagement with the Criminal Justice System and victim support services generally, is less than satisfactory (Bradford, Jackson & Stanko, 2009). More work is needed to explore factors that disengage victims from reporting crime and receiving support after victimisation.
Victim support services have an important role in the care of crime victims. Victim Support is a large independent charity that has offered services to victims and witnesses of crime, and their families, in England and Wales over the last 40 years. Most victims of violent crime who report a victimisation experience to the police are referred to Victim Support as a formal form of support service (Victim Support, Personal Communication, 2013). Victim Support provide face-to-face and telephone help, including emotional support, advice on personal safety and other practical issues, support throughout the Criminal Justice process and advocacy. According to their website, in 2013, Victim Support was aided by approximately 1,400 staff and 4,300 volunteer workers. It currently operates a dedicated Homicide Service, which supports people bereaved through murder and manslaughter, and more than 100 projects throughout the UK tackling, for example, domestic violence, antisocial behaviour, racial, homophobic and disablement hate crime, and a national telephone support service that operates six days per week. The have also developed partnerships with other organisations, such as those concerned with health, children, women's rights, racial equality, the police, and local authorities (Spalek, 2005). Bradford (2011) showed that Victim Support engagement increased levels of confidence and perceptions of the effectiveness of the Criminal Justice System by providing victims with a voice and a sense that someone is listening and taking their concerns seriously.
Support from victim services is beneficial to the victim's recovery after crime (Mayhew & Reilly, 2008; Ringham & Salisbury, 2004). However, in many cases when support is offered to those who may profit from it, many victims do not engage (Mayhew & Reilly, 2008; McCart, Smith & Sawyer, 2010; Sims, Yost & Abbott, 2005). Indeed, in the study by Sims and colleagues, only three percent of the 654 crime victims in their sample used any type of formal support facilities. Sims et al. (2005) reported that those who did not use services listed reasons such as: receiving assistance from friends or family members and thus not feeling a further support facility was needed, not being told about services, or not thinking it was worth the trouble to seek out such services. They concluded that a victim's decision not to seek assistance could be akin to the reason why so many crime victims never report their experience to the police in the first place, such as feeling ashamed, self-blame, or through fear that they would not be believed. These issues may be particularly relevant after being victimised by crimes that are known to elicit third-party victim-blaming reactions and negative attitudinal evaluations, such as sexual assault (e.g. Davies & Rogers, 2006), crimes involving gay and transgendered victims (e.g. Davies & Hudson, 2011; Laing & Davies, 2011), disabled victims (e.g. Rogers, Titterington & Davies, 2009), domestic violence (e.g. Harris & Cook, 1994) and crimes involving ethnic minorities (e.g. Locke & Richman, 1999). Negative reactions from others can create experiences of secondary victimisation, which are as difficult to cope with as the effects of the victimisation experience itself (e.g. Walker, Archer & Davies, 2005). Engaging with victim support services, especially those that are seen as being aligned to criminal justice services, may be particular difficult if secondary victimisation is feared.
In extension, Zarafonitou (2011) proffered a political viewpoint about victim service disengagement, such that victims may believe that formal support services (such as Victim Support) are government-backed and as such, perceived negatively. This then drives those that feel they do need help after victimisation towards informal support systems, such as online support groups, which tend to be accessed more readily than formal ones (AuCoin & Beauchamp, 2004). Despite informal services being of use to some victims, formal support services like Victim Support, have advantages because they offer a variety of services within one organisation.
It has been acknowledged for many years that criminal victimisation is clustered, with some individuals and crimes committed within certain locations accounting for a disproportionate amount of victimisation (Outlaw, Ruback & Britt, 2002). For example, victims who live in high-density areas that are socially disorganised tend to have higher revictimisation rates; as do those with personal demographics like being male, being of a minority status, having witnessed violence in the past, and having risky routines and lifestyles (c.f. Cohen & Felson, 1979; see Outlaw et al., 2002 for a discussion). Moreover, we know that victimisation experiences early in life can make individuals vulnerable to revictimisation, sometimes of multiple types of crimes, later in life (e.g. Gold, Sinclair & Balge, 1999; Messman-Moore & Long, 2003), creating a cycle of victimisation experiences that is difficult to break.
The costs of revictimisation to the police, victim support services, and to society in general are many, with interventions being difficult, time-consuming and expensive to implement (Outlaw et al., 2002). Costs to the victim are also high. Being repeatedly victimised is a risk factor for complex trauma and increased vulnerability in the long term, which Winkel, Blaauw, Sheridan and Baldry (2003) found frequently not detected, and thus not supported, by victim support services. Such untreated complex trauma has many hidden costs to policing, medical and other services in the future. As early as 1992, Farrell indicated that victim support services tended to respond to crime as single, discrete events, rather than as one experience amongst others that the victim may have reported previously. Although knowledge about revictimisation has increased across services, still, in the UK there is a general pattern of assessing individual victimisation events as stand-alone entities. Investigating the causes of revictimisation to increasing service engagement, in hope of reducing revictimisation in future, is a key target among UK policing services. The current research is timely in this regard. Specifically, the current study investigated predictors of service use at Victim Support, in a sample of UK victims of violent crime within one location (Preston, Lancashire) measured over one six-month time period (April 2013-September 2013) with a 12 month follow up, to investigate further victimisation experiences and offences.
Victimological research has acknowledged that crime victim histories in general are not completely distinct from those of offenders, with some victims also having committing criminal offences, and some offenders having been violently victimised (Schreck, Ousey, Fisher & Wilcox, 2012). Jennings, Piquero and Reingle (2011) reviewed 37 studies that spanned five decades (1958-2011) and found robust victim-offender overlaps in 31 of the studies. Findings were consistent regardless of historical and cross cultural samples, and regardless of the method of assessment or statistical techniques used to generate results. The victim-offender overlap was particularly apparent in domestic violence cases and in mental health populations. Recognising that victims and offenders are often the same individuals, with the same problems and risk factors, can assist service criminal justice providers who work with victims and offenders (Jennings, Higgins, Tewksbury, Gover, & Piquero, 2010). However, it is not yet known how the victim-offender overlap relates to the engagement with victim support service use after violent crime and whether engagement with victim support services (in this instance, Victim Support) can reduce both victimisation and offending in the future. This study investigates this possibility.
Preston, a city in the North West...
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