When is violence not a crime? Factors associated with victims’ labelling of violence as a crime
| Author | Iain R Brennan |
| Date | 01 January 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0269758015610849 |
| Published date | 01 January 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
When is violence not
a crime? Factors associated
with victims’ labelling
of violence as a crime
Iain R Brennan
School of Social Sciences, University of Hull, UK
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, whereas frequency of victi-
misation and victim initiation of the incident predicted discounting. Neighbourhood and neigh-
bourhood 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
Crime, labelling, multilevel modelling, neighbourhood effects, victimisation, violence
Introduction
Criminal incidents are not objective phenomena: what is a crime to one person may not seem like a
crime to another. That individuals vary in what they interpret as a crime is a central tenet of the
sociology of law, but the reasons for this variability are not understood. In the few instances when
Corresponding author:
Dr Iain R Brennan, School of Social Sciences, University of Hull, Cottingham Rd., Hull, HU6 7RX, UK.
Email: i.brennan@hull.ac.uk
International Review of Victimology
2016, Vol. 22(1) 3–23
ªThe Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0269758015610849
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the decision to ‘label’ something as a crime has been discussed, the focus has largely been on con-
structing and resisting ‘victimhood’ identities (Weiss, 2011) or exploring whether some currently
legal behaviour should be criminalised (Nielsen, 2000). It appears that no research has been under-
taken to identify the individual and contextual factors that constitute a crime in the eyes of the vic-
tim. Gaining an understanding of crime labelling is important for understanding how victims make
sense of their experiences, for understanding victim behaviour such as reporting to the police and
for providing insight into the socially constructed nature of crime. Focusing on violence, this paper
seeks to identify factors that predict when an incident will be labelled as a crime – and, correspond-
ingly, to predict when it will not. In essence, it seeks to identify the principal components of violent
crime in the eyes of for those who have experienced violence.
The relevance of ‘crime labelling’
Labelling an incident as a crime is the first step in the use of law (Black, 1979). Before a victim of
violence reports the incident to the police, they must decide that it is a crime, i.e. ‘worthy of police
attention’ (Black, 1979: 20). This simple cognitive step can provide insight into the use of formal
and informal methods of social control, to improving police ascertainment of crime, to understand-
ing the ‘dark figure’ of crime, to increasing access to victim services, to understanding the dem-
ocratic processes that influence the use of and changes in criminal law and to understanding the
constructed nature of crime. As labelling exists only in the mind of the victim, it is free of impli-
cations for that victim, whereas reporting is not. As reporting crime is a behaviour, bringing with it
consequences and uncertainty as well as motivational and logistical barriers, the factors that pre-
dict reporting cannot be generalised to be the factors that predict labelling.
It is important to draw a distinction between the use of the term ‘crime labelling’ in this context
and the alternative use of the term ‘labelling’ in criminology, as used by Lemert (1951), Becker
(1963) and others. Both approaches are concerned with the role of labels in the interpretation of
the world. Where they differ is their chronological approach to the construct. The more common
use of the term (as used by Lemert and Becker) is primarily interested in the consequences of
attaching a label to a phenomenon. Importantly, the process of studying this labelling begins after
the label has been attached. This paper, however, is interested in the factors that precede and influ-
ence the attachment of a label – crime – to a very specific phenomenon, violence. The difference
between the two approaches, therefore, is that the one employed in this study treats labelling as the
phenomenon to be observed, whereas the other is concerned with labelling as an active agent or
mechanism that operates upon the world. In this study, respondents did not actively identify them-
selves as victims of crime or, without prompting, label violence against them as a crime: they
responded to a question about their experience of violence and made a decision about whether they
regarded the violence as a crime.
Theoretical background
Many studies have addressed victims’ behavioural responses to violent crime, including avoidance
(Baumgartner, 1988; Kilpatrick and Acierno, 2003), violent retaliation (Anderson, 1999; Felson
and Steadman, 1983) and reporting – or not reporting – to the police (Brennan, 2011; Skogan,
1984), but these studies have generally implied that victims actually regard the violence as a crim-
inal incident. As the concept of ‘crime labelling’ is novel, it lacks a theoretical basis from which to
launch an empirical exploration. As the use of law is a consequence of labelling crime, it is possible
4International Review of Victimology 22(1)
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