Category: Criminal Justice Essay Examples

The World Health Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, identifies interpersonal violence as “violence inflicted by another individual or by a small group of individuals where there is no clearly defined political motive.” The World Health Organization separates interpersonal violence into two categories: (1) family and …

United Nations (UN) conventions and declarations signify an important step in the promotion and protection of international human rights. They establish the international standards that are intended to be transposed into national laws and policies. Some conventions and declarations specifically address violent acts, such as torture or cruel …

Vicarious traumatization, compassion fatigue, and secondary trauma all refer to the potentially negative impact of working with trauma survivors, including survivors of interpersonal violence, on caregivers, including therapists, counselors, advocates, and volunteers. Caregivers have described a range of responses to working with trauma survivors, including fear, feeling overwhelmed, …

Victim impact statements are written and/or oral statements that describe the impact a crime has had on the victim and those close to her or him. In a criminal justice system structured around the state and the defendant, victim impact statements offer a brief shift from the concerns …

Verbal abuse is a form of psychological or emotional maltreatment in which perpetrators use words to harm others. Verbal abuse communicates a basic disrespect for another’s personhood. The content of the abuse can include criticism, threats, insults, humiliation, degradation, intimidation, invalidation, harassment, hate speech, or profanity. Verbal abuse …

Much of the research examining predictors of interpersonal violence risk has focused on factors that increase the likelihood of risk for perpetration. In some instances, these factors also have been shown to increase the likelihood of interpersonal violence victimization, although in other cases distinct risk factors for victimization …

Victim offender mediation and dialogue is a process that provides interested victims of primarily property crimes and minor assaults the opportunity to meet the juvenile or adult offender in a safe and structured setting with the goal of holding the offender directly accountable for his or her behavior …

Victimology is the study of victims of crime, including their characteristics and their relationships with offenders and the criminal justice system. Traditionally, victimology is considered to be a subarea within criminology. Victimology, which involves the study of crime victims, is different from criminology, which involves the study of …

Victim precipitation theories generally involve an explanation of how an individual’s behavior may contribute to his or her own victimization. Behavior by a victim that initiates subsequent behavior of the victimizer is referred to as victim precipitation. The examination of victim precipitation, while important from an etiological perspective, …

Enacted in October 1984, the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) fundamentally changed the way the United States responds to crime victims by providing ongoing federal support for services and programs that help victims rebuild their lives. VOCA established the Crime Victims Fund to sustain a substantial infrastructure of …

The victims’ rights movement refers to the convergence of events and social movements that resulted in efforts to change social and legal policies that were harmful to victims of crime and to create new policies that acknowledged the impact of crime on individuals and their families. These policies …

Victim-witness advocacy programs provide services for victims of crimes. These programs are usually funded by and associated with departments of the criminal justice system, such as police organizations or prosecutors’ offices. Their goal is to provide information and support for victims after a crime and during the process …

Victim witness specialists (VWS) provide an array of services to crime victims and witnesses from the immediate aftermath of the crime to after the disposition of the case. VWS are employed by criminal justice institutions and by local community-based agencies. Criminal justice institutions may include local law enforcement …

The introduction of new technologies has often been associated with fear and distrust by citizens and policymakers who fear a new corrosive influence. Like television before them, video games have recently been the subject of intense scrutiny because of graphic violent content. Concerns that video games might be …

The United Nations estimates that there are 370 million Indigenous peoples living in over 70 countries worldwide. Collectively, Indigenous peoples represent the vast majority of the world’s linguistic and cultural diversity as over 80% of the languages spoken today are Indigenous. Indigenous knowledge and resources have served to …

While most researchers and advocates assert that people with disabilities experience much higher rates of violence than people without disabilities, there are no national data measuring this phenomenon. Estimates of the prevalence of violence vary greatly. Researchers have estimated that violence against people with cognitive disabilities occurs 2 …

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was the first comprehensive federal legislation to address violence against women in the United States. First passed in 1994, VAWA as it came to be called was reauthorized in 2000 and most recently in 2005 with new additions and revisions. The first …

Though disaster managers minimize conflict and violence after disasters, domestic violence is often reported by disaster researchers and humanitarian relief workers both in the United States and other affluent nations and in the world’s poorest nations, where natural disasters take the highest toll. Indicators include increases in calls …

Wars and wartime violence have traditionally been considered the domain of men, but women’s bodies have always been part of the battlefield upon which wars and conflicts are fought. Men have used women’s bodies as a weapon against their enemies. Inflicting violence and exerting sexual power over women …

Violence prevention curricula are educational programs designed to reduce school-based violence. The basic right to education for youth can be jeopardized by violent and sometimes dangerous behavior that takes place in schools. In the last decade, school safety has become a high priority on educational, social, and political …