Secondary Victimization Essay

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Laws are intentioned to provide guidelines for secure living and to protect individual interests and rights. However, in pursuit of absolute justice, some agencies actually do more harm than good as they, in essence, revictimize the victim. Victimology, the study of victimization, has made it clear that, in many cases, a criminal act is not the last or the least invasion of privacy or cause of psychological or emotional harm a victim must endure. Karmen (2015) specifically pointed to groups which might suffer from this revictimization more than other segments of the population. For example, “those who lack an equality of status” have only recently had laws to protect their interest and those laws, when called to provide justice, often question the morality and ethics of the victim instead of the true pursuit of justice against the criminal who perpetrated the act (p. 13). Sexism is one clear example of this as women who have been beaten or raped often have their past personal …show more content…

2). A specific example of this would be with physical and sexual abuse victims who are forced to face their abuser during the course of a trial, causing even more psychological and emotional trauma as the victims are also led to relive the events in graphic detail in order to help secure a verdict. During the legal process, defense attorneys, by the very definition, must seek to use all powers of persuasion to paint the victims as less than credible witnesses. Thus, part of any trial is a character defining process that points more to the victim than the accused. Credibility is often called into question as these attorneys attempt to impeach the original statement of harm and protect their client from the long arm of

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