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For this assignment, I would like you to write a 2 to 3-page paper that:
1)Briefly identifies your social location in this society (see above demographics)
2) Describe your personal experiences with crimes and victims and if you feel comfortable, discuss your own experiences with being a crime victim
3) Explain how these variables have helped shape your views of the world and personal values; and
4) discuss how your social location and your personal experiences might influence or bias your research in the field of victimology or your handling of people, who are victims of certain types of crime
5) Identify any biases that you might possess and could impact your work with victims or with perpetrators of crime
6)Double space and space twice after periods
In the 1950s, C. Wright Mills a prominent sociologist wrote an extremely influential essay:The Sociological Imagination.In this article he pointed out that a person personal biography and location within the social order influences his/her world view and behaviors.He coined the term, the sociological imagination to describe the ability of individuals to recognize this important connection.
The first fruit of this imagination – and the first lesson of the social science that embodies it – is the idea that the individual can understand her own experience and gauge her own fate only by locating herself within her period, that she can know her own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in her circumstances
We have come to know that every individual lives, from one generation to the next, in some society; that he lives out a biography, and lives it out within some historical sequence. By the fact of this living, he contributes, however minutely, to the shaping of this society and to the course of its history, even as he is made by society and by its historical push and shove.
There are 2 major issues in this essay that are important for this course.
1.The social location of individuals, specifically their personal biography and demographic characteristics, their location in the social and economic order, and their location during a certain historical era shapes their world view and how they interact with others in their world;
2.Every individual in the society has been shaped by their society and in the course of living their lives impact the society.An individual is not only shaped by his/her biography and experiences, but by the collective history and experiences of their parents and grandparents and other members of their demographic group;.
3.Every individual born into a society with laws and cultural practices and values that were formed long before his/she was born and thus contribute to the maintenance of these laws, practices and culture.So for instance, a prosecutor might decline to pursue rape charges in case where the victim was intoxicated and dated her attacker because of societal perceptions that would cause a jury to be less sympathetic.
This essay has been employed by sociologists for generations since its publication to support the argument that the research that social scientists conduct can never be entirely value free or totally objective since their personal biography and social location shapes their biases.This argument can also be applied to the activities of social service providers since their activities and perceptions are also shaped by their world view.
These three assertions have important implications for both researchers in victimology and service providers. Law enforcement and service providers cannot escape their own personal biases and the collective definitions of what constitutes victimization and who deserves to be considered an innocent victim. Thus a Black or Latina woman, who is addicted to crack and enters an emergency room because of sexual assault injuries might be treated very differently than a white college co- ed who was raped by a stranger of another race.These definitions are dependent upon several structural factors and are constantly changing. A few generations ago, a young woman who was rushed to the emergency because of a back alley abortion would have been treated as a criminal, instead of a victim of an unscrupulous crack and a legal system that prevented her from having a pregnancy terminated by a qualified physician in a sterile medical environment.Providers from the majority group possess certain stereotypes of racial, ethnic and other minority groups that they might not even be aware of, but nevertheless influence their interaction with these groups.Religious and cultural factors dictate how women and children are viewed and treated in a society and thus these variables impact whether women are treated as victims or whether crimes against them are even recognized as legitimate cases of victimization.For centuries, wife beating and child abuse were not considered crimes since women and children were considered the property of males.Victims from sexual and religious minorities and immigrant groups are frequently targeted by crimes that are often ignored by the criminal justice system.Individuals from majority groups who live in homogeneous communities and have had little contact with people from different racial, ethnic, religious or sexual groups might not be aware of such crimes and this would in turn influence not only their ability to serve these victims, but might even cause them to question whether or not these types of crimes even take place.
The social factors which Mills identifies influence what activities or conditions are defined as crimes. Examples are numerous in the field of victimology, where social movements have struggled for decades to get certain phenomenon such as child abuse, spouse abuse, rape, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) recognized as crimes by the legal society.Even the language and terminology that is used to describe victims and certain types of victimization are influenced by these variables.For instance, what does the term innocent victim convey? Does it mean that we think some victims somehow cause their victimization while others do not?Or by using the term date rape instead of rape, is the viciousness of the crime is somehow diminished.
In the Scientific Objectivity Power point lecture, I described how a person’s social location shapes his/her values and view of the world.A person’s social location is defined by many variables:including:age, generation, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation or identify, marital status, geographical background, travel history, education, income, occupation, religious views, cultural values, occupation and personal experiences and the shared experiences of your family or group and exposure to various cultures, societies and types of people.Also a person’s exposure to certain types of victims or victimization will undoubtedly have different perceptions and world views.And a person whose educational background and professional trainingprovides them with a very different world view than an individual who has a different level of education.
