Avoiding Being Victims of Crime

All men are equal. This notion forms the basis of common human rights and freedoms. One’s rights are no more and no less valuable than the rights of another. In order to protect these rights, the social contract necessitated that they be universally agreed upon by the people making up a society. The embodiment of these rights was the basis of social norms, customs and mores which eventually became clearly articulated laws. These laws in effect declared that one person’s freedom ends where another’s begins. But merely recognizing that such rights exist was not enough. They had to be protected. And the laws that embodied them required enforcement. Thus, the evolution of the concept of law enforcement began as soon as the first laws were agreed upon.

And yet despite clearly defined social rules, deviance still exists for various possible reasons. Throughout history and in every corner of the world, there have been and will continue to be lawbreakers. And this is where crimes enter the picture.  Law enforcement deals significantly with the occurrence of crimes. In fact, to be a modern law enforcer one now has to learn Criminology, which is the scientific study of crimes and criminals.

One aspect of this field is Victimology, which is the investigation of how an individual becomes a victim of a crime. The formula for the occurrence of crime is rather simple according to the Crime Triangle. There are three necessary elements: The desire of the individual to commit the crime, his ability to commit the crime and the opportunity to do so. Desire + Ability + Opportunity = Crime. Knowing this, it becomes possible for us to avoid becoming victims. Let us look at each of them one by one.

The desire of a person to commit a crime has many possible reasons. But no matter what the reason may be, people who possess the tendency towards criminality may not be readily identifiable. Anyone can possess criminal propensity. And removing another person’s desire to commit a crime is not within any individual’s ability to do.

The ability of a person to commit a crime will of course depend on the complexity of the crime. Some crimes will take skill and technical knowhow as well as the necessary material means, while others are rather simple to execute. But once again, there is nothing an ordinary individual can do to affect a criminal’s ability to commit the offense he intends to perpetrate.

The only thing left is the criminal’s opportunity. In this day and age, we probably can no longer count the number of people we know that have been victimized by crime. This only means that criminality is rampant. It has become a statistical rate that can be calculated and predicted with precision. We can therefore assume that it will happen and continue to happen. All we can do is not give the criminals an opportunity to make us their next victims.