Treating Victims of Crime

This assignment delves into the crucial role law enforcement plays in treating victims of crime. It outlines a step-by-step process police officers follow when dealing with a victim, highlighting stages like initial contact, investigation, recording effects, and laying charges. The importance of understanding victimology and criminology is emphasized to ensure appropriate actions are taken based on the specific circumstances.

Running head: TRAIN THE TRAINERS 1
Train the Trainers
Name
Institutional Affiliation

TRAIN THE TRAINERS 2
Train the Trainers
Introduction
It is important that Centerville law enforcement officials be at par with the laws and
regulations required to protect the citizen. Our job is to provide adequate security and to protect
all citizens as required by the law. We should, therefore, be well educated and informed about
the laws that protect each and every individual, it is our responsibility to work together to help
the victims of crime and violence of any form. It is our duty and mandate to investigate and
make sure that the victims of all forms of crime are treated well according to the law and that
they are not violated off any of their rights (Fisher & Lab, 2010). The main agenda of this
training is to educate and create awareness on our conduct and behavior to the victims of crime
and to find solutions as to how we can adjust our approach and handling of these victims. A
victim of crime is someone who has suffered mental, emotional harm or socioeconomic loss
caused directly by a criminal offense (Chen & Einat, 2015). We need to know that victims of
violence are vulnerable and when they ask for our assistance as police we should not withhold
the help they need from us by following the right protocol right from the investigation.
Criminology is the study of law enforcement and criminal justice system while victimology is
the study of victims of crime, the psychological effect on the victims and their relationship to
their offenders.
Scenarios illustrating on different types of violence
Scenario 1
It’s been close to two months now that Mary has been constantly receiving anonymous
phone calls and text messages of a threat with an unknown person, she recently found a picture
of her and her five-year-old daughter taken during her vacation slipped under her door. She is

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very afraid and believes that someone unknown to her has been following her. She decides to
report to you as a police officer at Centerville.
Q.1.What would you first do as the police attending to the victim? The first approach is to take in
the victims and make them feel safe because they are vulnerable.
Q.2. How sure are you that Mary is saying the truth? When a victim of crime reports to the
police, the police should take time and study them when they are narrating the incident and on
the other hand, the police should look for the offender and get their side of the story.
Q.3. How can you keep the victim safe from the offender after reporting? The police should give
advice to the victim on the measures to take to avoid the offender, the victim should have the
emergency numbers, change door locks and to generally change their normal way of doing
things that confuses the offender.
Scenario 2
Jasmine is a grade 6 English teacher, she has two adorable kids, his son Bruno who is 10
years old and Peggy who is 8 years old. Jasmine divorced her husband 3 years ago and she has
been doing great. The reason for her divorce was constant emotional, physical and psychological
violence from her husband who owned a small garage uptown. After the divorce, she moved to
another city with her two kids where she is currently working. His ex-husband has traced him
and knows where she lives, he has attempted to rape her twice, and every time she defended
herself he brutally hit her. This has happened for close to two months now and jasmine decided
to report after the last incident where he burnt down part of her house and even sexually
assaulted her.
Q.1. Is it right for the police to ask the victim about the incident without identification? The
police are supposed to be seen as the only person who can be trusted with the information that

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the victim is about to say, so as a police officer handling such a case it’s important that you go
with documents of identification as a police officer with other information about your
workstation.
Q.2. Is it right for you to make a fast judgment before listening to the victim and the offender? It
is the police job to do thorough investigations before making any judgment on both the victim
and the accused because they all have the right to a rightful hearing.
Q.3. What kind of offense is portrayed in this scenario? This scenario displays intimate violence.
This kind of violence can be verbal, physical, emotional, and economical it often affects the
victim, emotionally, psychologically, and physically (Hale, Hayward, Wahidin & Wincup,
2013).
Scenario 3
Angie runs her own coffee shop in a quite busy town, she has told her friend about the
recent attacks she had an unknown identity while on her way home from work. She says that the
anonymous person was wearing a mask and it wasn’t easy to physically identify the person. She
says it’s the second incident in a span of a week, she says that the attacker was armed with a
weapon. She says “he had a gun on his left hand and he pulled me closer showing me the gun
and telling me to cooperate, he then took my bag which had my belongings, almost pulled the
trigger and told me to disappear as fast as I could”. The second time he forcefully pulled me at
the back of his car sexually assaulted me and told me it’s not yet over.
Q.1. Is it right for Angie to go for some tests if required as evidence for her case? The police
should advise Angie that sometimes she has to go through such kind of tests to help the police in
the investigation of the matter and filling the evidence.

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Q.3. Should the police arrest the offender before all evidence is collected? Yes, it’s important
that the police issues a warrant of arrest to the suspect if the evidence shows the relation of the
offender to the crime committed.
Social Learning Theory
This theory argues that family violence arises because of a lot of environmental and
situational factors. The environmental factors include individual/couple features, stress, violent
in the family or ends an aggressive personality while situational factors include financial
difficulties and substance abuse (Case, 2017). These theory extents these factors to influence the
young children growing up in these situations. Despite the fact that there are other factors leading
to different actions and crimes being committed, doesn’t give the offenders the opportunity to
commit the crimes. The reason for having this training is to make sure that every one of you
takes responsibility to understand the victims’ rights and how to treat them. This theory shows
that there are those crimes committed because of the background and the environments and
families that people are brought up meaning that children brought up in this kind of families are
likely to commit crimes (Petherick, Turvey & Ferguson, 2010). The police, therefore, should
have an understanding of both criminology and victimology and learn how to deal with victims
of crime (stalking, intimate violence, and stranger) (Glass, 2006).
First of all the victims need to feel safe, this is because at this point the victims are very
vulnerable, having been emotional, physically and even psychologically tortured or abused.
Introduce yourself to the victims and let them know your intentions, make them feel comfortable
and secure before asking them any question. If they feel comfortable you can ask them to
describe what happened during the incidents. Try to contact their family members and reassure

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their safety by giving them contact information in case of anything while the investigation is
underway (Sette, 2010).
The victims need to express their emotions, you have to understand that these victims are
going through various pain, do not harass them or use harsh words or even intimidated them.
Instead try to be with them at the same level, giving them all the time they need to calm down
and talk to them when they are ready to talk. This way you will be able to read the gestures or
nonverbal body language and u will be able to relate to what the complainant is saying and how
they are feeling.
There are laws which most of the police officers have often abused that helps the victims
of crime, for example, right to information, right to protection, right to participation and right to
restitution among others. If the police officers also follow the law on how to handle matters
pertaining to the victim of violence then there would be change on the relationship between the
police and the victims and in return, they will gain their trust to handle their issues in a more
appropriate and respectable way (Siegel, 2011).
The legal to follow when investigating a crime
The first legal process is reporting a crime, this enables us as the law enforcers to start
investigations into the matter before valuable evidence is destroyed.
The second step is an investigation, at this stage, the police officer starts investigating
into the matter to find its possible cause and this involves both the complainant and the police for
the purpose of getting valuable evidence for the complainants’ case.
The third stage is recording the effects of the crime. At this stage the police are required
to help the victim record injuries, loses, taking photographs could also be useful to help the
victim as it is the first step in preparing the victim impact statement.

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The fourth one is laying the charges, this is the stage where a police make charges for
more serious matters and may seek help from the director of public prosecution before laying the
initial change.
After this stage, the prosecute takes charge of the case and depending on the evidence
provided the offender may be bailed or prosecuted. All these will depend on the collected
evidence and proof of the crime committed.
Conclusion
Law enforcers are tasked with a critical responsibility in ensuring justice as well as
address cases of violence. Training on the proper treatment of victims promotes the basis for
addressing scenarios where individuals face negative treatment from the police. Proper treatment
of victims serves as the first step to achieving justice as well as promoting understanding of
different criminal cases. Police are expected to understand the difference between criminology
and victimology which influences their actions towards offenders in different cases.

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References
Case, S. (2017). Criminology. Oxford University Press.
Chen, G., & Einat, T. (2015). The relationship between criminology studies and punitive
attitudes. European Journal of Criminology, 12(2), 169-187.
Fisher, B., & Lab, S. P. (2010). Encyclopedia of victimology and crime prevention. Thousand
Oaks, Calif: SAGE Publications.
Glass, D. (2006). Stalking the stalker: Fighting back with high-tech gadgets and low-tech know-
how. New York: iUniverse.
Hale, C., Hayward, K., Wahidin, A., & Wincup, E. (2013). Criminology.
Petherick, W., Turvey, B. E., & Ferguson, C. E. (2010). Forensic criminology. Burlington, MA:
Elsevier Academic Press.
Sette, R. (2010). Cases on technologies for teaching criminology and victimology:
Methodologies and practices. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.
Siegel, L. J. (2011). Criminology: The core. Australia: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.