The determination of professional victimization in Ukraine: the concept and levels

Abstract

Peculiarities of the process of professional victimization formation of a person are considered.

The problem of the “genesis” or origin of criminal behavior of certain persons, as well as the process of turning a person into a victim of crime, has always been and still remains one of the most difficult tasks in criminology. Professional victimization is a separate line of victimological researches.

The purpose of the paper is to analyze the determination of the phenomenon of professional victimization in Ukraine. The tasks that the author set for herself to achieve this goal are: 1) to escape the determinants of professional victimization and to group them into a complete system; 2) to provide a general description of the levels of professional victimization; 3) to formulate the concept of professional victimization in Ukraine.

The general (mass), group (special) and individual levels are distinguished.

These three levels create a kind of pyramid, which is based on all the factors that are an objective threat to harm public relations, which are under the criminal law protection of the state.

Determinants of the general or mass level of victimization are the factors, whose mechanism of influence on relation to any person is the same both: direction and strength of “defeat”. The next (middle) level of the pyramid of determinants of victimization, which is narrowing upwards, is a group of factors, which already more objectively explains the transformation of a group of persons into victims of crime in the context of their specific characteristics, and most importantly – the nature and type of their employment. They are called a group (mass) victimization. It is emphasized that it is at the level of mass victimization the distinction between the group of determinants, which are inherent to the “emergence” of a generalized victim of the mass level and the victimization factors that are characterized the acquiring of the appropriate formal (procedural) and factual status of the groups of victims, selected according to certain criteria, is beginning. At the top of the imaginary pyramid we can highlight the level of determinants of professional victimization, which reveals the individual side of the whole process of turning a particular person into a victim of crime.

Professional victimization can be understood as various processes, phenomena and events that occur at the general social, group and individual levels, which together contribute to the formation of a sign of victimhood of a person through his professional affiliation