Racial Harassment and the Process of Victimization

Victimization surveys, like crime statistics and the criminal law, tend to treat racial harassment and other forms of crime as though they were static events or incidents. Racial victimization, however, does not occur in an instant and is more dynamic and complex than the notion of a ‘racial incident’ can imply. Events-oriented criminological research has yet to capture the experience of repeated or systematic victimization; the continuity of violence, threat, and intimidation; or the complex relationships among all the social actors involved. It is argued that if racial harassment and other forms of crime are to be described and explained adequately and controlled effectively, they should be conceptualized as processes set in geographical, social, historical, and political context. Surveys should be complemented by other methods of enquiry to enable an examination of the social processes which give rise to criminal incidents.