I see it all the time. In rape cases people often say that the victim is partially at fault if she was wearing skimpy clothing, drunk or “flirting” .
[Trying to stay on topic] I was referring specifically to the three scenarios in the OP. If the OP is wants us to extrapolate from them to cases of rape, then he or she needs to say so explicitly, and this hasn’t happened.
ETA–oh, sorry, you are the OP! Is that what you wanted, then? Why not just come out and say it?
If Scenario A had been about a woman who decides to get drunk until she passes out, at which point someone takes advantage of her while she’s passed out, my answer would be the same: the criminal should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and she’s incredibly stupid.
And if she did that every weekend, I’d still say that (a) each criminal should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and (b) she’s mind-bogglingly stupid.
And if she – or the guy who is now minus a wallet – ever asked me for advice, I’d say, yeah, see, I wouldn’t recommend drinking until you pass out, because that’s as stupid as leaving your front door open while putting up said I’m-Not-Home sign: any criminals who take advantage of your breathtaking stupidity are of course still the ones at fault, but that’s hardly a reason for you to be so astonishingly stupid.
Well, until one of those "people’ comes in here and make that argument, what is your point? People say stupid things every minute of every day. If you want to complain about what people NOT ON THIS MB say, then maybe you should open a thread in the Pit. You’re not going to trick people here into blaming the victim.
Graffiti.
You’re a business owner. You come to work and discover that overnight, someone has painted graffiti on your building. Along comes city code enforcement, and they write you a violation for having “unsightly markings” on your property, and give you 30 days to remove them. If you don’t remove them within 30 days, they can fine you XXX dollars per day until you are in compliance. So in this example, the victim of a crime can be fully responsible for just being a victim. And yes it does happen all the time.
Possibly.
All the human criminals in the OP had a level of agency and choice that a dog, rabid or not, does not.
On another forum, some weeks ago, the news of a young woman being raped was being discussed; very passionately (read: chest-thumping one-upmanship contest) because one of the policemen involved in the case pointed out the victim as being drunk, walking alone on a dark street late at night as contributing factors to the assault.
“Victim blaming, how dare him!” women should never under any circumstances be reminded that putting themselves in a vulnerable position can be a factor in becoming a victim of rape.
Personally I think the attitude of avoiding to place any sort of responsibility on the victim for the actions that precede an incident is dangerous and counterproductive, not pointing out that certain actions increase the possibility of ending up as a victim is not a good way to prevent crimes, IMHO.
But if one points out that, in a case like that one, if the young woman wasn’t drunk and walking alone on a dark street she would probably not had been raped, there’s a sizable demographic that would look at one as some sort of apologetic monster.
To give an example, should we stop parents from telling their children not to get in a car with strangers because “that’s victim blaming, how dare you”?
Then I guess we’ll be throwing all those fable books into the pyre too…
Going back to your case, let’s say the woman doesn’t get raped, instead she wakes up still drunk, gets in her car and ends up running over a pedestrian. Does she then get a free pass on being responsible for that outcome?
She didn’t mean to run over someone when she was getting drunk or even when she sat behind the wheel, but any court or sensible person would conclude that, while that may be true, she must had known that by driving drunk she increased the probability of running over someone that she should bear responsibility for the consequences of her actions.
Arguably in the case were she ends up being raped, again she didn’t mean that to happen to her, but she must have known that her own actions placed her in a position were the probability of that outcome was increased.
Obviously there’s a vast gulf between the probabilities of being involved in a car accident and becoming a rape victim for reasons of being unable to fight back or just saying “no” while under the effects of alcohol.
In both instances her actions increased the probabilities of an undesirable outcome, so why in one case she must bear responsibility and not in the other? I’m not equating both cases, what I’m saying is that responsibility can be ascertained by degrees, fully on one end and some amount on the other.
Obviously I’m not saying that the persons committing whatever crime are not fully responsible for what they do, but recognizing that a victim can bear some amount of responsibility does not subtract from the culpability of the perpetrator, it’s not a zero sum game.
I believe you have your counter example exactly backwards. You don’t blame the pedestrian for being on the street where a drunk might hit them. The pedestrian is the victim, the drunken driver the criminal.
So what is the word we want? In scenario A an idiot got drunk and his wallet was gone. If someone took it they should be prosecuted. But do we feel sympathy for the idiot? Is what happened to him any different on his end than if he had simply lost the wallet in his drunker stupor? If there was a general fund to compensate crime victims would you give him money from that fund?
Obviously criminals are responsible for committing crimes, but what do we call it when someone contributes significantly to becoming a victim?
I would place responsibility on the pedestrian too, if the circumstances grant it, ie jaywalking, jogging in black clothes in the middle of an unlit road, etc, etc…
I was hit by a car once, and it was my own fault even if the driver had been drunk; I ran between two parked buses to cross a street on the middle of the block, the driver had no chance to stop (11 and stupid, what can I say :o )
Let’s take this case - two people I knew.
Alex and Bill liked to smoke crack. It’s not a cheap habit though, so Bill came up with the idea of cutting the corner off a 50 dollar bill and gluing it to the corner of a one dollar bill.
They head off downtown to the open air drug market, where Bill hands over the dollar bill folded in such a way as only the 50 is visible. The two of them drive off laughing, while the dealer realizes he’s been ripped off and starts shouting and chasing them down the street.
Alex and Bill were quite pleased with themselves and were bragging to everybody about it.
A few days later they glue another corner of the 50 to a one dollar bill and head downtown again. They make sure to visit a different corner, and get away with it again. Much laughter and more bragging.
Third time they head downtown, the drug dealers are waiting for them. Word got around about their little scam, and while the dealers will fight each other for the best corner, they will band together when needed.
Alex and Bill barely got out of there. They were very, very lucky they didn’t get beat senseless or shot.
Can you really say they bear no responsibility if they had?
They thought they were slick, and smart. They were playing with the wrong people.
They didn’t learn their lesson either.
Eventually they both did get beaten, badly, in separate incidents.
Nobody felt sorry for them; most felt they had asked for it.
If the driver is in full possession of their senses and the pedestrian strike is unavoidable then we have an accident, not a crime. If the driver is impaired by alcohol or drug use it is a crime because operating a motor vehicle under the influence is a crime whether or not someone else is hurt.
I do not believe someone can accidentally rape a woman regardless of her state of inebriation.
“The victim was asking for it” is one of the oldest defenses in the book. Matthew Shepard deserved it because he was gay and coming on to us. Three years later, the same criminals made it about a drug deal gone bad. Nicole Simpson was sleeping with other men, so she deserved to be butchered.
When I was attacked going for a walk at 8 o’clock in the morning, the police officer asked me why I was out going for a walk at 8 o’clock in the morning. I told him to shut up, I had every right to be going for a walk at 8 o’clock in the morning.
I’m skeptical that any homeowners policy has an exclusion that would apply to your scenario. An insurance company has a duty to pay valid claims. If they want to put a clause in their contract stating you must lock your doors or otherwise take reasonable precautions to guard against theft, they can do that. Absent such language, I think the stupid homeowners who put up the sign still have a valid claim if their stuff is stolen.
I have a simple way of assessing these situations. Could the situation have been avoided entirely if the criminal had chosen not to commit a crime? Then it is entirely the fault of the criminal and not the victim. Are there common sense things you can do to avoid being a victim? Of course. This does not mitigate the fact that there would be no crimes at all if criminals didn’t choose to commit them.
Of course the one scenario in which this doesn’t apply is the rabid dog. Since the dog can’t choose not to be aggressive, it’s up to the person who has the ability to make a choice to do the right thing (in this case, not poke a rabid dog).
How about this scenario : a man goes out looking for one night stands with strangers. He meets a sexy female stranger in a bar. She offers him sex if he comes to her place.
He goes to her place, . The woman robs him of his wallet and his money.
Would you feel sorry for him and do you believe he is partially responsible/at fault for being robbed by the woman?
…she asks to tie him to the bed; being George Costanza, he says ‘sure’…
Or how about this scenario :How about this scenario : A man gets drunk and meets a woman in a bar. The “woman” is actually a MTF preop transsexual but doesn’t tell him this. He goes to her place for sex. They make out and do some heavy petting. The transsexual gets undressed and reveals “she” has a penis. He is so enraged at being “deceived” that he beats her to death in a rage.
Is the transsexual partially at fault? Would your opinion change if “she” had a history of “tricking” straight men?
Lethal force is never a reasonable response to finding that your date has a dick. No, the pre-op transwoman would not be responsible for her death.
He is fully responsible for losing his wallet and money. Not the crime of the robbery, but his becoming a victim. I just don’t know what to call it. If you say he is responsible for being robbed then it’s like giving a pass to robber. The robber is responsible for the crime. But there’s a certain disregard for his own safety on the part of the victim that I don’t know what to call. It doesn’t give license for people to rob him, but he still shouldn’t be doing it.