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EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION: SPECIAL
EDITION |
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Matthew Goode The Conference
of the Australasian Society of Victimology which took place in
Adelaide on November 29 and 30, 1990 was, so far as all
concerned with it could tell, the first time that a colloquium
was devoted to the organisation (as opposed to the individual)
as a victim of crime. It was, therefore, not surprising that the
speakers and participants at the conference spent a good deal of
their time exploring the utility, On the first day, a number of common thematic threads ran through the presentations. A starting point was the unsurprising proposition that the organisation as a victim was a low visibility theme in crime and criminology work. This theme commenced with the paper delivered by Commissioner David Hunt, who went on to state that the situation was now changing and that some facts were now emerging as a result of attention being drawn to specific examples such as shoplifting - often trivial offences in their own right, but of considerable importance when considered from an organisational or (in this case) industry perspective. This beginning was reinforced in the paper delivered by Arie Freiberg, who pointed out that the lack of recognition and research devoted to the organisation as a victim of crime has distorted our perceptions of crime, the criminal and the victim. Mr. Freiberg went on to point out that one crucial factor in organisational victimisation was that the organisation can and is victimised by its own members, often because the organisation is seen as “fair game” - it has no soul to be damned and no body to be kicked. Mr. Freiberg also emphasised that a reason for the low visibility of organisational victimisation lay in the unwillingness of organisations to report crime for a variety of reasons, and that the wide variety of the nature of organisations also contributed to low visibility. A number of the
papers then developed the idea that, however low the visibility
of the problem at present, the problem was real and important.
Ms. Kolbe, for example, articulated the victimised perception of
the Education Department, Mr. Harrison the victimised perception
of commercial Building on the observation by Sir Walter Crocker that realism is the first essential, almost all papers given on the first day emphasised again and again the need for preventative strategies of various kinds, some, like Commissioner Hunt, calling for recognition of the reality that organisations contribute to their own victimisation and the need for organisations to deal with that reality by contributing to the reduction of organisational crime by institution of their own preventive strategies; others, such as Mr. Challenger, pointing out that too often organisations rely on scarce or non-existent public resources to solve their own inadequacies or their own organisational failure to address institutional practices conducive to their own victimisation. Mr. Challenger spoke about “work place deviance” in particular, and, while he rightly emphasised the need for preventative strategies to address the organisation problems raised by such behaviour, he also raised the interesting question whether or not a variety of behaviours which harmed organisations and which were not now criminal offences ought to be criminal offences, or treated as deviant behaviour in some other way. He instanced theft of time and theft of information. Mr. Brown concluded the first day with the challenging observation that all crime affected insurance in one way or another and that it might be thought to be worthwhile to privatise some law enforcement by handing the policing function directly to the insurance industry. On the second day, the paper by Mr. Smith re-emphasised the three interlocking themes that: (a) crimes committed against organisations also victimised individuals; (b) organisations were still not commonly seen as victims for a variety of reasons and hence were seen as "fair game”; and (c) organisational victims have a responsibility to reduce the capacity for that organisation to be victimised by management and other preventive strategies. These themes
re-emerged in more depth - the relationship between individual
and organisational victimisation was explored in more detail as
a more complex interaction than commonly thought. Not only do
individuals become victims as a result of criminal behaviour
directed at organisations - but also individuals become victims
because of their employment by or belonging to organisations.
This latter theme was explored by Dr. Wilson in the context of
police as victims. She spoke of the need to identify risk
variables by research in order to frame and implement risk
management programmes for individual police as members of the
policing organisation. This theme was also explored by Mr.
O’Connell, who But the work of
outstanding interest on the second day focussed much of this and
brought it together under the general heading of preventive
strategies by risk management audit. The papers delivered by Mr.
Roberts and Mr. Traeger in particular should be read with close
attention by those interested in the field of organisational
victimisation. Here can be found not only the notions of
organisational victimisation and individual victimisation, not
only the idea of the fundamental importance of the need to
recognise reality and base remedial work on preventive
strategies, but also how those strategies might be formulated
and implemented. It can only be hoped that one of the most
important consequences of this |
