Episode 7: J. J R. R Ziemba

Out of the 26 episodes of Criminal, I chose to listen to Episode seven: J.R.R. Ziemba, which was produced on June, 30, 2014. This episode was about a young man, Reese, living in a small town who was out walking downtown at night, which was something that he did quite frequently. He had just passed a gay bar, though he said that he never really had been worried about his safety before until he saw a man propositioning/haggling some young men. Reese’s impression of the man was that he was an older black man that could have been potentially homeless. He felt that the man believed that Reese was looking for sex. Reese notes that he had never had the fear of sexual aggression, but that night he felt it and felt how real and terrifying that type …show more content…
He moved, and was called by police to stand in front of a judge to determine if there was enough evidence for a case against Clarence Lamar Henry. Throughout the process, the State Attorney pointed out that he needed to look professional and more serious than the large red plastic prescription glasses and black jeans. Even Reese admitted that his style is a bit eccentric. So when he was called to testify in his fellow victims cases, he wore his black framed glasses in order to appear more responsible. In total, Reese was called to testify four times and each time Clarence was acquitted of the crimes. The impression was that the truth did not matter because they would not believe him. He felt that the jury thought it was weird he was walking outside a gay club coupled with his appearance and clothing that it was suspicious. In the end, Clarence was imprisoned after breaking into a building and committing grand-theft and his expected release date is May 2028. The general theme of the story was that crime victims are often under the same scrutiny as the accused offenders.
From the podcast information, I decided to examine in depth the concept of victim blaming. Since victim blaming is a real and a prevalent phenomenon in crimes today, I think this topic is highly relevant to criminologists. The fact that Reese felt that his truth was overlooked simply because of the …show more content…
This is due in part to the higher association of victim blame in cases of sexual assault versus other various types of crime. Indeed, it is a well-known fact that most sexual assaults and rapes statistics are underreported both for females and males. Grubb & Turner (2006) conducted a review on the impact of rape myth acceptance, gender role conformity, and substance use on victim blame. They note that within the phenomenon of victim blaming literature that there are two key theories that are of significant importance; attribution defensive hypothesis and the just world theory. Both theories suggest negative victim perceptions, either as a defensive mechanism to avoid similarity to the victim or as a result of “overcompensating for an undeserved act” (Grubb & Turner, 2006). In their review, they found that previous research has showed that women are more empathetic and less likely to blame the victims than males were (Grubb & Turner, 2006). They argue that gender roles are a highly socialized process; males are often socialized to be dominate, powerful, and masculine while women are socialized to be passive and fragile (Grubb & Turner, 2006). This acceptance of traditional gender role stereotypes, Grubb & Turner (2006) conclude has been shown throughout research to result in increased levels of victim blaming. Kahn, Rodgers, Martin, Malick,