Criteria for the Criminal’s Selection of the Victim: A study in Criminology and Victimology

Abstract

The process of selecting a criminal for his victim is subject to specific criteria, some related to the criminal and some related to the victim, determining these criteria leads to knowledge, which gives the competent authorities precedence over the criminal, which helps to know how the criminal thinks and contributes to the fight against crime. This paper refers to the importance of the criteria set by the criminal during his selection of the victim, during the stages of the crime, starting from the stage of preparation for the crime to the stage of carrying out the crime, and the paper also tries to delve into the psychology of the criminal, and study the factors that nominate a person to be a victim more than others, and the fact of the role of chance in a person falling victim to the crime, and the behaviours that push the person to be an ideal victim. This paper presents the main criteria which the criminal chooses his victim, which leads to the identification of the features of the potential victim, through digging in the Criminology, criminal psychology and victimology. The results have exposed the main criteria which the criminal based his choice for the victim on it, through the stages of crime, more legal protections must be established for certain categories of victims, and these protections should be included in laws.