Classes of Crime Victims, Part 1

It seems to me there are different classes of victims of crimes. To explain, let's look at someone hiring a new accountant. My apologies to accountants for using your profession in this example, but well, it works. Besides, there are indeed some dishonest accountants.

Suppose Alice owns a company with a couple hundred employees. Now suppose she needs to hire a new accountant.

Scenario 1: She interviews Bob and is impressed. So she checks out his claims on his resume. Did he really graduate from the college he said he did? Did he work at the companies listed? She contacts his references and even some people not listed as references, and then googles him. Everything looks good. She hires him but for the first few months limits his authority and even hires an outside consultant to audit and evaluate his work. Despite all that, after a few months on the job, Bob embezzles some money and skips town. It turned out he had developed a cocaine addiction (unbeknownst to anyone) and "turned" bad.

Scenario 2: Alice interviews Carl and is impressed. She hires him. She gives him complete control of the company's monies and accounts. After a few months Carl embezzles some money and skips town. Afterward, Alice learns that he had a conviction for embezzlement already. Several people tell her they knew he was a shady character, and if Alice had asked them, they would have warned her.

Scenario 3: Alice interviews Dave and is impressed. She checks out his resume and discovers he exaggerated quite a bit. She discovers he had been convicted of embezzling before. One of his references had never worked with Dave, other people tell her they don't trust him. But Alice says, "I'm a good judge of character and I can look into his eyes and see that he's reformed. He's paid his debt to society and based on the one hour interview I had with him, I know that he will be a model employee." After a few months Dave embezzles some money and skips town.

In the first scenario, I think of Alice as an innocent victim, in the second, she's a stupid victim, and in the third, she's a complicit victim.

There are bad people in the world, some will want to steal from you. It's a good idea to take precautions, to try to protect yourself. Even if you do employ security, you might still be a victim, sometimes the professionals are simply too good, or sometimes someone is simply able to circumvent the measures. Sometimes you simply don't know what security measures you need to take, and sometimes you simply have a lapse. In those situations you're an innocent victim.

Some people don't take precautions. That does not give the thief the right to steal from them, it doesn't mean the victim is to blame. However, it is not smart to go through life oblivious to the dangers therein. These people are the stupid victims.

Some people know what the dangers are. They have been given the information necessary to make good decisions and take proper actions. Yet they ignore the information and do the things that leave them extremely vulnerable. That still does not give the thief the right to steal from them. However, I think these people are complicit in their own misfortunes.

It's hard to talk about this without being accused of "blaming the victim". However, I want to stress, no matter what security measures you take or don't take, no one has the right to steal from you. We are not responsible for other people's actions. Nonetheless, I think it is also important that people understand that it's hard to muster any sympathy for the willfully vulnerable.

Remember also, I think there's a difference between willful vulnerability and simply not knowing the dangers. It is possible to be security-aware, to make an effort, yet still miss some possible actions that could have prevented something bad from happening. That's not stupid, that's simply being human.

More on this topic in Part 2.