VICTIMOLOGY

Victimology

Victimology

Defounding & Justifications

Defounding is a optional approach commonly employed by criminal justice professionals to reduce the gravity of an crime through reclassification. The reasons defounding occurs vary, as does its impact on the victim.

First, defounding may occur when there is insufficient evidence to support the original account of a crime. For instance, a police officer is dispatched to a “robbery” at a local convenience store, only to discover that a juvenile shoplifted a candy bar and immediately departed. The proper classification of the incident would be petty larceny (i.e., theft). Of course, the victim who reported the theft may have informed ...