The homeless and secondary victimization : an offence creates a chain of victims

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to identify reasons why people end up homeless, to find out whether they commit crimes or not in order to survive and if they indeed commit certain crimes, to know the type of crime, the profile of the individual or group they are most likely to choose and why. The researcher further wants to compare the crimes committed before the persons has ended up homeless with the crimes after being homeless. If the homeless person does not commit any crime, he or she is still a valuable interviewee as to know what is stopping him or her from engaging into a criminal activity. In addition the researcher wants to find out the affect of one being homeless on family and friends too. Even the researcher questions the interviewee on prevention schemes and rehabilitation methods to reintegrate the homeless back to society. The researcher's main goal is to find out the effects of homelessness in relation to a criminal activity and uncovering omitted or forgotten previous problems as well as secondary victimization.