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@ashfurrow
Created September 3, 2014 05:41
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I don't want to get into a long, drawn out Internet argument. The fact of the matter is that what you're saying – that victims make themselves vulnerable to crime – is called victim blaming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming

Victim blaming comes from a psychological fallacy called the Fundamental Attribution Error. Basically, if something bad happens to me, it's due to external factors I have no control over. If it happens to someone else, then it's due to internal factors that they do have control over. This faulty reasoning allows humans to believe that bad things won't happen to them, even though they can.

Since, as a society, we cannot blame the victims of crimes perpetrated against them (to do so would be logically fallacious, see above), we instead must focus on stopping crime by focusing on those who commit it: the criminals. I'm not telling you to go around and leave your house unlocked – certainly, reduce your own risk. But if someone does get robbed, even with a locked door, don't blame them for not having a dog. Or not having a home security system. Or for living in a bad neighbourhood. There'll always be some factor you can blame on the victim. As a society, we need to stop responding to crime by looking for those factors.

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