Why is being safe a crime?

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The "blaming the victim" thing seems to be overused. It seems like that every time you tell someone to do things like lock their car, take their valuables with, lock their home, don't wander into strange areas at night, don't take your valuables to school or to work bla bla bla if you don't want this or that to happen, people say you're blaming the victim.

Why is it a crime to even take precaution and be safe? f**k you all, I will keep locking my apartment, keep locking things in the trunk of my car, always keep my purse in my arms, when I went to Europe, I wore my purse on my chest (it was like a backpack) because I didn't want to risk a thief opening my bag and taking stuff out and stealing my video games or my wallet because my uncle said there were lot of thieves there. So it got me paranoid and be safe and protect myself from being a victim. Oh god I am blaming the victim if I tell someone they should wear their purse on their chest and be careful where they keep their wallet or else someone may steal it and they can reach into your back pocket and take your wallet. Even on the bus sometimes, I see a sign about it telling you to protect your stuff and oh no the company is blaming the victim.

I've never heard anyone suggest that it's a crime to take safety precautions. It's how you treat innocent people who were victimized, not whether or not you lock your door. Nobody thinks you're a criminal for locking your door.

It's a question of responsibility. Ok, you take precautions, and people should - but the responsibility for the crime always lies on the perpetrator. Fully.

It's a less than ideal world so we must take care. Still, people have to live their lives. You want to be completely safe? Then die, it's the only way to be totally safe. Stepping out your door assumes an element of risk, as does staying inside. Anything you do, is risky.

^ Agreed

No one has ever said directly being safe is a crime but whenever someone says don't do this or that if you don't want that to happen, someone pulls the blaming the victim card and they make it sound like being safe is a bad thing.

There are tons of things out there that is considered "blaming the victim" like "don't bring that to school, it might get stolen" "Don't smell the paper, kids will think you're weird" and I also bet someone telling me "you gotta be careful, you don't want to go into strange areas at night, there are creeps out there" would be blaming the victim.

I also wonder if asking "Why was it stolen?" is blaming the victim or asking "why was she bullied" or "Why did she bully him" is blaming the victim so basically being curious about why it all happened would also be a crime. I read online that asking "what did she have on?" is blaming the victim. I always took that as a curious question. No intention behind it, just curious. I wonder if asking "How did she get raped?" is also blaming the victim? It seems like being curious would also a crime.

You're right that anything can happen because of Murphy's law. I can be following the rules on the road and some idiotic drive can still crash into me because he had been drinking. I can be walking home from work and some guy can take out a gun and shoot me. I can still have my car locked and have no valuables and someone can still break in and car jack it or I can still have my home locked and someone can still manage to break in.

I really don't get peoples logic nor understand them. It doesn't surprise me anymore how people think and see things and what they do. I probably don't get their intentions either. Anything is a curious question to me or just a comment they are making or informing me of something or telling me to be safe than knowing what their motive is behind it. But yet sometimes I can tell when someone is being sarcastic or doing a comeback and sometimes I am not even sure.

Last edited by League_Girl on 06 Jul 2012, 12:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't know if you have more than one thread in mind, but if you're talking about the Rape/Victim Blaming/other random stuff thread, as far as I remember, people were saying that if a woman was dressed attractively and raped, it was her fault, other safety precautions aside. Basically the mindset that the woman was "asking for it" by the way she dresses is no longer accepted by the judicial system.

Then people started talking about other dangers, like walking out at night alone, "and being dressed attractively" or then "and being drunk and dressed attractively". Now I still don't believe that rape would ever be the victim's fault, because it is an assault, but the risk in these statements is not the clothing.

Also, there is a problem with men who tell other men that a woman "deserves to be raped" or is "asking for it" because of her clothing or behaviour. It was said somewhere on that thread that rapists will think that every man is secretly a rapist. When other men talk about women in a demeaning way like this, and say she deserves to be raped, a rapist will think that he is justified for raping someone.

Me neither.

It was just something that happened on fetlife and it was about picture stealing.

It's a question of whether they deserved it or not.

You shouldn't judge others on trying to live a normal life and assuming a different level of risk in doing so, as long as they are doing normal activities. It is one thing to urge caution, another to rub their face in the mistake after the fact. They have different priorities than you, and they're just trying to live their life.

Do you drive a car? I don't. People die in cars, lots of them. I used to work at a scrapyard - I have seen firsthand the little bits of skin and blood sprayed everywhere like a giant bug got squished in the driver's seat. So if you die in a car accident, even though it wasn't your fault - shall I say you deserved it? I would say you should not drive a car, but if you die in one, I won't blame you, I won't say you deserved to die. Despite the fact so many thousands die in them, it would take many centuries perhaps millenia for all the people killed in "strange areas at night" to ever add up to just one year's worth of traffic fatalities. In 2011, 1.2 million people died on the road. If you get in a car on a regular basis (and you said you put things in your trunk), you are already taking a very high level risk, similar to the sort of risks murder victims took. I can't see you have any right to judge others on their safety standards.

Do you wear a helmet when you drive a car? Most people in traffic fatalities die from head injuries. Why don't you wear a helmet? Because it looks funny? I could blame you for that, if you ever die of a head injury in a traffic accident. You see how it also tends to be hypocracy?

I thought most people were taking those kinds of safety precautions & never needed to be told but I live an hour away from New Orleans & extremely high crime & murder rate there gets lots of media attention around here.

I don't understand the whole "Blame the victim" thing, either. It seems that it's more of a crime to be a victim of a particular crime, than it is to be the perpetrator. People should be there to support the victim, instead of putting the blame on the victim.

Why is being curious judging? I never understood that concept either so I say being curious is a crime too.

Maybe it's because there is so much crime that most would assume taking basic softy precautions(like locking your door) is something everyone should know

I have been told by my own mother to to put my money away, don't count it out in public, and my ex once snatched a 20 dollar bill out of my hand and I said "hey" and he said "I wanted to show you how easy it is to take it from you" and told me to not flash it around in public in my hands. I think he was just trying to help me so he snatched it from me so I can see how easy it is for anyone to take it out of my hand.


I have been told other thing too what I shouldn't be doing because of this or that like lock my bags in the trunk or people could break in to see what is in the bag. My ex always wanted me to put my bag in his trunk because he was worried about someone breaking into his car and he has been a victim of it.


I never took offense to any of this stuff and always thought they are just helping me so I be safe and not become a victim. I do the same for others too because I don't want something bad to happen to them either. But yet when people throw in "blame the victim" crap, they make it sound like that being safe is a crime and you shouldn't be safe at all or you are blaming the victim, yourself or someone else depending on whom. If you were talking about yourself what you do to be safe and someone plays the blaming the victim card, they are making it sound like you being safe is a bad thing. So that is why I started this thread.

It's more of a "it's your own fault if it happens, because you didn't take precautions" kinda thing. I agree though, it's irresponsible if you don't do things to protect your valuables or personal safety. If you respect your possessions and they hold value to you (either monetary or sentimental value) you'd show that by keeping them safe and looking after them. People like my mother can be too forgetful to look after their things though. Her car got stolen because she kept forgetting to lock it. Sometimes she fails to lock the doors at home too.

Yes but that doesn't negate the criminal's responsibility for committing the crime and different people have different ideas on what is too little or too much in precaution taking.

A woman walking alone at night in a bad neighborhood for example, what if they have to to get to or home from work or for some other important reason?

Dressing too "sexy". To some people that might mean all your stuff hanging out, in some islamic countries that would mean showing any of your face.

A lot of things I could do to protect myself from potential harm would have people saying I'm too paranoid.

I don't think it's ever wrong before the fact to point out safety stuff.

After the fact is different though. Because you don't know that the one thing is what really caused the problem or not. And someone who's just been victimized, doesn't want to have to deal with a whole lot of useless "you should have done this, you should have done that, I told you so" type of criticism.

Also some things are just part of normal life. I could ask you not to drive your car, or wear a helmet when you do ... and then say "I told you so" if you get hurt because you didn't do what I say. You've got to be free to take some risk. There are some things that are just part of living, and people should be able to do them. Like drive, or (for a woman) to dress up when she goes out instead of wearing grubby sackcloth on a night out, or other things like that.