Beggars as Bully Perpetrators and General Public as Victims

A Phenomenological Study

Abstract

This qualitative study aimed to explore peoples’ experiences of being bullied and victimized while dealing with beggars phenomenologically. 14 Adults (7 males, 7 females) were included in the study. The age of participants was 25 years and above. The main objectives of the study were to explore how beggars emotionally victimize the general public, how do people get threatened at the hands of beggars as they exploit the publics’ emotions with the help of blackmailing tactics Therefore the Research Questions in this regard were: firstly, how people are entangled in situations and feel threatened while interacting with beggars? Secondly, what tactics are used by beggars to emotionally victimize the general public? Thirdly, how public is emotionally blackmailed by the tricks and tactics used by beggars? Phenomenological research design was used which provided a rich and detailed account of public experiences. The focus was on how people actually perceived the events rather than how the phenomena existed. Open ended questions were put forth which provided the lived experiences of the participants. Responses of the participants were transcribed and themes were generated. The major themes which emerged  were named as Anger, Exploitation, Distress, Manipulation, Fraud, Fear, Assault, Fooling public, Emotionally charging, Threatening, Stealing, Target weakness, Harassed, Monitory gain by beggars. Hence the results revealed that people do felt threatened while interacting with beggars who blackmailed them with different tricks and at times also involved in stealing, intimidation unwanted touching, name calling, cursing and even snatching the money from wallets, etc The implication of this study can be at societal or governmental level where authorities and policy makers can adopt some preventive or remedial measures for beggars and their interaction with public.

Key words: Perpetrators, Bully, Victim, General Public, Beggar, Phenomenological.