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Victimology as an
academic term contains two elements: One is the Latin word “Victima” which
translates into “victim”. The other is the Greek word “logos” which means a
system of knowledge. There was not victimology as such in the form of today.
It was embodies within the framework of penal policy in Hindu Legal system.
It is evident from Manusmriti and Yagyabalka Smriti which provided the
provision of compensation for victims. [1]
Victimology is an
academic study of cause and origin of victims, the study of victims and
provisions to release victims from the causes and problems. If the notion of
‘crime victim’ is a relatively new phenomenon, victimology is an even newer
concept.
One of the first
studies to examine crime victims was Hans von Henting’s book The Criminal and
His Victim Published in 1948, this book examines the relationship between the
criminal and the victim. Born in Germany, Von Hentig (1887-1974) moved to the
United States prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. When his book
was published in 1948, Von Hentig worked as a Professor at Yale University.
Hans Von Hentig was a criminologist and his interest in the victim was solely
criminological. He was not concerned about victims and how they were impacted
by crime. Instead, Von Hentig wanted to study victims in order to understand
crime and criminals. He believed that with this knowledge we could not only
catch the criminal but we could also prevent crimes from happening in the
first place. In his book, Von Hentig paints a picture of the complex
relationship between the criminal and his victim, using homicide data from
the United States and Germany. [2]
A second key figure
in the history of victimology is Benjamin Mendelsohn (1900-1998). Born in
Roumania, where he studied law and later worked as a defense lawyer,
Mendelsohn was the first person to use the word victimology. In 1956,
Mendelsohn’s seminal work was published in the Revue de droit penal et de
criminologie. In this article, titled. A New Branch of the
Bio-Social-Science: Victimology (translated from French by the author).
Mendelsohn lays the ground work for a new science, which he calls victimology
and sees as a separate discipline from criminology. While Mendelsohn, like
Von Hentig, is interested in understanding the victim offender relationship,
like Von Hentig, is interested in understanding the victim offender
relationship-or the penal couple as he calls them-his interest in the victim
goes beyond explaining crime. In this article, Mendelsohn asks why society
has for so long ignored victims and left them to carry the burden of the
consequences of crime. He argues in favour of a science of victimology in
which victims and victimizations are studied just as criminology studies
crime and criminals. Besides the world victimology, in this article
Mendelsohn introduced new terms such as victimal (the opposite of criminal)
and victinuality (the opposite of criminality). Using American statistics on
motor vehicle accidents, he developed a victimality index in order to
indicate the risk of victimization. Like Von Hentig. Mendelsohn emphasizes
the importance of prevention and sees this as a main goal of victimology.
The
conceptualization of victimology as a formal discipline was born in the mind
of the Romanian defense attorney Benjamin Mendelsohn. His interest in victims
and their relationships with offenders began when he was trying to defend
persons accused of crimes. He became aware of how important it was to understand
the victim/offender interaction to determine degrees of offender blame.
Eventually going beyond victim and offender interaction, Mendelsohn
recognized that victims were largely ignored, disrespected and even abused by
the system. Thus, he began to seek ways to protect and help victims by
proposing the creation of victim assistance clinics, international
organizations, and special research institutes.
Like most of his
contemporaries, Mendelsohn’s early work with victimology was mostly about
crime victims and their relationship with their offenders; however, as he
began to develop his ideas, his focus centered more on just the victim. This
orientation reached its peak with the realization that victimology logically
should be about the concern for all types of victims, from crimes, traffic
accidents, disasters, etc. He referred to this broader type of victimology as
“general victimology”. Today there are roughly three types of
victimologiests: those whose focus is limited to crime victims (specific);
those whose focus is on human rights victims (which includes crime victims);
and those who focus in on all victims regardless of the cause (general).
Victimology today is an interdisciplinary field drawing especially from law,
criminology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political science. [3]
Real interest in
victimology began after the Second World War. Mendelsohn claimed that the
idea of victimology was planted prior to the War however; the germination of
this idea was interrupted by the War and only picked up again after the War
was over. One might argue that the birth of victimology, like that of human
rights, was inspired by the atrocities committed during the war. However,
that is unlikely as victimologiests did not write about events like the Holocaust
until the late 960s. The first victimologists focused on victims of crime.
The early works in victimology were inspired by criminologists and criminal
justice professionals who, in their effort to understand crime, introduced
the notion of victims into academic discussions on crime. With this, interest
emerged not only in the role of victims of crime but also in the plight of
victims as the forgotten party of the criminal justice system.
Thus it can be said
that the word “Victimology” was coined in 1947 by a French lawyer, Benjamin
Mendelsohn from a Latin word ‘Victima’ and a Greek world ‘logos’. Victimology
is basically a study of crime from the point of view of the victim, of the
persons suffering from injury or destruction by action of another person or a
group of persons.
[1] Dussich, “The
Challenges of Victimology.” [2] [3] Ibid.
Development of Victimology
The very early
origins of victimology can be found in somewhat unrelated writings of a few
insightful persons in: a novel about murder victims by Franz Werfel in 1920;
a small chapter on victims in an American criminology textbook by Edwin
Sutherland in 1924; a Cuban book about protecting crime victims by J.R.
Figueroa, D. Tejera and F. Pla in 1929 ; a major chapter about victims in a
criminology book by Hans von Hentig in 1948; a sentence about the need for “a
science of victimology” in a book on violence by an American psychiatrist,
Fredric Westham, in 1948; and, a speech on victimology in Romania by Beniamin
Mendelsohn in 1958. They came the first full book on victim restitution in
the English language by a Hungarian criminologist, Stephen Schafer, in 1960;
a dissertation on victimology published as a Japanese book by Koichi Miyazwa
1965; and, finally, the first victimology textbook, also by Stephen Schafer,
in 1968. [1]
Although writing
about the victim appeared in many early works by such criminologiests as
Beccaria (1764), Lombroso (1876), Ferri (1891), Garofalo (1885), Sutherland
(1924), Hentig (1948), Nagel (1949), Ellenberger (1955), Wolfgang (1958) and
Schafer (1968), the concept of a science to study victims and the word
“victimology” had its origin with the early writings of Beniamin Mendelsoh,
these leading to his seminal work where he actually proposed the term
“victimology” in his article “A New Branch of Bio-Psycho-Social Science,
Victimology” (1956). It was in this article that he suggested the
establishment of an international society of victimology which has came to
fruition with the creation of the World Society of Victimology, teh
establishment of a number of victimological institutes (including the
creation here in Japan of the Tokiwa International Victimology Institute);
and, the establishment of international journals which are now also a part of
this institute. Mendelsohn provided us with his victimology vision and
blueprint; and, as his disciples we have followed his guidance. We now refer
to Mendelsohn as “The Father of Victimology.” [2]
The beginnings of
the academic discipline of victimology can be traced back to several
articles, books, and research projects initiated by criminologists during the
1940s and 1950s. By the 1970s, victimology had become a recognized field of
study with its own national and international professional organizations,
conferences, and journals.
Diverse views exist
on the focus and place of the discipline of Victimology. While some believe
that Victimology should function as an independent area of enquiry, others
view it as a subfield of Criminology. A second issue concerns the breadth of
victim related issues to be covered in the field of Victimology. Some
scholars advocate that Victimology should limit itself to the study of
victim-offender interaction. Others argue that the needs of crime victims,
functioning of the organizations and institutions which respond to these
needs, and the emerging roles and responsibility for crime victims within the
CJS are important areas of inquiry for Victimology. A third issue is the
breadth of the definition of the term ‘victim’. One approach is to limit the
concept to victims of traditional crimes such as murder, rape, robbery,
burglary etc. However, it has also been proposed to include a broader
definition of the concept by covering groups such as prisoners, immigrants,
subjects of medical experimentation, and persons charged with crime but no
proved guilty. [3]
In this section,
there principal variants within the field of victimology-positivist, radical
and critical victimology are briefly described and linked with the discrete
tendencies within the diverse victim’s movement with which they are most
chosely associated. [4]
Positivist Victimology
Positivist
victimology, like its counterpart in criminology is influenced by the view
that crime, along with all other natural and social phenomena, is caused by
factors and processes which can be discovered by scientific investigation.
But whereas positivist criminalists attribute the causes of crime to various
forces (including environmental and genetic factors) that act upon offenders
and are beyond their control, early positivist victimologists were interested
in the possibility that certain victims might in some way contribute to their
own victimization.
Von Hentig and
Mendelsohn, for example, were interested in observing and identifying
regularities or non-randomized patterns of victimizing events, and in linking
these to particular types of victim who could then be categorized within
various typologies. For instance, victims were classified according to how
victim prone they were, in von Hentig’s case, or even (and far more
controversially) according to the degree of culpability exhibited by the
victim, in Mendelsohn’s case. The influence of positivist victimology can be
discerned as the policy making level with regard to both the development and
deployment of victim survey techniques and also the launch of official
campaigns to encourage victims who may be susceptible to various types of
victimization to take steps to reduce the risks involved.
A major weakness
with positivist victimology, however, is that it assumes that the identity of
victims is self-evident, since it is linked to the harm that they have
sustained and the fact that their status is defined and recognized by the
criminal law. Thus, there is a tendency to concentrate almost exclusively on
victims of conventional interpersonal crimes, particularly those involving
violence and predatory attitudes towards the property of others.
Radical Victimology
Radical victimology
resembles its criminological counterpart in rejecting the theoretical
underpinnings of positivist victimology. Instead of seeing victimization as a
product of the personal attributes of individual victims, early radical
criminologists such as Quinney drew attention to structural factors relating
to the way society is organized, and also the role of the state itself and
the legal system in the social construction of both victims and offenders.
From this perspective, the definition and identity of victims is far from
self-evident since it extends to those who are oppressed, and thus
victimized, both by the powerful, and also by those who act on behalf of the
state, including the police and correctional agencies. For many radical, such
insights resulted in a tendency to see offenders as the principal victims of
state oppression and to downplay or ignore altogether those who were in turn
victimized by them. This realignment within the field of radical victimology is
also reflected in certain specific tendencies within the wider victim’s
movement. At a political and policymaking level the concerns of new left
realism were mirrored in a commitment to improving the lot of ordinary
victims without necessarily adopting the highly repressive responses towards
offenders that are associated with more conservative law and order advocates.
At a practitioner level, the quest for a human rights approach was manifested
in a search for more constructive ways of dealing with both victims and
offenders that sought as far as possible to meet the needs and interests of
both.
Thus, certain
strands within radical victimology are reflected in more liberal approaches
with regard t penal policy, such as the promotion of state-funded compensation
schemes, support for restitution or compensation for victims by their
offenders and even attempts at reconciliation. In this respect, some of the
early progenitors of the restorative justice movement espoused aims that were
certainly consistent with, even if they were not directly inspired by, some
of these developments within radical victimology.
However, radical
victimology has in turn been criticized for its partial and incomplete
portrayal of the processes of victimization since it tends to confine its
analysis to the impact of social class relationships while neglecting other
factors such as gender, race and age. Attempts to overcome these limitations
have drawn on two main perspectives: the first derived from an approach
within critical criminology that is known as symbolic interactions; and the
second form feminist accounts. Despite the differences between them, both
approaches have appropriated the label critical victimology, which represents
the third main variant within the field of victimology.
Critical Victimology
Critical victimology
has highlighted the importance of historical and cultural contexts in shaping
both victimizing practices and our sensitivities towards them. Even more
importantly, perhaps, critical victimology should alert us to the fact that
concepts such as victim and victimization are contested and, being
historically and culturally specific, are both malleable and far from
universal. It is also worth pointing out that, perhaps because of the
sympathy that it evokes, the image of the victim is capable of being invoked
and sometimes even manipulated or exploited, whether to serve the interests
of victims per se, particular groups of victims or even other objectives
altogether.
The term victimology in past was used to
describe the study of individuals harmed by criminals. Today, victimology
refers generally to the scientific study of victims and victimization,
including the relationships between victims and offenders, investigators,
courts, corrections, media, and social movements. The study of victims and
victimization has the potential of reshaping the entire discipline or
criminology. It might very well be the long awaited paradigm shift that
criminology desperately needs given the dismal failure of its traditional
paradigms: search for causes of crime, deterrence, rehabilitation, treatment,
just desserts, etc.
The victim is
essentially an inseparable part of crime. Therefore the phenomenon of crime
cannot be comprehensively explained without incorporating the victim of a
crime. Crime victim, despite being an integral part of crime and a key factor
in criminal justice system, remained a forgotten entity as his/her status got
reduced only to report crime and appear in the court as witness and routinely
faces postponements, delays, rescheduling, and other frustrations. All their
means loss of earnings, waste of time, payment of transportation and other
expenses, discouragement, and the painful realization that the system does
not live up to its ideals and does not serve its constituency, but instead serves
only itself. Many believe that the victim is the most disregarded participant
in criminal justice proceedings.
[1] Ibid. [2] Ibid.
[3] Andrew Karmen, Crime Victim: An Introduction to Victimology, 8th ed.
(USA: Thomson Wadsworth California 2013). [4] Mrs. Nirmala Glory, 2009,
“Criminology: Teaching Material, “Ethiopian Legal Brief, accessed July 5,
2016,
https://chilot.me/2015/06/30cassation-decisions-volume-17table-of-contents/criminology/pdf.
Theories of Victimology
Victimology is a
young field with roots in the late 1940s. Since that time, several
generations of scholars have advanced its theoretical beginnings and promoted
the reemergence of interest in the victim thought a wide range of research
questions and methods.
There is a common
agreement that the origins of the victim logical theory in criminology are
indisputably related to the names of the following scholars; Von Hentig,
Wertham and Mendelsohn in 1941, Von Hentig published an article titled
“Remarks on the Interaction of the Perpetrator and the Victim” and later, in
1948, he published the criminology book titled The Criminal and His Victim,
where an entire chapter was related to the victim of a crime. Von Hentig
perceived the victim as a participant in a crime and classified the victims
according to the nature of their participation in a crime. He also emphasized
that the study of the victim’s role in a crime might lead to better crime
prevention. [1]
Benjamin Meldelsohn
propounded a three model theory of victimology. Later Cohen and Felson in
1979 came out with their ‘Routine Activities Theory’, which presupposes that
the crime occurs when three conditions come together, namely (i) suitable
target (ii) motive offender (iii) absence of security or parental care or
guardianship. [2]
A number of theories
have been advanced to explain in regards to victimization, which are
illustrated in subsequent paragraphs in detail.
First Generation: Early Victimologists
First-generation
scholarly work in victimology proposed victim typologies based on the offender-victim
dyad in a criminal act. Common to the ideas of these early victimologists was
that each classified victims in regard to the degree to which they had caused
their own victimization. These early theoretical reflections pushed the
budding field of victimology in a direction that eventually led to a
reformulation of the definition of victimization.
A. Hans Von Hentig
German criminologist
Hans Von Hentig developed a typology of victims based on the degree to which
victims contributed to causing the criminal act. Examining the psychological,
social, and biological dynamics of the situation, he classified victims into
thirteen categories depending on their propensity or risk for victimization.
His typology included the young, female, old, immigrants, depressed, wanton,
tormentor, blocked, exempted, or fighting. His notion that victims
contributed to their victimization thought their actions and behaviors led to
the development of the concept of “victim-blaming” and is seen by many victim
advocates as an attempt to assign equal culpability to the victim.
B. Benjamin Mendeisohn
Benjamin Mendelsohn,
an attorney, has often been referred to as the “father’ of victimology.
Intrigued by the dynamics that take place between victims and offenders, he
surveyed both parties during the course of preparing a case for trial. Using
these data, he developed a six, category typology of victims based on legal
considerations of the degree of a victim’s culpability. This classification
ranged from the completely innocent victim (e.g., a child or a completely
unconscious person) to the imaginary victim (e.g., persons suffering from
mental disorders who believe they are victims).
C. Marvin E. Wolfgang
The first empirical
evidence to support the notion that victims are to some degree responsible
for their own victimization was presented by Marvin E. Wolfgang, who analyzed
Philadelphia’s police homicide records from 1948 thought 1952. He reported
that 26% of homicides resulted from victim precipitation. Wolfgang identified
three factors common to victim-precipitated homicides; (i) the victim and
offender had some prior interpersonal relationship, (ii) there was a series
of escalating disagreements between the parties, and (iii) the victim had
consumed alcohol.
D. Stephen Schafer
Moving from
classifying victims on the basis of propensity of risk and yet still focused
on the victim offender relationship, Stephen Schafer’s typology classifies
victims on the basis of their “functional responsibility.” Victims’ dual role
was to function so that they did not provoke others to harm them while also
preventing such acts. Schafer’s seven-category functional responsibility
typology ranged from no victim responsibility (e.g., unrelated victims, those
who are biologically weak), to some degree of victim responsibility (e.g.,
precipitate victims), to total victim responsibility (e.g.,
self-victimizing).
E. Manachem Amir
Several years later,
Menachem Amir in 1971 undertook one of the first studies of rape. On the
basis of the details in the Philadelphia police rape records, Amir reported
that 19% of all forcible rapes were victim precipitated by such factors as
the use of alcohol by both parties; seductive actions by the victim; and the
victim’s wearing of revealing clothing, which could tantalize the offender to
the point of misreading the victim’s behavior. His work was criticized by the
victim’s movement and the feminist movement as blaming the victim.
Second Generation: Theories of Victimization
The second
generation of theorists shifted attention from the role of the victim toward
an emphasis on a situational approach that focuses on explaining and testing
how lifestyles and routine activities of everyday life create opportunities
for victimization. The emergence of these two theoretical perspectives is one
of the most significant developments in the field of victimology.
A. Lifestyle Exposure Theory
Hindelang,
Gottfredson, and Garofalo in 1978 noticed that certain groups of people,
namely, young people and males, were more likely to be criminally victimized.
They theorized that an individual’s demographics (e.g., age, sex) tended to
influence one’s lifestyle, which is turn increased his or her exposure to
risk of personal and property victimization. Using the principle of homogeny,
Hindelang et al. in 1978 also argued that lifestyles that expose people to a
large share of would be offenders increase one’s risk of being victimized.
Homogamy would explain why young persons are more likely to be victimized
than older people, because the young are more likely to hang out with other
youth, who commit a disproportionate amount of violent and property crimes.
According to this explanation, the probability of crime depends partially on
the activities of the victim. Crime is more likely when victims place
themselves in jeopardy.
B. Routine Activities Theory
Cohen and Felson in
1979 formulated routine activities theory to explain changes in aggregate
direct-contact predatory (e.g., murder, forcible rape, burglary) crime rates
in the United States from 1947 through 1974. Routine activities theory posits
that the convergence in time and space of a motivated offender, a suitable
target, and the absence of a capable guardian provide an opportunity for
crimes to occur. The absence of any one of these conditions is sufficient to
drastically reduce the risk of criminal opportunity, if not prevent it
altogether.
Routine activities
theory does not attempt to explain participation in crime but instead focuses
on how opportunities for crimes are related to the nature of patterns of
routine social interaction, including one’s work, family, and leisure
activities. So, for example, if someone spends time in public places such as
bars or hanging out on the streets, he or she increases the likelihood of
coming into contact with a motivated offender in the absence of a capable guardian.
It argues that
victimization is dependent on the routine activities of people’s daily lives.
The volume and distribution of predatory crimes depends on (i) the
availability of suitable targets; (ii) the absence of capable guardians; and
(iii) the presence of motivated offenders. In other words, as people move
about, there must be opportunities (suitable targets), and it must appear
that no one will be present, or that no one will intervene if they do observe
the crime, “Capable guardians” refers to citizens who are watchful and who
would take effective action if the saw criminal activity. Of course, even if
there were opportunities and no one to observe activity, crime would not
occur if they were not motivated to commit a crime.
Routine activities theory
accounts for the increase in crime since the 1960s as a function of changes
in activities. For example, the traditional neighborhood in the city has
declined as many people have left for the suburbs, leaving fewer capable
guardians. There are less people at home. Party this is because more women
have entered the workforce rather than staying home, but perhaps more
importantly more people have automobiles and more places available for them
to go, and simply stay home less. The volume of wealth that can be easily
transported has increased. Such changes have meant that there are more
opportunities for crime as a function of people’s daily routines. Most of
Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United States have all experienced
increases in crime in the latter part of the 20th century, and many of these
changes have occurred in these countries.
C. Empirical Support
Different
researchers commonly have used lifestyle exposure and routine activity
theories to test hypotheses about how individuals’ daily routines expose them
to victimization risk. These theories have been applied principally to
examine opportunities for different types of personal and property
victimizations using diverse samples that range from school-age children, to
college students, to adults in the general population across the United
States and abroad. The data are generally supportive of the theories,
although not all studies fully support the theories.
Third Generation: Refinement and Empirical
Tests of Opportunity Theories of Victimization
Miethe and Meier
developed an integrated theory of victimization in 1994, called structural
choice theory, which attempts to explain both offender motivation and the
opportunities for victimization. This further refinement of opportunity
theories of victimization was an important contribution to the victimology
literature.
One of the first
studies of opportunity theories for predatory crimes was conducted by Sampson
and Wooldredge, who used data form teh 1982 British Crime Survey. Their
findings showed that individual and household characteristics were
significant predictors of victimization, as were neighborhood-level
characteristics. For example, although age of the head of the household was
an important indicator of burglary, the percentage of unemployed persons in
the area also predicted burglary.
Victimization
theories have been expanded to examine non predatory crimes and “victimless”
crimes, such as gambling and prostitution and deviant behavior such as heavy
alcohol use and dangerous drinking in young adults. The theories have also
been applied to a wide range of crimes in different social contexts, such as
school-based victimization in secondary schools, stalking among college
students and even explanations of the link between victimization and
offending. Other scholars have examined how opportunity for victimization is
linked to social contexts and different types of locations, such as the
workplace, neighborhoods and college campuses.
Fourth Generation: Moving Beyond Opportunity
Theories
Work by SChreck and
his colleagues suggests that antecedents to opportunity, such as low
self-control, social bonds, and peer influences, have also been found to be
important predictors of violent and property victimization, Schreck, Wright,
and Miller examined the effects of individual factors (e.g., low
self-control, weak social ties to family and school), and situational risk
factors (e.g., having delinquent peers, having a lot of unstructured social
time) on the risk of victimization.
The most recent
attempt to create a unified comprehensive theory of victimization within the
scope of general victimology was created by John Dussich in 1985 with the
presentation of his Social Copy Theory. This has recently (2004) been revised
to the Psycho Social Coping Theory.
The essential
ingredients of this model are to consider the existence of personal resources
in the victim’s environment that exist at the time of the victimizaiton.
Persons who have an adequate number or type of resources are able to thwart
their victimization; it the victimization is not thwarted, the injury can be
diminished, and the victim is able to recover sooner. Those with fewer
personal resources in their environment will be more vulnerable to
victimization, greater injury, and less recovery. The unique aspect of this
theory is that it serves to both explain victimizations for ll sources and it
is useful to assist victims in their recovery process.
[1] Miomira Kostic,
“Victimology: A Contemporary Theoretical Approach to Crime and Its Victim”,
Facta Universitatis, accessed November 7, 2016,
http://facta.junis.ni.ac.rs/lap/lap/2010/lap2010-04.pdf. [2] Ahuja,
Criminology, 664.
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