VICTIMOLOGY

Historical Background of Victimology

The scientific study of victimology can be traced back to the 1940s and 1950s.
Until then, the primary focus of research and academic analysis in the field of
criminology was on criminal perpetrators and criminal acts, rather than on victims.
Two criminologists, Mendelsohn and Von Hentig, began to study the other half of
the offender/victim dyad: the victim. They are now considered the “fathers of the
study of victimology.” (Roberson, 1994).

Concept of victim and victimology

Victimology is a branch of criminology which examines the role played by the

victim in a criminal incident. In simpler terms, it is the study of the victims of crime.
The term “victimology” is used to refer to a branch of criminology which analyzes
the causal factors that affects victimization. Also, it is a discipline or study which
deals of the nature, causes victimization, as well as the programs for aiding and
preventing victimization.
Andre Karmen, who wrote a comprehensive text in victimology entitled Crime
Victims: An Introduction to Victimology in 1990, broadly defined victimology: the
scientific study of victimization, including the relationship between victims and
offenders, the interactions between victims and criminal justice system – that is, the
police and the courts, and corrections officials – and the connections between victims
and other societal groups and institutions, such as the media, businesses, and social
movements.
Since victimology originated from the study of crime, some would say that
victimology is the study of the crime (not victimization) from the perspective of the
victim (Roberson, 1994).

Concept of victim and victimology

According to the World Society of Victimology, Victimology is the scientific
study of extent, nature and causes of victimization, its consequences for the
person involved and the reaction there to by society, in particular the police and
criminal justice system as well as voluntary workers and professional workers.

Concept of victim and victimology

On the other hand, victim is somebody hurt or killed by somebody or

something specially in a crime, accident, or disaster. Also, the UN declaration states
that Victims means person who, individually or correctively, have suffered harm,
including physical and mental injury, emotional suffering, economic loss or
substantial impairment of fundamental rights, through acts or omission that are in
violation of criminal laws, including those proscribing abuses of power.
In this context, a victims is –
1. Someone who is being placed to death or subjected to torture or suffering by
another.
2. A living creator has slain and offered as sacrifice to a deity or as part of the
religious sacrifice.
3. Anyone who is harmed by or made to suffer from an act, circumstance,
circumstance agency or condition: victims of war.
4. A person who suffers injury, loss or death as a result of a voluntary undertaking: a
victim of his own scheming.
5. A person who is tricked, swindled, or taking advantage of a dupe.

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VICTIMIZATION
Victimizations is an asymmetrical relationship that is abusive, destructive,
unfair, and in many cases, in violation of a law. The term “victimization” is defined as
a verb rather than a noun; such as:
a) To make a victim of,
b) to cause to suffer discomfort, inconvenience, and so forth
c) To cheat, swindle or defraud,
d) To put to death as or in the matter of a sacrificial victim
e) To slaughter
f) To spoil or destroy completely
Category of Victimization
1. Criminal victimization. Victimization as a result of acts or omissions
violative of criminal laws.
2. Victimization by torts or other acts that are not criminal. Victimization
which has nothing to do with violations of criminal laws, such as, disease, pollution,
natural disasters, war, exploitation, oppression, repression, torture, discrimination,
corporate wrong doing.
Forms of corporate wrong doing that cause injury, loss or harm:
- Negligence
- Carelessness
- Recklessness
3. Structural victimization. Victimization as a by-product of science and
technology rather a consequence of deliberate, intentional victimization acts.

Other Classification and Typologies

1. Primary victimization. It involves the individual victims who is directly

assaulted or injured in a face-to-face offense, who threatened, or has property
stolen or damaged.
2. Secondary victimization. Generally, it refers to commercial establishment,
such as department stores, railroads, theater, chain stores, churches, and the
like. The victim is personal, commercial and collective, but not to diffuse as to
include the community as large. It is now referred to crime victims’ traumatic
experiences with criminal justice system and to the humiliation and the
suffering that the victim goes through as a witness or as a justice helper.
3. Tertiary victimization. Excludes both primary and secondary types and
refers to a very diffusive victimization that extends to the community at large and
includes offenses against the public order, social harmony, or administration of
government.
Typical Examples:
-Regulatory offenses, and
-Violations of city ordinances

Other Classification and Typologies

4. Mutual Victimization. Excludes all of the above categories and refers to

those cases in which the participants mutually consent to engage in acts that are
violations of the law.
Example:
-Fornication

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-Adultery, or
-Statutory rape
5. No Victimization. It is used as a category for offenses that cannot be
committed by an adult and which are now commonly referred to as “juvenile
status” offenses, such as running away from home, truancy from school, being
declared “incorrigible”.
Some Other Types of Victimization
1. Corporate Victimization (also known as “white-collar victimization). The
most damaging, most pervasive, and most diffuse type of victimization in modern
society. Many corporate victimization do not come under the jurisdiction of the
criminal law and they are hard to detect. To some extent corporate victimization is
a form of collective victimization.
Example: loan sharks
2. Collective Victimization. Is victimization directed at, or affecting the whole
groups. Members have nothing or not much in common, and the group is not
targeted as a specific entity. The acts of victimization are directed against special
population.
Some Other Types of Victimization
3. Institutional Victimization. Victimization occurs in institution, open (such
as schools) or closed (such as penal institution). Confinement to a “total institution”
often constitutes in itself a form of structural victimization.
4. Multiple Victimization (or “series victimization). This type of
victimization presents serious methodological problems, but may be of great help in
understanding certain types of victimization. Most victims do not report any
victimization, some report a single victimization, and a small minority report several
victimization of the same kind taking place during the recall period.
5. Random Victimization. Most conventional types of criminal victimization
are not random victimization. They are directed at a specific target, however, the
victimizing act may not be aimed at a specific individual, household or organization.

Some Other Types of Victimization

6. Instantaneous Victimization and Continuing Victimization.
Instantaneous victimization is victimization as a single event of brief duration, or, an
instantaneous event at a point in time.
Continuing Victimization. Continuing victimization are crimes that have
extensive duration in time. This is one to which the prevalence of people in a
victimizing state would be a more appropriate than the incidence of offenses over
time.
7. Direct and Indirect Victimization- Direct victimization is experienced
when an individual in an immediate way becomes the object of criminal harm, as
when someone is raped, murdered, or robbed. The individual is then personally and
directly affected, while Indirect victimization maybe a larger pattern of criminal
exploitation in which the victim has not been directly victimized.

Dynamics of victimization
There are a number of procedural models that can be applied to the study of
the victimization process for the purpose of understanding the experience the victim
undergoes during and following victimization.
Among those models are:
Victims of Crime Models – according to this model, there are three stages
involved in any victimization:
• Stage of impact and disorganization, during and immediately following the
criminal event.
• Stage of recoil – during which the victim’s formulates psychological defenses
and deals with conflicting emotions of guilt, anger, acceptance, and desire of
revenge.
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• Reorganization stage – during which the victim puts his or her life back to
normal daily living. Some victims however may not successfully adopt the
victimization experience and a maladaptive reorganization stage may last for
many years.

Dynamics of victimization
Disaster Victim’s Model – this model was developed to explain the coping
behavior of victims of natural disaster. According to this model, there are four
stages of victimization:
• Pre- impact stage – describe the stage of the victim prior to being victimized.
• Impact or the stage at which victimization occur.
• Post impact stage – which entails the degree and duration of personal and
social disorganization following victimization.
• Behavior outcome – which describe the victim’s adjustment to the victimization
experience.
Nature of victimization
Types of Characteristics That Increase the Potential for Victimization
Three types of characteristics increase the potential for victimization (Finkelhor
and Asigian, 1996):
1. Target vulnerability. Victims’ physical weakness or psychological distress
renders them incapable of resisting or deterring crime and makes them easy
targets.
2. Target gratifiability. Some victims have some quality, possession, skill, or
attribute that an offender wants to obtain, use, have access to, or manipulate.
Having attractive possessions, such as leather coat, may make one vulnerable to
predatory crime.
3. Target antagonism. Some characteristics increase risk because they arouse
anger, jealously, or destructive impulses in potential offenders. Being gay or
effeminate, for example, may bring on undeserved attacks in the street; being
argumentative and alcoholic may provoke assault.
Theories of victimization
1. Victim Precipitation Theory. According to this view, some people may
actually initiate the confrontation that eventually leads to their injury or death.
Victim precipitation can be either active or passive. Active precipitation occurs
when victims act provocatively, use threats or fighting words, or even attack first.
Passive precipitation, on the other hand, occurs when the victim exhibits some
personal characteristics that unknowingly threaten or encourage the attacker. The
crime can occur because of personal conflict – for example, when two people
compete over a job, promotion, love interest, or some other scarce and in demand
commodity.
2. Lifestyle Theory. According to this theory, people may become crime
victims because their lifestyle increases their exposure to criminal offenders.
Victimization risk is increased by such behaviors as associating with young men,
going out in public places late at night, and living in an urban area.
3. Deviant Place Theory. According to this theory, victims do not encourage
crime but are victim-prone because they reside in socially disorganized high-crime
areas where they have the greatest risk of coming into contact with criminal
offenders.

Theories of victimization
4. Routine Activity Theory – This theory was first articulated by Lawrence
Cohen and Marcus Felson. They concluded that the volume and distribution of
predatory crime (violent crimes against a person and crimes in which an offender

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attempts to steal an object directly) are closely related to the interaction of three
variables that reflect the routine activities:
• a. The availability of suitable targets, such as homes containing easily
saleable goods
• b. The absence of capable guardians, such as police, homeowners,
neighbors, friends, and relatives.
• c. The presence of motivated offenders, such as a large number of
unemployed teenagers
Sources of victimization
A. By Nature or Natural Victimization
1. Victimization by natural disasters and acts of god
2. Victimization by natural health hazards
3. Victimization by natural predator agents
B. By Human Action
1. Auto-victimization
2. Industrial-Technological victimization
3. Structural victimization
4. Criminal victimization
5. Non-criminal victimization

Victimless crimes are crimes that do not directly and specifically harm another
party. Some examples of crimes that do not affect anyone outside of the person
committing the crime are public drinking, trespassing, drug use and traffic
violations.