Overview

The discipline of victimology is an area of specialization within the broader field of criminology. A proper study of victimology would include examining victims of crime and their circumstances, the relationship to and responsibilities owed to victims by the criminal justice system, and the peripheral connections that victims of crime have with the media, special interest and advocacy groups, political figures, and movements important to society (LeClair, 2007).

This chapter will view crime victims through several lenses: individuals, groups, and entities who may have suffered, directly or indirectly, as a result of criminal activities. As the reader will see, victims may be harmed physically, emotionally, or in economic ways. Frequently, a victim may endure harm from all three simultaneously, arising out of the same act. Further, people can be victimized either directly (through a primary act or event) or indirectly (secondarily affected due to a criminal act having occurred). Through this chapter’s investigation of victimization, the reader will be encouraged to utilize the Scientific Method of Analysis (Burgess, 2013), in order to optimize an objective approach to the study. The basic steps of the scientific method are:

• Making observations or asking questions about your observations;
• Forming a hypothesis, or a testable explanation, and making predictions based upon it;
• Testing the hypothesis and predictions in a reproducible experiment;
• Analyzing the data from the experiment and drawing conclusions; and
• Communicating the results to others, so as to encourage further dialogue, review and experimentation.

This chapter hopes to demonstrate how a victimologist seeks to know in what ways a person, group or entity has been harmed. Of equal interest and importance in the discipline of victimology is for the inquiry to determine if the victims are being supported, empowered, accommodated, assisted, rehabilitated, celebrated, memorialized, honored and, even in some cases, idolized (Karmen, 2007).

It is imperative to recognize that there are two important parts of the crime equation–the victim and the offender. To better develop a complete understanding of the causes and prevention of crime, the student will be required to look at the entire equation. We then can begin to apply what has been learned toward the academic pursuit of criminology, as well as more fully understand the applied practices of the criminal justice system. It is then we are better informed of their effectiveness in addressing the needs of victims, as well as aiding in the reform and rehabilitation measures afforded the criminal actor in our system.

Attributions

1. Chapter opening image: image released under the Pexels License