Introduction to Victimology

The scientific study of victims, victimization, victim-offender relationships, the effects of crime, and institutional and social responses to victims.

Benjamin Mendelsohn, although Hans von Hentig also made foundational contributions.

Hans von Hentig.

He examined interactions between offenders and victims and proposed that victim characteristics and circumstances could influence victimization patterns.

He helped establish victimology as a field and developed an influential historical typology of victims based on alleged degrees of responsibility.

They are historical frameworks that can encourage victim blaming and must not replace legal standards or evidence about offender responsibility.

The direct harm suffered by a person as a result of a criminal act.

Victimization experienced by the person directly targeted or harmed by an offense.

Harm experienced by others affected by an offense, such as family members or dependents, even when they were not directly targeted.

A person directly harmed by the criminal act under examination.

A person who experiences consequential harm from an offense committed against someone else, such as a close relative of a homicide victim.

A historical perspective examining whether interactions preceding an offense contributed to the circumstances of victimization.

Marvin E. Wolfgang.

Patterns in Criminal Homicide.

A research classification in which the eventual homicide victim was identified as the first participant to use physical force in the fatal interaction.

The sequence of physical acts does not by itself determine intent, justification, proportionality, or criminal liability.

Active precipitation refers to direct interactions believed to contribute to an offense; passive precipitation refers to circumstances attributed to a victim without deliberate provocation.

It may shift attention away from offender accountability and can confuse situational analysis with blaming the person harmed.

A theory proposing that routine lifestyles and social activities influence exposure to places, times, and situations associated with victimization risk.

Michael J. Hindelang, Michael R. Gottfredson, and James Garofalo.

Victims of Personal Crime: An Empirical Foundation for a Theory of Personal Victimization.

The extent to which a person's activities bring them into contact with settings where potential offenders may be encountered.

Physical or social closeness to settings or individuals associated with opportunities for offending.

Different schedules can change travel times, locations visited, social contacts, and environmental conditions.

The probability of experiencing a specified form of victimization within a defined population and period.

The experience of two or more victimization incidents affecting the same person, household, organization, or target.

A pattern in which a crime is followed by elevated risk of similar offenses at nearby locations within a relatively short period.

The proposition that relatively stable characteristics of a target or location repeatedly attract or facilitate offending.

The proposition that an initial offense temporarily increases subsequent risk, for example because the offender learns about the target.

Flag emphasizes persistent target vulnerability, while boost emphasizes increased risk caused by information or conditions arising from an earlier offense.

Exposure to multiple distinct forms of victimization, especially a concept used in research on children and adolescents.

Experiencing victimization again after an earlier victimization, whether by the same or a different offender.

The social or personal connection between the person harmed and the alleged or identified offender.

An offense in which the victim and offender had no prior personal relationship or meaningful acquaintance.

An offense involving a victim and offender who knew each other before the incident but were not necessarily close relations.

It helps distinguish patterns of domestic, acquaintance, and stranger offending and informs prevention and support strategies.

A research instrument asking respondents about experiences of crime, including incidents that may not have been reported to police.

Crime that occurs but is not recorded in official crime statistics, often because it is not reported or detected.

They collect self-reported experiences of victimization, including some incidents absent from police records.

They may be affected by memory errors, nonresponse, misunderstanding, sampling problems, and reluctance to disclose sensitive incidents.

Systematic error caused by inaccurate recollection of whether, when, or how an incident occurred.

Misremembering an event as occurring more recently or less recently than it actually did, potentially placing it in the wrong reference period.

A defined reporting period designed to improve consistency when respondents identify relevant incidents.

The number of victimization incidents or victims relative to a specified population or exposure measure during a defined period.

Victimization surveys and police records use different data sources, reporting processes, coverage, and definitions.

The boost explanation of repeat victimization.

The flag explanation of repeat victimization.

Lifestyle-exposure theory, without implying responsibility for the offender's conduct.

Polyvictimization.

An indirect or secondary victim.

Forward telescoping.

A possible dark figure of crime arising from unreported or otherwise unrecorded incidents.

Analyze risks and circumstances without transferring responsibility for criminal conduct from the offender to the person harmed.