VICTIMOLOGY CONTRIBUTES TO THE REDISCOVERY PROCESS
The emergence and acceptance of victimology as a scholarly endeavor has propelled the rediscovery process onward.
The beginnings of the academic discipline of vic- timology can be traced back to several articles, books, and research projects initiated by criminologists dur- ing the 1940s and 1950s. Until that time, criminol- ogy’s attention was focused entirely on those who violated the law: who they were, why they engaged in illegal activities, how they were handled by the criminal justice system, whether they should be incar- cerated, and how they might be rehabilitated. Even- tually, perhaps through the process of elimination, several criminologists searching for solutions to the crime problem were drawn to—or stumbled upon—the important role played by victims.
These criminologists considered victims to be worthy of serious study primarily because they were the completely overlooked half of the dyad (pair). The first use in English of the term victimology to refer to the scientific study of people harmed by criminals appeared in a book about murderers writ- ten by a psychiatrist (Wertham, 1949). The first scholars to consider themselves victimologists examined the presumed vulnerabilities of certain
kinds of people, such as the very young, the very old, recent immigrants, and the mentally incompe- tent (Von Hentig, 1948); the “kinds of people,” (in terms of factors such as age and sex), whose actions contributed to their own violent deaths (Wolfgang, 1958); and the degree of resistance put up by rape victims (Mendelsohn, 1940).
Beniamin Mendelsohn, a defense attorney in Romania, wrote and spoke during the 1940s and 1950s about how victims were ignored, disre- spected, and abused within the criminal justice pro- cess. He proposed ways to help and protect them by creating victim assistance clinics and special research institutes, and he campaigned for victims’ rights. For his foresight, he might be deemed “the father of victimology” (Dussich, 2009b).
During the 1960s, as the problem of street crime intensified, the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice argued that criminologists ought to pay more atten- tion to victims (thereby inspiring some to become victimologists). The Commission’s Task Force on Assessment (1967, p. 80) concluded:
One of the most neglected subjects in the study of crime is its victims: the persons, households, and businesses that bear the brunt of crime in the United States. Both the part the victim can play in the criminal act and the part he could have played in preventing it are often overlooked. If it could be determined with sufficient specificity that people or businesses with certain characteristics are more likely than others to be crime victims, and that crime is more likely to occur in some places rather than in others, efforts to control and prevent crime would be more productive. Then the public could be told where and when the risks of crime are greatest. Measures such as preventive police patrol and installation of burglar alarms and special locks could then be pursued more efficiently and effectively. Individuals could then substitute objective estimation of risk for the general apprehensiveness that today restricts—perhaps unnecessarily and at best haphazardly—their enjoyment of parks and their freedom of movement on the streets after dark.
T H E R E D I S C OV ER Y OF C R I M E VI CT I M S 49
9781337027786, Crime Victims: An Introduction to Victimology, Ninth Edition, Karmen – © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. No distribution allowed without express authorization.
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In this call for a shift in focus, the Commis- sion’s Task Force stressed the potential practical benefits: More crimes could be prevented and more criminals caught, unrealistic fears could be calmed and unwarranted complacency dispelled, and needless expenditures could be eliminated or reduced. These ambitious goals have not yet been attained. Other goals not cited by the commission that have been added over the years include reducing suffering, making the criminal justice sys- tem more responsive, and restoring victims to the financial condition they were in before the crime occurred.
During the 1960s and 1970s, criminologists, reformers, and political activists argued persuasively that offenders themselves were in some sense “victims” too—of the desperation caused by pov- erty in the midst of plenty, dysfunctional families, failing school systems, rundown housing, job shortages, discrimination, police brutality, and other social problems (for example, see Ryan, 1971). In reaction to this sympathetic characteriza- tion of lawbreakers, many people asked, “But what about the real flesh-and-blood individuals that they preyed upon who were innocent, law-abiding, and vulnerable? What can be done to ease their suffer- ing?” While grappling with that question, reformers came to recognize that persons targeted by crim- inals were being systematically abandoned to their fates and that institutionalized neglect had prevailed for too long. A consensus began to emerge that people harmed by illegal acts deserved better treat- ment. Plans for financial assistance were the focus of early discussions; campaigns for enhanced rights within the legal system soon followed.
By the 1970s, victimology had become a rec- ognized field of study with its own national and international professional organizations, confer- ences, and journals. Courses in victimology sprang up on many campuses, in part because students wanted to discuss their own personal experiences— which must be explored with great sensitivity (see Cares, 2012). By the end of the 1990s, students were taking victimology classes at more than 240 colleges and universities.
The milestones that mark victimology’s rela- tively brief history, plus the major pioneering efforts to provide tangible help to crime victims are pre- sented in Box 2.1.