Published in : O. Hagemann, P. Schäfer & S. Schmidt, (2010) Victimology, Victim Assistance
and Criminal Justice, Perspectives Shared by International Experts at the Inter-University Centre
of Dubrovnik. Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, Mönchengladbach, D.
A SHORT HISTORY OF VICTIMOLOGY
Jo-Anne Wemmers, Ph.D.
Université de Montréal
INTRODUCTION
It is often said that crime is as old as mankind. But if crime is an age-old phenomenon, it is only
recently that researchers have turned their attention to victims of crime. In fact, the word victim
did not appear in the English language until 1497. Derived from the Latin word victima, the word
originally did not refer to crime victims but to a living creature killed and offered as a sacrifice to
a deity or supernatural power (Oxford Dictionary, 1983) We can still find traces of this original
meaning of the word victim in modern languages such as Dutch and German. In Dutch the word
for victim is slachtoffer. This word consists of two parts: slacht refers to slaughter and offer
refers to offering. Similarly, in German the word for victim is opfer; which represents a person
or thing that is offered in sacrifice. It was not until 1660 that the word victim was first used to in
the sense of a person who is hurt, tortured or killed by another. In other words, the concept of
victim of crime did not exist until well into the 17th century. Why were victims ignored for so
long? And what led to their recognition after centuries of obscurity? In this chapter we will
examine the origin of victimology and its evolution.
THE BIRTH OF VICTIMOLOGY
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 Hentig’s book, The
Criminal and His Victim. Published in 1948, this book examines the relationship between the
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2482627
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.
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 BioSocial-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 victimoffender 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 word victimology, in this article Mendelsohn introduced
new terms such as victimal (the opposite of criminal) and victimality (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.
Mendelsohn’s vision for the future of victimology is remarkable. In setting the parameters of this
new science, Mendelsohn asks if victimology should include mass victimization, political
victims as well as international victims. His response was that time will tell. As will become
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2482627
clear when we examine the evolution of victimology, in recent years the notion of mass
victimization has gained in importance. In part, this is due to the establishment of the
International Criminal Court: a development that was inconceivable in 1956.
Other early works on victims include the work by Rhoda Milliken, a police officer in
Washington D.C., who in 1950, drew attention to the suffering of victims of sexual violence
following their victimization. In 1952, R. Tahone, Public Prosecutor at the Court of Appeal in
Liège (Belgium) published an article on the notion of consent in which he argued that victims’
compliance did not diminish the criminal nature of their victimization nor did it hinder
prosecution. Two years later, in 1954, Henri Ellenberger, published an article on the
psychological relationship between victims and offenders.
Real interest in victimology began after the Second World War. Mendelsohn (1974) 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 victimologists did not write about events like the Holocaust
until the late 1960s (see for example Mendelsohn, 1969). 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.
THE DISSEMINATION OF VICTIMOLOGY
In 1956, Mendelsohn argued that this new science of victimology would need it own institutions
and academic journals. Two years after the publication of Mendelsohn’s seminal work, Professor
Paul Cornil of Brussels, organized a first conference on victimology for the Dutch-Flemish
society of criminology in 1958. Conference participants included Professor Willem Nagel
(Leiden, The Netherlands), Professor Willy Callewaert (Gent, Belgium), and Professor Willem
Noach (Utrecht, The Netherlands). One year later, the Revue de droit penal et de criminologie
published a special issue on victimology in which several papers from this conference were
published (Cornil, 1959).
Israel Drapkin organized the first international symposium on victimology, which was held in
Israel in 1973 (Drapkin & Viano, 1974). Three years later, in 1976, a second international
symposium was organized by Stephan Schafer in Boston (USA). In 1979, the third international
symposium on victimology took place in Münster, Germany under the leadership of Hans
Joachim Schneider and it was at this symposium that the World Society of Victimology (WSV)
was created. Since then, the World Society of Victimology has organized international symposia
on victimology every three years.
The first academic journal dedicated to victimology was Victimology: An International Journal,
which first appeared in 1976 and was edited by Emilio Viano. In 1988 the International Review
of Victimology was founded by John Freeman and continues today to be a key resource for
victimologists (Wemmers, 2003). Today there are numerous journals that deal with victimology
including the Violence and Victims, International Perspectives on Victimology, Journal of
Traumatic Stress, Victims and Offenders and the Journal international de victimologie.
In addition to international symposia and academic journals, there are presently two international
research institutes for victimology. There is Tokiwa International Victimology Institute (TIVI) at
Tokiwa University in Japan and the International Institute of Victimology (INTERVICT) at the
University of Tilburg. The Netherlands. These centres bring together academics from around the
world and promote research and training. With these developments, Mendelsohn’s vision for
victimology has become reality.
THE WORLD SOCIETY OF VICTIMOLOGY
Throughout the evolution of victimology, the World Society of Victimology has played a key
role. Founded in 1979, the Society is a not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization with
consultative status category II with the ECOSOC of the United Nations and the Council of
Europe. Its goals are: 1) to promote research on victims and victim assistance; 2) to advocate
victims’ interests throughout the world; 3) to encourage interdisciplinary and comparative
research in victimology; 4) to advance the cooperation of international, regional and local
agencies, groups and individuals concerned with the problems of victims.
The tri-annual symposia organized by the Society have been fundamental in the evolution of
victimological research. Since its inception the WSV has organized symposia in Japan (1982),
Yugoslavia (1985), Israel (1988), Brazil (1991), Australia (1994), The Netherlands (1997),
Canada (2000), South Africa (2003) and the United States of America (2006) (World Society of
Victimology, 2008). The next international symposium on victimology will take place in Mito,
Japan in 2009. As a forum for discussion on emerging issues in victimology, these symposia
reflect the newest developments and debates in the field. For example, in 1994, in Australia, one
of the main topics at the symposium was the victim impact statement. Three years later, in
Amsterdam, repeat victimization was a main topic (Van Dijk, 1997). In 2000, the topic of
restorative justice was a major issue at the Montreal symposium (Wemmers, 2003). In 2003 in
South Africa, a key theme of the symposium was human rights (Garkawe, 2004). Three years
later, in Orlando, human trafficking emerged as a main topic.
The WSV sponsors seminars and workshops on victimology in many different countries. The
oldest and perhaps the most well-known of which is the post-graduate course which is held in
Dubrovnik (Croatia). First created in 1976, this two-week course is held annually in the month
of May. During the war in the Former Yugoslavia, the course was temporarily (1994-1997)
moved to Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Kirchhoff, 1997). These seminars and workshops
provide a key opportunity for the training of new victimologists. Especially in the early years of
the society, when university courses on victimology were rare, the Dubrovnik course offered a
unique opportunity to train students from around the world in victimology. The course coincided
with the annual meetings of the WSV Executive Committee and EC members were expected to
lecture at the course. This meant that the students were taught by top victimologists from around
the world. At the same time, these annual meetings provided a rich forum for academics and
practitioners to meet and exchange information. Similar courses have since been introduced in
Japan (since 1998), Latin America (since 2001) and South Africa (since 2003).
In promoting victims’ interests, the Society has been the driving force behind international
victim policy. A key achievement of the WSV is the UN Declaration of Basic Principles of
Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power. Professor Irvin Waller (University of Ottawa,
Canada) and Professor LeRoy Lamborn (Wayne State University, USA), both members of the
WSV, played key roles in the drafting the UN Declaration. A final draft of the Declaration was
presented at the Seventh UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of
Offenders, held in Milan, Italy in 1985 (Fattah, 1992). The UN General Assembly adopted the
Declaration (resolution 40/34) on November 29th 1985. Originally intended as standards and
norms for national governments, the UN Declaration provided the basis for victims’ rights in the
newly established International Criminal Court in The Hague, The Netherlands.
Since then, members of the WSV, together with national governments and the UN, have worked
to create materials such as the The Handbook on Justice for Victims (UNODCCP, 1999), in order
to assist countries in the use and application of the Declaration. More recently, the Declaration
was complemented by the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Rights to a Remedy and
Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious
Violations of International Humanitarian Law (GA, 2005) and by the Guidelines for Child
Victims and Witnesses (ECOSOC, 2005).
However, in spite of these laudable efforts, the rights of victims are still not always adequately
recognized (Groenhuijsen, 1999; Brienen and Hoegen, 2000). As a result, the WSV, together
with the International Institute for Victimology (INTERVICT) is working to promote an
international Convention on Justice and Support for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power.
Conventions have legal standing in international law while declarations do not. As such, a
convention on victims would take victims’ rights beyond good intentions, giving them a legal
basis.
THE FIELD OF VICTIMOLOGY
Since its early beginnings, victimology has struggled with delineating its boundaries. Sparked by
Mendelsohn’s plea for a separate science of victimology, one of the first debates in the area was
whether or not victimology was a branch of criminology or a separate science. Authors such as
Von Hentig took the approach of penal victimology which focused on understanding the crime.
In 1963, Willem Nagel argued that criminology should not limit itself to the study of crime and
criminals but should include the study of crime victims as well. Nagel saw victimology as an
important part of criminology. The question of whether or not victimology is a unique science is
still debated today. An excellent example of this is Ezzat Fattah’s keynote lecture at the 15th
World Congress of the International Society of Criminology in 2008. The title of his keynote
lecture was: The Future of Criminology as a Social Science and Academic Discipline:
Reflections on Criminology’s Unholy Alliance with Criminal Policy & On Current Misguided
Attempts to Divorce Victimology from Criminology.
An overview of the field reveals three main approaches in victimology (Bienkowska, 1992;
Kirchhoff, 1994). The first is penal victimology, which considers victimology as a branch of
criminology and is focused on victims of crimes. The second approach is general victimology. It
includes victims of all types, such as victims of accidents and natural disasters. This approach is
advocated by authors such as John Dussich (Dussich, Underwood & Petersen, 2003) and Sam
Garkawe (2004). The third approach is a human rights approach. Advanced by authors such as
Robert Elias (1985), this approach focuses on man-made victimizations of all kinds including
genocide, torture and slavery.
Advocates of penal victimology, such as Fattah (1991), argue that by limiting itself to criminal
acts, victimology restricts itself to that which is measurable and well-defined. By focusing on
crimes, victimology remains objective and neutral and stays away from becoming political. The
vast majority of research in victimology has focused on victims of conventional crimes, thus
allowing our knowledge and understanding of crime victims to flourish. However, if
victimology is limited to the study of crimes then the criminal code essentially sets its research
agenda. Clearly it is possible that some things are immoral but not criminal. For example, abuses
of power by the State may not constitute crimes in the legal sense but would clearly be
considered immoral. Hence, penal victimology may promote a conservative “law and order”
agenda as it fails to question the State. In this approach, there is no reason to separate
victimology from criminology. Victimology is simply part of criminology, namely that part that
looks at victims.
General victimology is inclusive and does not exclude any victims. This approach recognizes
that the word victim is used in many different contexts besides criminal victimization. As a
result, it covers much more than criminology and is justified as a separate science. Because of its
broad scope, this approach allows us to study crimes by the State and examine criminal
victimization as a symptom of a more general social victimization. For example, the burning of
brides in parts of India and Pakistan, following the refusal of the bride’s family to pay additional
dowry, can be viewed as an expression of the structural victimization of women in these societies
(Schneider, 2001). This broad approach recognizes that victimization is a subjective appraisal
rather than the result of some objective, external criteria. Also, general victimology emphasizes
the similarities in people’s reactions to different types of victimization such as natural disasters.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, for example, can be experienced following any sort of traumatic
event and is not limited to crime victims.
setiap orang adalah korban (dalam arti umum)
However, in general victimology, everyone is a victim and thus the limits of the science are
blurred. Moreover, people’s reactions to intentional victimization are structurally different than
unintentional victimizations (such as earthquakes). When intentionally harmed by another human
being, common reactions include anger and loss of faith in others (Shapland & Hall, 2007).
These reactions are unique to man-made victimizations and do not occur when the victimization
was the result of a natural disasters (Baril, 1984). Moreover, the causes of man-made
victimization versus natural disasters are different. Understanding the causes of a Tsunami
requires very different knowledge (i.e. exact sciences) than understanding the causes of criminal
victimization (i.e. social sciences). Hence, if the objective of victimology is to explain and
prevent victimization then it would make no sense to include victimizations that are not manmade.
The third approach, is a victimology of human rights. This approach corresponds with the
definition of victims that is found in the UN Declaration, which was discussed above. Limiting
the scope of victimology to that found in the UN Declaration is a positivist approach and it is in
itself insufficient reason to justify a human rights approach. After all, with the adoption of a UN
Convention, the definition of victims may change. More important is the significance of this
approach for victimology. Those in favour of this approach, such as Elias (1993), emphasize that
intentional acts by one person against another person are interpreted differently than natural
disasters (acts of God). Moreover, only by limiting victimology to the study of man-made
victimizations, will the science achieve its ultimate objective namely, to explain why
victimization happens. With this knowledge we can help prevent victimization as well as address
the consequences of victimization should prevention fail. Hence the human rights approach is the
most fruitful of the three approaches found in the victimological literature.
Victimology can thus be defined as the scientific study of victims and victimizations attributable
to the violation of human rights, including crimes and the reaction to crime and to the
victimization (Kirchhoff, 1994).
But is victimology separate from criminology when it focuses on man-made victimizations? In
recent years there has been growing interest among criminologists to study crimes against
humanity and to use the human rights approach in criminology (Hagan, Rymond-Richmond &
Parker, 2005; Parmentier & Weitekamp, 2007). Hence, while this human rights approach was
first found in victimology (Elias, 1993) it has since carried over into criminology. In this broad
approach, it would be unnecessary to divorce victimology from criminology.
CONCLUSION
Victimology has changed the way we look at crime. Fifty years after Mendelsohn first
introduced the word “victimology”, it is impossible to think of crimes without including the
consequences for victims. Victimologists have successfully drawn attention to the plight of
victims. This can be seen in the emergence of international instruments such as the UN
Declaration, as well as the new interest of criminologists in crimes against humanity. The World
Society of Victimology, through its role in the dissemination of knowledge and research, has
played a key role in this process.
Victimology is still a young science. While there continues to be much debate about the
boundaries of victimology, clearly, victimology continues to be strongly linked to criminology as
is evidenced in the many studies on criminal victimization. However, victimology has evolved
independently of criminology: establishing its own research journals and institutions specializing
in the study of victims and victimizations. Victimology has matured from a progeny of
criminology to a source of knowledge and inspiration for criminology; influencing the kinds of
questions that criminologist focus on. With such a rich history, victimology promises to continue
to enlighten and inspire future generations.
Useful websites:
www.worldsocietyofvictimology.org
www.tilburguniversity.nl/intervict/
www.tokiwa.ac.jp/-tivi/english/
www.victimology.nl
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