HISTORY OF
VICTIMOLOGY
By Fachri Bey, SH. MM.
Dean
University of Indonusa Esa Unggul School of Law
Jakarta Indonesia
Senior Lecturer of Victimology
University of Indonesia School of Law
Depok Indonesia
History of victimology
• Victimology as an academic terminology contains two elements :
One is the Latin word “Victima” translates into “victim”
• The other is the Greek word “logos” means a system of knowledge,
the direction of something abstract, the direction of teaching,
science, discipline.(Kirchhoff 2005-42)
• Victim means a person harmed by a crime, tort, or other wrongful
act .(Black Law Dictionary:1999)
• Victims are persons threatened, injured or destroy by an act or
omission of another man/structure,organization/institution.
• (Separovic, 1969)
Wellknown victimologist
• Hans von Hentig, Benyamin Mendelshon,
Paul Cornil,W.H. Nagel, Hidemichi
Morosawa, Israel Drapkin, John P.J.
Dussich, Gerd Ferdinand Kirchhoff,Ezzat
Fattah, Zvonimir Paul Separovic, Paul C.
Friday, Elias Neuman, Robert Elias, Irvin
Waller, Sarah Ben David, Kerr, Reif,
Marlene A.Young, Hans Joachim Schneider
Sahetaphy, and so on.
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Victim of Crime
• Victims means persons who, individually or
collectively, have suffered harm, including
physical or mental injury, emotional suffering,
economic loss or substantial impairment of their
fundamental rights, through acts or omissions
that are in violation of criminal laws operative
with in member state, including those laws
proscribing criminal abuse of power.
• (UN Declaration 1985 on Basic Principles of
Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power)
• 1764 Cecare Beccaria in Milan introduces
“modern” criminal law.
• 1923 Edwin H. Sutherland : wrote “Criminology”
had the title “The Victims of Crime”.
• 1929 “There is a book on victims” by J.R. Fuguora
& D. Tejera, F.Pla.
• 1937, March 29th, Hans von Hentig & Benyamin
Mendelshon in a paper presented to a meeting of
the Psychiatric Society in Bucharest Rumania,
gave the outline of a new social science which he
called “Victimology”.
• 1941 Hans von Hentig wrote and published a paper
“ Remarks on the Integration of Perpetrator and
Victim”
•1948 Hans von Hentig published his book :
“The criminal and His Victim” The first
textbook published that wrote on crime of
victims.
•1954 Ellenberger made a study about
psychological relationship between the
criminal and his victim
•1958 Mendelshon : Six demands published,
serve as a classical example of the vision of
new science,own journal, own institute, own
international society, own international
simposia, and own victimological clinics.
• 1963 Criminal Compensation Act Compensation
New Zealand
• 1964 United States, UK and Australia. Margaret
Fry fight for a new criminal law system.
• 1966 California State Compensation Act. Japan
Criminal Indemnity Law.
• 1967 Canada Criminal Compensation Injuries Act.
Cuba before Castro, and Swiss.
• 1967 Stephan Schafer introduced the
terminology of compensation.
• 1970 International Congress of Criminology VI established
organisation of victimology.
• 1973 The First Simposia of Victimology in Jerusalem.
Prof.DR.Israel Drapkin wrote a paper ; “Critical Reasoning
alone barren”
• 1974 ISC the first international recommended for
Victimology
• 1975 Criminal Compensation Act in Holland
• 1976 Emilio Viano edited The First Journal of Victimology
and published.
• 1976 The Second Simposia of Victimology in Boston USA.
• 1979 The Third Simposia of Victimology in University of
Wesphalia Germany.
• 1985 UN Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for
Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power.
• The Declaration deals with these basic principles :
• Remedies to assist victims in their need information.
• Participation of the victim in the criminal justice process
• Restitution by the offender
• Compensation by the State
• Acces to victim assistance.
• 1986 Robert Elias published his book and the volume about
The politics of Victimization ; Victims, ; Victimology and
Human Right.
• In many criminal cases, The attention and
protection of the law enforcement authorities
give only to the offender, however, the victims
get minor attention.
• The victims suffered harm :
• Physical or mental injury
• Emotional suffering
• Economic loss
• Substantial impairment of the fundamental rights.
Formulation of the law, regulation, act,
thinking, are dedicated only to the
offenders, about how to guarantee their
rigts, how to educate/ train them properly
in correctional institution, how to protect
their rights before the police officers,
district attorney as well as in trial process
before the judge
• The public prosecutor/district
attorney tend to be extremely
careful in indicting the accused,
inasmuch they are controlled
frequently by the lawyer of accused.
• The rights of the victims of crime
have never been thinking seriously
nor to provide them the proper and
adequate treatment by the law
enforcement authorities.
example
• A robbery case inside the Cab:
a girl back home from work. She takes an unloaded
cab. However, when the cab is driven along the
street suddenly somebody appears from the front
seat next to the driver. He/ she threat,assault,
and picks up her valuable goods. The driver is his
companion so he also take part in this crime by
raping the girl. At the end, the girl was found
fainted due to the raping and assaulting series.
• People who found her somewhere
along the street side, take her to the
hospital subsequently and she soon
get medical treatment and
psychological trauma treatment
respectively. She bear her own costs
since nobody pay attention or afford
to bear her costs.
The rape trauma of the
victims
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Insomnia, menstruation disorder,headache
Stress, afraid with aids, vd,difficult concentrating, feling out of
control
Self blaming, pscychosomatic
Suicidal impulses, depression
Hate/phobi to male, frigid, no libido
Become lesbian, change sex orientation
Phobi to everything relation with the rape
She suffered physical harm, mentality harm, and material/
financial harm.
So the victims need carring, preventing, protecting, assisting,
reducing suffering and restituting (Sessar 1986 919)
• In criminal justice system victims always abuse and neglect.
• Okamura claims that the official system has used and
abused the victims with out giving proper rights’
• Victims want participation and they are clear about :
• 1. they way a seat in the court room
• 2. they want acces to the files
• 3. they want to have their own interets in criminal
proceedings acknowledged (Kirchhoff 2005 -63)
• Reiff 1979 wrote about a couple
husband and wife, rober and torture
in New York. No one help them. They
suicide in they apartment and leave a
paper : we don’t want to live in fear
anymore.
• The lawyer of the offenders tend to
(always) talk about the human rights
protection of the offender which
render the public prosecutor feel
uncertain.
• The scope of Victimology not only in
criminal law and criminology field but
has been developed to other fields as
well.
• Criminology - offender oriented
• Victimology - victim oriented
Conventional victims
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Victims of robery
Victims of rape
Victims of murder
Victims of deception
Victims of assault/battery
Victims of torture
Inconventional victims
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Victims of technology
Victims of environment pollution
Victims of traffic accident
Victims of apartheid
Victims of slavery
Victims of trafficking
Victims of genocide
Victims of organized crime
Victims of terrorist
Victims of crime against human right
Victims of malpractice
Victims of disaster
• The victimologist in the past and in
the present time come from
different academic or professional
backgrounds – from sociology or from
law, from psychiatry or from
psychology, from social work, and
from management, (Kirchhhoff 200542)
• Victimology was born from its
‘mother’, namely Criminology.
• Historically, victimology bloomed in
criminology (Kirchhoff 1995-37)
• In many countries victimology are treated
not only as a new knowledge , a new
emerging field, but also as a “terra
incognita” (undiscovered land)
• After sixty years (from 1940s)
victimology has established itself
both as a perspective and a viable
force in the evaluation of criminal
justice system around the world.
• Through the activities of the World
Society of Victimology, international
symposia, and courses, there has
been considerable information and
idea generated regarding victimology.