Victimology: Origins, Evolution and Implications

First we need to look at what is Victimology and where did it come from? The origins of Victimology can be traced back to the 1940’s to the 1950’s and early 1960’s it erupted after World War II to seek and understand the relationship between criminal and victim. It began when criminologist had came together to examine the victims of crime at a university. ‘Criminology is the science upon which victimology is founded’ (Wallace; Roberson 2) and when two criminologists, “The founding fathers of Victimology” Mendelsohn and Von Hentig first began the field of victimology by using charts and analysis of different types of crimes of victims. They studied the behaviors and vulnerabilities of victims like, rape victims and murder victims. How some of the ways that some of us can relate to of what a victim is. As Wallace; Roberson writes:

According to Nash, the definition of “victim” is a slippery concept. Nast notes that as a matter of law, whether someone is a victim of a crime may depend, among other things, on the type and extent of injury sustained, the tenuousness of the connection of injury to the offender’s conduct, and whether the victim was at fault in the criminal transactions. Nash also note that that the term, “victim” is inconsistently applied in the various arenas of federal criminal law. While the definitions of “victim found in the federal restitution and victim’s rights statutes are functionally identical, the federal Rules of Criminal Procedure define “victim” differently. (Wallace; Roberson