Victimology and the criminal justice system
Als iets niet in de les wordt gezegd dat wel in de teksten staat, wordt dat niet
gevraagd op het examen.
Introduction
Victimology since 1948
Lam of gold= Jesus victim comes from victima which means sacrifice
Risk of victimisation: annual homicide rate
How do we know that only one in ten rapes are reported? : victim surveys
Les 2:
Different perspectives on victimology
• International legal perspectives?
The crime of genocide
Vanzee from Berlin and the country Armenia
There was an Arminian genocide and its been shadowed.
Planned and legal genocide, but Hitler statement: making people
forget that the people of Armenia doesn’t exist
1948: Lemkin: the crime of genocide (Sands, 2016)
• Genocide convention:
• International crimes/ Crimes against humanity”
1947: If this is a man
• Primo Levi: If this is a man, aka Survival in Auschwitz
• See also Jean Amery At the minds limits
• Experiences with the Shoah as important victimological work
International legal perspectives
Truth commissions most well-known Truth and Reconciliation
Commission of South Africa
International Criminal Tribunals of Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the
1990s
Rome-statute 1998
Supranational victimology/ criminology: very recent most work
in this area does not refer to victimology
Coined the word victimology? Benjamin Mendelsohn
• Rumanian Lawyer
• Coined the word “victimology”
Hans Von Hentig
German professor
, Fled to the US from Nazi-Germany
‘The criminal and his victim’ from 1948
Seen to be the founder of victimology
‘Victim precipitation’
Von Hentig:
‘why in history has everyone always focused on the guy with the big
stick, the hero, the activist, to the neglect of the poor slob who is at
the end of the stick, the victim, the passivist – or maybe, the poor
slob (in bandages) isn’t all that much of a passivist victim – maybe
he asked for it?’
Role of the victim in the event of crime
Positive: how can (potential) victims protect themselves, see also
crime prevention.
Negative: should we blame the victim for his or her conduct?
Examples of the negative and the positive
Amir: Patterns in Forcible Rape (1973)
Emphasized the role of victims of rape in their victimization
Victimological risk analysis: who runs the most risk of being
victimized?
Other main issues in criminological victimology
Fear of crime
Impact of victimization on punitiveness:
Repeat victimization
How do we know these things?
Answer: crime victim surveys
What is the main purpose of crime victim surveys?
Answer: measure the volume (prevalence and incidence) of
crime, including the “dark number”
Limitations of official statistics
• The dark number
o Not all crimes are reported or detected by police
Island has the highest reported crimes
o Not all reported crimes are duly recorded (zijn geregistreerd)
o Many crimes rely on victim reports
o How many crimes remain hidden/how many victims of crime are
there???
• Accuracy
o Differences in/ changes in definitions
o Depend on willingness/ ability to register
o Can be manipulated police
• Difficulties for cross-country comparison and understanding
trends
• Lack of variables for further study
,All problems solved?
• Well no….
• Much depends on the questions asked
• For instance: prevalence of sexual violence in Belgium
• Pieters et al 2010 life time prevalence 5,6% women and 0,8%
man
• Schapanksy et al 2021 life time prevalence 81% women and 47%
man
• Why?
• Schapansky et al use BSQ: behavior specific questions: “has anyone
kissed you against your will?/ has anyone undressed you
againstyour will?
• Criminological perspectives
• Starting point for criminological perspectives on victimisation
• How much crime is there, and what role do victims play in
crime?
• Largely relatively routine forms of crime
• A key issue:
• Difficulties in defining criminal victimization (who gets to
define it?)
• Social psychological perspectives
Classic experiments in social psychology
• Standford prison experiment: divided respondent in 2 groups: the
guards and die prisoners: how will they behave, the guards
became violent towards the inmates
• Millgram experiment:
• Milgram Obedience Study
• Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment
• Sherif’s Robbers Cave Experiment
• See also Darley’s Bystander effect
• Rooted in the desire to try to explain the occurrences in the
Second World War:
• The idea of Ordinary Men is important here: to what extent do
social forces and roles end up defining who is a killer and who is
a victim?
Some specific relevant issues in social psychology
• Lerner and Simmons (1968): the belief in a just world
• Thibaut and Walker (1975): the role of procedures in getting just
outcomes
• Baumeister and colleagues (1990): the magnitude gap between
“offenders and victims”
• Haslam (2006): Dehumanization
• Noor et al (2012): Competitive victimhood
, Baumeister,Stillwell and Wortman (1990)
• 2 stories:
o You were angered by someone else (victim)
o You angered someone else (perpetrator)
Offender was more likely to write a story with an happy
ending
‘The Moralization Gap’ (Baumeister, 1997)
• Differences in the moral tone:
o Perpetrator sees justifications, victims see actions as wholly
unjustified
• Differences in impact
o Perpetrator minimizes magnitude, sees impact as reparable, victim
emphasizes severity and irreparable nature of crime
• Differences in the role of the context
o Perpetrator attributes the event to context-factors, victim attributes
the event to the perpetrator
• Differences in time frame
o Perpetrator sees pre-cursors and aftermath limitied in time-frame,
victims’ narrative extends through time
The
‘moralization gap’ (Pinker, 2011)
• Differences in narratives form part of the explanation for cycles
of revenge
• Even when retaliation is exactly balanced, its story will not be
• See also “The Myth of Pure Evil” viewing offenders through the
“perpetrator’s narrative”
Als iets niet in de les wordt gezegd dat wel in de teksten staat, wordt dat niet
gevraagd op het examen.
Introduction
Victimology since 1948
Lam of gold= Jesus victim comes from victima which means sacrifice
Risk of victimisation: annual homicide rate
How do we know that only one in ten rapes are reported? : victim surveys
Les 2:
Different perspectives on victimology
• International legal perspectives?
The crime of genocide
Vanzee from Berlin and the country Armenia
There was an Arminian genocide and its been shadowed.
Planned and legal genocide, but Hitler statement: making people
forget that the people of Armenia doesn’t exist
1948: Lemkin: the crime of genocide (Sands, 2016)
• Genocide convention:
• International crimes/ Crimes against humanity”
1947: If this is a man
• Primo Levi: If this is a man, aka Survival in Auschwitz
• See also Jean Amery At the minds limits
• Experiences with the Shoah as important victimological work
International legal perspectives
Truth commissions most well-known Truth and Reconciliation
Commission of South Africa
International Criminal Tribunals of Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the
1990s
Rome-statute 1998
Supranational victimology/ criminology: very recent most work
in this area does not refer to victimology
Coined the word victimology? Benjamin Mendelsohn
• Rumanian Lawyer
• Coined the word “victimology”
Hans Von Hentig
German professor
, Fled to the US from Nazi-Germany
‘The criminal and his victim’ from 1948
Seen to be the founder of victimology
‘Victim precipitation’
Von Hentig:
‘why in history has everyone always focused on the guy with the big
stick, the hero, the activist, to the neglect of the poor slob who is at
the end of the stick, the victim, the passivist – or maybe, the poor
slob (in bandages) isn’t all that much of a passivist victim – maybe
he asked for it?’
Role of the victim in the event of crime
Positive: how can (potential) victims protect themselves, see also
crime prevention.
Negative: should we blame the victim for his or her conduct?
Examples of the negative and the positive
Amir: Patterns in Forcible Rape (1973)
Emphasized the role of victims of rape in their victimization
Victimological risk analysis: who runs the most risk of being
victimized?
Other main issues in criminological victimology
Fear of crime
Impact of victimization on punitiveness:
Repeat victimization
How do we know these things?
Answer: crime victim surveys
What is the main purpose of crime victim surveys?
Answer: measure the volume (prevalence and incidence) of
crime, including the “dark number”
Limitations of official statistics
• The dark number
o Not all crimes are reported or detected by police
Island has the highest reported crimes
o Not all reported crimes are duly recorded (zijn geregistreerd)
o Many crimes rely on victim reports
o How many crimes remain hidden/how many victims of crime are
there???
• Accuracy
o Differences in/ changes in definitions
o Depend on willingness/ ability to register
o Can be manipulated police
• Difficulties for cross-country comparison and understanding
trends
• Lack of variables for further study
,All problems solved?
• Well no….
• Much depends on the questions asked
• For instance: prevalence of sexual violence in Belgium
• Pieters et al 2010 life time prevalence 5,6% women and 0,8%
man
• Schapanksy et al 2021 life time prevalence 81% women and 47%
man
• Why?
• Schapansky et al use BSQ: behavior specific questions: “has anyone
kissed you against your will?/ has anyone undressed you
againstyour will?
• Criminological perspectives
• Starting point for criminological perspectives on victimisation
• How much crime is there, and what role do victims play in
crime?
• Largely relatively routine forms of crime
• A key issue:
• Difficulties in defining criminal victimization (who gets to
define it?)
• Social psychological perspectives
Classic experiments in social psychology
• Standford prison experiment: divided respondent in 2 groups: the
guards and die prisoners: how will they behave, the guards
became violent towards the inmates
• Millgram experiment:
• Milgram Obedience Study
• Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment
• Sherif’s Robbers Cave Experiment
• See also Darley’s Bystander effect
• Rooted in the desire to try to explain the occurrences in the
Second World War:
• The idea of Ordinary Men is important here: to what extent do
social forces and roles end up defining who is a killer and who is
a victim?
Some specific relevant issues in social psychology
• Lerner and Simmons (1968): the belief in a just world
• Thibaut and Walker (1975): the role of procedures in getting just
outcomes
• Baumeister and colleagues (1990): the magnitude gap between
“offenders and victims”
• Haslam (2006): Dehumanization
• Noor et al (2012): Competitive victimhood
, Baumeister,Stillwell and Wortman (1990)
• 2 stories:
o You were angered by someone else (victim)
o You angered someone else (perpetrator)
Offender was more likely to write a story with an happy
ending
‘The Moralization Gap’ (Baumeister, 1997)
• Differences in the moral tone:
o Perpetrator sees justifications, victims see actions as wholly
unjustified
• Differences in impact
o Perpetrator minimizes magnitude, sees impact as reparable, victim
emphasizes severity and irreparable nature of crime
• Differences in the role of the context
o Perpetrator attributes the event to context-factors, victim attributes
the event to the perpetrator
• Differences in time frame
o Perpetrator sees pre-cursors and aftermath limitied in time-frame,
victims’ narrative extends through time
The
‘moralization gap’ (Pinker, 2011)
• Differences in narratives form part of the explanation for cycles
of revenge
• Even when retaliation is exactly balanced, its story will not be
• See also “The Myth of Pure Evil” viewing offenders through the
“perpetrator’s narrative”
