SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENTS

BENIAMIN MENDELSOHN- Father of Victimology

1937, mendelsohn was gathering information about

victims for his law practice. His research includes victims
of rape.
VICTIMOLOGY- Science of studying victims

VICTIMINITY- state, quality or fact of being a

victim
The formulation of UNITED NATIONS helped
stimulate victimology’s development.
Mendelsohn and others formulated a broad
based Victimology that considered not merely
crime scene victims, but all victims. Such as
victims produced by politics, by technology,
accidents as well as by crime.
• Henri Ellenberger • Hans von Hentig
Hans Von Hentig
Stephen Schafer
Eduard Ziegenhagen
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

1960’s
 Warren Court
(Supreme Court Of U.S.)
Chief Justice Earl Warren

 Due Process and

Rights of Defendants
(1963-66)
 1970’s Carter Administration
 Equal Rights Amendment
-Women's Movement

 Civil Rights Movement

-Defendants Rights
-Equal Protection of the Law

 1979, World Society of Victimology

accepted the Mendelsohn’s broad
definition of Victimology.
1980’s Reagan Administration
Created the President’s
Task Force on Victims of Crime

Omnibus Victims of Crime Act

Crime Victim Assistance Act

 Victimology in Criminology
The term criminology was coined in 1885 by
Italian law professor RAFAELLE
GAROFALO as criminologia.

As far back as 1937, when Beniamin Mendelsohn

began gathering information about victims for
his law practice.
Radical criminology
holds that crime is caused by the social and
economic forces of society.

Critical criminology
is a theoretical perspective in criminology
which focuses on challenging traditional
understandings and uncovering false beliefs about
crime and criminal justice, often but not
exclusively by taking a conflict perspective, such
as Marxism, feminism, political economy theory
or critical theory.
 Most Victimologists began in Criminology.

Several writers have suggested that victimology fills

important gaps, which now allows criminology to
finally establish itself as a science, and without it,
criminology would lose half of its subject matter:
VICTIMS. Victimology has not only brought victims
into criminology, it has also exposed the victim-
offender relationship without which criminology
could not claim to be a complete science.
Victimology beyond Criminology

(We should avoid being) the intellectual who can

make the most atrocious act of murder seem
natural and just, while arguing that a
spontaneous act of self-defense is violence
demanding the most severe punishment, the
bland advocate whose hands remain spotlessly
white while he sanctions the killing of the most
innocent among the oppressed.
BRUCE FRANKLIN, The Victim as Criminal and Artist
 Some complain that Victimologists have
preferred the most common, least controversial,
most easily applicable definitions of victims.
Instead, we must broaden our definitions, and
enter on-going debates about victims of
consumer fraud, pollution, poverty malnutrition,
inequality, racism, sexism and ageism, mental
health, and legal injustices.
Feminist Victimologists
invoked international human rights
standards in examining female victims, such as
victims of sexual slavery. Others argue that we
must study victimization caused by the state and
its power structure, looking not merely at
individuals, but at relationships of power and
oppression, and considering victimization such as
genocide, displacement, persecution, and
discrimination.
 A Global Victimology
could help institutionalize an international
criminal law and crime rate. It could consider
gov’ts as well as individuals as victimizers.
END