Victimology and the Victim
Victimology is the study of crime and its victims. The perpetrator or offender is at one end of the spectrum and the victim at the other. The criminal and the victim represent opposing sides in the war against right or wrong. The victim is typically perceived as the innocent person who became prey to the guilty person who was on the opposing side of morality. The criminal was the bad guy and the victim was the good guy.
In 1948, however, Hans von Hentig, a German criminologist, began to change the societal attitudes towards crime following his study of several homicide victims. Hentig is credited as being a founder of the theory of victimology and was the first to suggest that the victim himself is “one of the many causes of crime,” reports Stephen Schafer, The Criminal and his Victim. Hentig’s theory altered societal attitudes and influenced change by … Read More