What ails Victimology?

K. Jaishankar

Abstract:

More than sixty years have passed, since Frederick Wertham, Benjamin Mendelsohn and Hans von Hentig introduced the concept of 'Victimology', nevertheless, till date victimology has not been recognized as a distinct academic discipline. In 1985, Cressey declared that, victimology is "a non-academic programme under which a hodgepodge of ideas, interests, ideologies and research methods has been rather arbitrarily grouped"(cited in Elias, 1994, p.9)and he also felt that victimology should be merged with criminology, if it does not possess proper orientation. Dutch criminologist Nagel (1959, 1963) also pointed the same view before Cressey (cited in Djik, 1999, p.1). Sarre (1994) and Sneider (2001) are also of the opinion that victimology is a part of criminology. Rock (1994) argues that victimology is a "relatively amorphous discipline"(Cited in Fattah 2000, p.24). There are also strong critics like Elias (1994) and Fattah (2000) who feels that victimology should be streamlined.

Keyword:

Victimology ,non-academic programme ,relatively amorphous discipline