112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS

THE VITAL ROLE OF VICTIMOLOGY IN THE
REHABILITATION OF OFFENDERS AND THEIRREINTEGRATION INTO SOCIETY
Ezzat A. Fattah*
I. INTRODUCTION
This paper is about a relatively new andnot very well known discipline called
victimology. The logical starting point is
to see what victimology is all about, tobriefly trace its beginnings, its historicalevolution, and its present state. I willaddress three major questions that arehighly relevant to the subject-matter of thistraining course. These are:
(1)

(2)

(3)

Why is a good knowledge ofvictimology indispensable forbetter understanding theoffender and the offence?
Why is a good knowledge ofvictimology absolutely essential
for positively changing offenders’attitudes and behaviour?
What new and exciting
possibilities does victimology
offer for the rehabilitation of
offenders and their successful
reintegration into society?

Victimology is a very young discipline,
much younger than its parent discipline:
criminology. Victimology is only fifty years
old but it is neither a fad nor a fashion, it
is a scientific reality that has imposed andaffirmed itself. Its impact on, and its
contribution to, criminology have beensignificant. Victimological research fills anenormous gap in our knowledge about thephenomenon of crime. It satisfies a needdeeply felt by researchers and practitioners

alike for factual and systematic
information about crime victims. It goes
without saying that the study and theunderstanding of the phenomenon of crime
will never be complete unless the victims
are included in the explanatory models. No
valid theory of criminal behaviour canafford to ignore the victim. To try to do sowould be an attempt to explain a dynamic
and interactionist form of humanbehaviour in a unilateral, uni-dimensionaland static manner. This is why the studyof the victim is, and will always remain,
an integral part of criminology.
II. WHAT IS VICTIMOLOGY?
If criminology is the science of crime andcriminal behaviour then, for the sake ofsimplification, we can say that victimology
is the science of victims and victimization.
Theoretical victimology is the study ofcrime victims, their characteristics, theirrelationship to, and their interactions, with
their victimizers, their role, and theiractual contribution to the genesis of thecrime. It is also the study of the impact ofcrime on victims, in particular, thetraumatic effects of victimization, victims’
response to victimization, and the coping
mechanisms they use for healing andrecovery. Applied victimology is theapplication of knowledge acquired from thestudy and research on victims andvictimization in practice to help and assist
those victimized by crime and prevent
victimization.

* Professor Emeritus, School of Criminology, Simon
Fraser University, Canada.

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
III. A BRIEF HISTORY OF
VICTIMOLOGY
Early victimological notions weredeveloped not by criminologist or
sociologist but by poets, writers andnovelists. The first systematic treatmentof victims of crime appeared in 1948 inHans von Hentig’s book ‘The Criminal and
His Victim’. In the fourth part of the book,under the provocative title ‘the Victim’sContribution to the Genesis of the Crime,’von Henting criticized the static
unidimensional study of the offender which
had dominated criminology and suggested
in its place a new dynamic and dyadic
approach that pays equal attention to thecriminal and the victim. Von Hentig had
earlier treated the topic in a paper
published in the Journal of Criminal Law
and Criminology in 1940. In it, he notedthat:
It is true, there are many criminal
deeds with little or no contribution on
the part of the injured individual.
...On the other hand, we canfrequently observe a real mutuality inthe connection of perpetrator andvictim, killer and killed, duper andduped. Although this reciprocal
operation is one of the most curious
phenomena of criminal life, it hasescaped the attention of sociopathology.
In his book, von Hentig (1948:438) is
critical of the legal distinction between
offenders and victims and the criteria usedby the criminal law to make such
attributions:
Most crimes are directed against a
specific individual, his life orproperty, his sexual selfdetermination. For practical reasons,the final open manifestation of humanmotor force which precedes a socially72

undesirable result is designated as thecriminal act, and the actor as the
responsible criminal. The various
degrees and levels of stimulation or
response, the intricate play ofinteracting forces, is scarcely taken
into consideration in our legal
distinctions, which must be simple
and workable.
Elsewhere von Hentig points out that:
The law considers certain results andthe final moves which lead to them.
Here it makes a clear-cut distinction
between the one who does, and the one
who suffers. Looking into the genesisof the situation, in a considerable
number of cases, we meet a victim who
consents tacitly, co-operates, conspires
or provokes. The victim is one of thecausative elements. (p.436)
Von Hentig insisted that many crime
victims contribute to their own
victimization, be it by inciting or provoking
the criminal or by creating or fostering asituation likely to lead to the commissionof the crime. Other pioneers in victimology,
who firmly believed that victims may
consciously or unconsciously play a casualrole, outlined many of the forms thiscontribution can take: negligence,carelessness, recklessness, imprudence,and so forth. They pointed out that thevictim’s role could be a motivational one(attracting, arousing, inducing, inciting) ora functional one (provoking, precipitating,triggering, facilitating, participating)(Fattah, 1991).
Von Hentig’s book was followed by anumber of theoretical studies that dealt
with victim types, victim-offender
relationships, and the role victims play incertain kinds of crime. The book also
provided an impetus for several empiricalstudies that devoted special attention to the112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
victims of specific offences.
The term victimology was coined in 1949
by an American psychiatrist, Frederick
Wertham, who used it for the first time inhis book ‘The Show of Violence’. Wertham
wrote:The murder victim is the forgottenman. With sensational discussions on
the abnormal psychology of themurderer, we have failed to emphasize
the unprotectedness of the victim andthe complacency of the authorities.
One cannot understand thepsychology of the murderer if one does
not understand the sociology of thevictim. What we need is a science
victimology. (p.259)
During the early years of victimology,
literature on crime victims remained
relatively small when compared to that on
criminology. During the 1980’s, however,a great spate of important books andarticles marked the coming of age ofvictimology (Rock, 1994). At present, it isfair to maintain that the study of crime
victims has become an integral part ofcriminology.
The need for criminology to thoroughly
study the victims of crime may today
appear obvious and axiomatic. And it may
seem rather surprising that such obvious
need has escaped the attention of
criminologists for over a century. But it is
not rare for social scientists to miss theobvious. This point is well made by Rock(1994, pxi) who points out:
Even criminology and the sociology ofdeviance - disciplines concentrated
most squarely on the analysis ofcrime, criminals and criminal justice- tended somehow to obliterate thevictim for a very long while, failingto see what, in retrospect, should

probably have been evident all along.
Such omissions occur continually.
They are an ineluctable part of any
discipline, a consequence of the truth
marked by Burke when he said that‘a way of seeing is always a way ofnot seeing.’ The price of organizing,
specializing and accumulatingknowledge about any area is asystematic neglect of the other matters
thrown out of focus and beyond themargins. Precisely because
criminology is an empirically-driven
discipline, it has tended to ignore
those things that do not bear the nameof crime, criminals and criminal
justice.
IV. WHY VICTIMOLOGY
Since the dawn of scientific criminology,
criminologists have tried to find out whysome individuals become criminals whileothers do not. They conducted countlessstudies to discover whether criminals aredifferent in any respect from non-criminals.
An equally interesting and thoughtprovoking question is ‘Why do someindividuals become victims of crime whileothers do not?’. Is criminal victimization arandom occurrence? Is it due simply tochance factors, misfortune, or bad luck? Do
victims of crime constitute a representative
sample, an unbiased cross-section of thegeneral population? Do victims of crimediffer in any way from non-victims? How
do offenders select their targets; how dothey pick their victims? There are manyother questions for which research isseeking answers. The following are just a
few examples:(1)

Why are certain individuals orgroups of individuals more
frequently victimized thanothers? Why are certain targets(individuals, households,
businesses, etc) repeatedly73

RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
victimized? How can the
differential risks and rates ofvictimization be explained?
(2)

Are certain persons (or targets)
more prone and more vulnerable
to victimization than others, andif so, why? What is the nature ofthis proneness; what are theelements of this vulnerability?

(3)

Are there born victims,
predestined victims, predisposed
victims? Are there recidivist
victims? Are there victim
stereotypes just as there arecriminal stereotypes?

(4)

Are there specific characteristics
or specific behaviours thatenhance the risks and chances ofcriminal victimization, that are
responsible for, or conducive to,becoming a victim? And if so,
what are these characteristics
and these behaviours?

(5)

Is there such a thing as victiminvited, victim-induced, victimprecipitated, victim-facilitatedcriminality? Do some victims
promote, provoke, or trigger theirown victimization? Do potential
victims emit non-verbal signals,
signalling their vulnerability towould-be assailants throughgestures, posture andmovements?

These questions and many others raise
a number of issues and research topics thatare quite different from those that havebeen the focus of mainstream criminology.
Although the scientific study of thecriminal is more than a century old, thesystematic study of the victim is still in its
infancy. And yet, it seems axiomatic thatto analyse the crime phenomenon in its

74

entirety and in all its complexity, equal
attention has to be paid to the criminal andtheir victim. There are several reasonsthat render the study of crime victims
essential, indeed, indispensable, for abetter understanding of the phenomenonof crime (Fattah, 1991):(1)

Motives for criminal behaviour do
not develop in a vacuum (vonHentig, 1948). They come into
being through drives andresponses, reactions andinteractions, attitudes andcounter attitudes. In many cases,
the victim is involved consciouslyor unconsciously in the
motivational process, as well as
in the process, of mental
reasoning or rationalization thatthe criminal engages in prior tothe commission of the crime(Fattah, 1976). In someinstances, the motives for thecriminal act develop around a
specific victim. An examinationof the place the victim occupies
or the role the victim plays inthese processes is necessary tounderstand why the crime wascommitted and why a particulartarget was chosen.

(2)

The commission of a crime is theoutcome of a process where manyfactors are at work. In mostcases, crime is not an action but
a reaction (or an overreaction) to
external and environmental
stimuli. Some of these stimuli
emanate from the victim. The
victim is an important element of
the environment and of thecriminogenic situation.

(3)

Often, the criminal act is not an
isolated gesture but thedenouement of a long or brief

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
interaction with the victim. In
such cases, it is not possible tounderstand the act fully without
analysing the chain ofinteractions that led to its
perpetration. It is scientificallyunsound to examine and analyse
the offender’s act in isolation fromdynamic forces that have
prepared, influenced,
conditioned, or determined it, or
to dissociate it from themotivational and situational
processes that led to its
commission.
(4)

(5)

Current theories of criminal anddeviant behaviour, whether
attempting to explain causation
or association, offer only static
explanations. Since criminal
behaviour, like other forms ofhuman behaviour, is dynamic, it
can be explained only through adynamic approach, where theoffender, the act, and the victim
are inseparable elements of a
total situation that conditions thedialectic of the victimizing
behaviour (Fattah, 1976).
The traits approach, seeking thegenesis of criminal behaviour inthe characteristics and attributesof the offender, is simplistic.
Theories of offenders’ attributes,
personalities, or social
background do not explain why
other individuals who have thesame traits or personality type or
who grow up in identical or very
similar conditions do not commit
crimes or do not persist in acriminal career. They fail toexplain why the offendercommitted the crime in aparticular situation, at a given
moment, against a specific victim.

The traits approach either
ignores or deliberately minimizes
the importance of situational
factors in actualizing or
triggering criminal behaviour.
The study of victims offers great
promise for transforming
etiological criminology from thestatic, one-sided study of thequalities and attributes of theoffender into a dynamic,
situational approach that views
criminal behaviour not as aunilateral action but as theoutcome of dynamic processes ofinteraction.
(6)

As Anttila (1974) points out, thestudy of the victim has a general
informational value. It provides
information on the frequency andpatterns of victimization, thus
making possible themeasurement of risk probabilities
and the establishment of risk
categories (high, low, medium). It
also provides valuable
information on proneness tovictimization, fear of
victimization, response to
victimization, consequences andimpact of victimization. Suchknowledge is essential for theformulation of a rational criminal
policy, for the evaluation of crime
prevention strategies, and fortaking social action aimed at
protecting vulnerable targets,increasing safety, and improving
the quality of life.

(7)

The victim has a strong impact
on criminal justice decisions,particularly those of the police
and the courts. In most cases, itis the victim who decides whether
or not to mobilize the criminal
justice system by reporting or not

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reporting the offence.
Furthermore, the characteristics,
attitude and behaviour of thevictims, and their relationship to
the offender, have a significant
bearing upon the decision of thepolice to proceed in a formal oran informal way (see Black,1970). In the latter case, victimrelated factors can greatly affectthe final outcome. The study ofthe victim leads not only to abetter understanding of thefunctioning of the criminal justicesystem, but also to improving thedecision-making process.
Enhancing victims’ involvementin the process and establishing
the modalities of such
involvement require a better
understanding of the role victims
currently play in criminal justice.
(8)

76

To b e t t e r f u l f i l s o c i e t y ’ s
obligations to the victims of crime- in order to help, assist, andmake the victim whole again - itis necessary to gain a thoroughknowledge of the consequences
and impact of the crime on those
who are victimized. Moreover, anadequate knowledge of thevarious needs of victims ofdifferent types of crime is aprerequisite for setting up
efficient victim services, victim
assistance, and compensation
programs.
A betterunderstanding of victims’
perceptions of, and attitudes to,the criminal justice system, theirreasons for not reporting
victimization and refusal or
unwillingness to co-operate withthe system, are essential to
improving attitudes andenhancing co-operation.

(9)

Modern criminology is paying
more attention to the concept
opportunity (see Mayhew et al.,1976). The commission of many
crimes is believed to be largely afunction of the opportunities tocommit those crimes.
Opportunities, in turn, areviewed as being greatly
influenced by the behaviour ofpotential victims. The collective
behaviour of potential crime
victims may have a strong impact
on crime rates, and variations in
those rates may be explained, at
l e a s t p a r t i a l l y, t h r o u g hdifferences or changes in victim
behaviour. For this reason, abetter understanding of theattitudes and behaviour ofvictims holds great promise forcrime prevention. Victim-based
prevention strategies haveseveral advantages over offenderbased ones. The former aims at
hardening the targets, making
the commission of crimes moredifficult and less profitable. The
role potential victims are called
upon to play in thisenvironmental/situational
approach is a primary one.

(10) T h e m e d i e v a l p a r a d i g m o f‘retributive justice’ seems to havereached its terminal phase andattempts are already underway tohave it replaced by anotherparadigm of ‘restorative justice.’
Restorative justice is based on theprinciples of mediation,
conciliation, restitution andcompensation. Its primary aim
is healing, not punishment. In a
restorative justice system, thevictim ceases to be a secondaryor peripheral player and assumes
an active role. He/she becomes a

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
full party in the process. The
study of the impact ofvictimization on the victim, theattitudes and the needs of thevictim are thus essential to asystem of restorative justice(Fattah, 1995).
V. THE INADEQUACY OF THEDISPOSITIONAL THEORIES OFCRIMINALITY
Criminological theories that stressindividual traits or offender pathology failmiserably when the task at hand is toexplain the temporal and spatial patternsof crime, regional, provincial, intercity andintracity variations in crime rates, or thechanges in those rates over time. Theories
seeking the genesis of criminal behaviourin the abnormality or the psychopathologyof the offender ignore the dynamic forcesthat determine, condition, shape or
influence the offender’s behaviour in agiven situation. Not only do they fail toexplain why many of those who shareoffenders’ abnormal or pathologicalcharacteristics do not engage in criminal
behaviour, but they also fail to explain why
it is that most of those who commit incest
or family violence (to give just one example)
confine their sexual coercion or aggression
strictly within the family and rarely, if ever,are violent or sexually preying against
others outside the home. The theories do
not fare any better when it comes to
explaining retaliatory behaviour
committed as a reaction to priorvictimization or in response to provocationor precipitation. This is a serious
shortcoming because:(a) Retaliation is a key principle inviolence (Felson and Steadman, 1983,
p.60; Singer, 1986, pp.61-62) andbecause violence is, in many cases,
situationally determined. In otherwords, it is the result of events andcircumstances that cause a conflict toescalate (Felson and Steadman,
pp.59-60);(b) A non-negligible part of violence andhomicide is victim precipitated(Wolfgang, 1958). In such cases, theviolent response is more a functionof the precipitating behaviour of thevictim and the “situational
determinants” (Felson andSteadman, 1983) than it is a functionof the characteristics and thebackground of the respondent.
Another shortcoming of the “positivist”
approach is the static way in which it views
the personality traits and character
attributes believed to be responsible forcriminal behaviour. Traits such as
aggressiveness, callousness, anddishonesty are neither constant nor
absolute and, thus alone have very little,
if any, explanatory value. Some individuals
become aggressive only when under
extreme stress, have consumed alcohol, or
when provoked. Others may use violence
only when they are humiliated or hurt intheir vanity. Some men become violent insituations where they feel the need toassert their maleness. Some people may
be shy and withdrawn without peer
support, only to become extremely mean
when in the presence of, and underpressure from, their peer group. People
may be scrupulously honest in one
situation and shamelessly dishonest inanother. Many “honest” people, whose
moral scruples would never allow them tocheat or steal from a friend or neighbour, awork partner, or in general another humanbeing, become totally unscrupulous when
it is a matter of cheating the government,a large corporation, or the general public.
They could be today without inhibitions orcompunction when it comes to committinga white collar crime, such as tax or custom
duty evasion, insurance fraud, price fixing,
and so forth (Fattah, 1991).

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An individual’s attitudes to other are notindiscriminate. Clifford Olson, a serial
killer found guilty of slaying elevenchildren in British Columbia, and whom
the police suspect of having slain evenmore, was proven to be a loving husband
and affectionate father. Yet he had no
sympathy or empathy for the several young
victims he brutally killed to satisfy his
sexual desires.
In view of all these serious problems andshortcomings, one might wonder why it isthat theories of criminals’ psychopathology
have maintained their popularity for overa hundred years. The answer is rather
simple. The attractiveness of the traits/
attributes approach lies in its central(though faulty) premise that criminal anddelinquents are different from the rest of
us. Propagating the view that someindividuals are “bad”, “evil”, or in some way
abnormal, allows the average citizen to
perceive offenders as distinct individuals,
as different beings capable of committing
the terrible crimes that we cannot conceiveof ourselves as capable of perpetrating. It
is a self-assuring approach that allows thedichotomization of people into the good andthe bad, the normal and the abnormal,
those who are criminally inclined and those
not so inclined.
VI. THE SHIFT FROMDISPOSITIONAL THEORIES TOSITUATIONAL THEORIES
Fifty years ago, Sutherland (1947)
suggested that explanations deviance andcrime are either situational or
dispositional, and that of the two,situational explanations might be the more
important. Extensive research on violence,vandalism, and other forms of antisocial
behaviour led Zimbardo (1978, p157) tochallenge the prevailing stereotypes which
locate the source of evil in people. He
insists that we have been programmed by78

our socialization process and basic
institutions to accept doctrines ofindividual guilt, sin, culpability, andfailure, as well as to accept the cult of theego, the strength of character, and thestability of personality. According toZimbardo, contemporary social psychology
maintains that we all overestimate theextent to which behaviour - be it evil, good,or neutral - is dispositionally controlled,
while at the same time we systematicallyunderestimate the degree to which it issituationally controlled (p.159).
The manifest and generally
acknowledged failure of criminologicaltheories (see above) points to the need fora new, dynamic approach that shifts thefocus from predisposing factors toenvironmental, situational, triggering, andcatalytic factors; from the notion ofpropensities and inclinations to the conceptof opportunity. Such a dynamic situational
approach pays great attention to thecontexts in which violent confrontations
occur and analyses these confrontations as
situated transactions (Luckenbill, 1977). It
maintains that many crimes are situationspecific, context-specific, and targetspecific. In contrast to the dispositional
perspective which postulates that theimpulses for crime come from within theindividual and are manifestations of thepsychopathology of the offender, thesituational approach looks upon criminal
behaviour as a response to environmental
stimuli, stimuli that ineluctably include thecharacteristics and the behaviour of thepotential victim (Fattah, 1991).
The situational approach also pays great
attention to victim-offender interactions.
As Felson and Steadman(1983, pp.59-60)
point out:
Outcomes of an aggressive interaction
are not determined by either thecharacteristics or the initial goals of
the participants; rather, they are at

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
least party a function of events that
occur during the incident. In otherwords, violence is in part,
situationally determined - the resultof events and circumstances thatcause a conflict to escalate.
The situational approach posits thatmany crimes of personal violence,
particularly spontaneous, impulsive,
unplanned, and unpremeditated ones, areoutcomes of long or brief interactions
between two or more individuals. As such,these crimes cannot be adequately
explained by static theories of criminal
behaviour that focus on offendercharacteristics but give no consideration to
the dynamic forces unique to eachsituation. It is these dynamic forces that
determine, condition, shape or influence
the offender’s behaviour in that particularsituation. The situational approachhighlights the inherent weaknesses ofdispositional theories of criminal behaviourby showing that everyone is capable ofcommitting a crime in certain situations,when under certain pressures, in thepresence of certain triggering factors.
By their very nature, dispositional
theories (whether of the biological,
consitutional, psychological, or sociologicalvariety) dissociate criminal behaviour fromthe dynamic situational forces that trigger,
provoke, determine, condition, shape thatbehaviour, or in other ways contribute toits occurrence. Violent behaviour, forexample, could hardly be understood
without a thorough analysis of thetransaction that occurs between theparticipants prior to the perpetration ofviolence (Hepburn, 1973). Although thismight seem axiomatic and despite theobvious dynamic and interactionist natureof violent crime, criminological research,with only a few exceptions, has focused on
the perpetrator ’s characteristics andbackground, and has ignored the verbal

exchanges between the participants prior
to the use of physical force.
The situational approach also pays great
attention to the problems of communicationin confrontational encounters, such as rapeand robbery situations. It analyses the
subjective definitions and interpretationsof the participants and see this as a key tounderstanding and explaining their actions
and their responses. It also examines how
victims respond to face-to-facevictimization and the impact of the
response on the final outcome of thevictimization event (Fattah, 1984; 1991).
The finding of this type of research could
be used to provide potential victims withsome guidelines on how to behave in
specific victimization situations tominimize the chances of physical injury
and of the crime being completed.
VII. THE ROLE VICTIMIZATIONPLAYS IN OFFENDING:
INTERCHANGEABLE ROLES OF
VICTIM AND VICTIMIZER
Those among you who are in daily
contact with offenders have surely noticed
that a large number of them feel andbehave like a victim. They suffer fromheightened and acute feelings of injustice.
These feelings of injustice, this firm
conviction that they are victims, whether
the victimization is real (as it is in manycases) or perceived, there seems to be little
doubt that it plays a significant role inoffending.
The transformation of victims into
victimizers is an intriguing, though largely
ignored phenomenon. Examples of thepassage from the state of victim to the stateof offender abound. Among the mostobvious are cases of vendetta, vengeance,
reprisal, retalitation, getting even, paying
back, setting of accounts, as well as casesof self-defence, vigilante action, auto-justice79

RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
or taking the law into one’s own hands, tomention but a few. In all these examples,the victimization is a direct contributor to
the ensuing aggression, the sine qua nonfor it. Although this phenomenon is as old
as the human race itself, it is only recently
that it has attracted some attention,
particularly in cases of battered wives who
kill their battering husbands, of abusive
parents who were themselves abused as
children, of rapists and other sexual
predators who had been sexually molested
or assaulted during their childhood. New
terms such as “the cycle of violence”,“intergenerational abuse” were coined todescribe this curious tendency of humanbeings to subject others the same pain andanguish to which they had been personallysubjected or to inflict upon others the same
victimizations they had suffered.
The phenomenon of role reversal raises
three important issues:(1)

There is a close link between
victimization and offending
behaviour; they are the two sidesof the same coin. Hence it is
impossible to gain a true
understanding of one if we ignore
the other.

(2)

The victim and offender
populations are not, as commonly
believed, two distinct andmutually exclusive populations.
They are homogeneous andoverlap to a large extent.
Yesterday’s victims are often
today’s offenders, and today’s
offenders are frequently thevictims of tomorrow.

(3)

80

The roles of victim and victimizer
are not fixed, assigned, or static.
They are dynamic, mutable, andinterchangeable. The same
individual can move successively,

or even simultaneously, from onerole to the other.
VIII. VICTIMIZAION AS
ANTECEDENT TO VIOLENTBEHAVIOUR
A. From Victim to Offender
The importance of victimization as a
causal factor in violent offending becomes
all too evident when keeping in mind thefact that retaliations is a key ingredient inviolence (Felson and Steadman, 1983), thatrevenge is the most prevalent motive forthe use of force. Gratuitous violence is the
exception rather than the rule. Violencein most instances is an expression of agrievance, a response to an attack, injury,
or provocation. As Black (1983) points out,
violence is a mode of conflict management
resembling the modes used in traditionalsocieties which have little or no formal law.
Homicide, for example, is rarely
predatory in nature. Relatively few
homicides are committed for gain or sexual
gratification. In the vast majority of cases
the killing is a reaction (or rather anoverreaction) to some from of victimization:
the lover reacting to being cheated on or
abandoned, the victim of adultery avenging
the offended honour, the drug dealer
retaliating against the police informer, thehot-blooded young male stabbing the friend
who got his sister pregnant, the landowner
shooting the trespasser, the double-crossedgang member applying his own brand ofjustice, the rape victim attempting toincapacitate the attacker, the drunk
responding to an insult, threat or physicalassault.
When aggression is met with aggression,
when violence is countered with violence,
the roles are simply reversed. The initial
aggressor becomes the victim and theinitial victim ends up being the victimizer.
Labels are applied not on the basis of the112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
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original role but on the final outcome. The
violent response, though defined as ‘crime’by the law, is perfectly legitimate in theeyes of the perpetrator who perceives theirretaliation as a justiciary act, as a rightful
reprisal.
The observed link between victimizationand offending is not the least surprising.
The sense of being victim, whether thevictimization is real or perceived, whether
direct or vicarious, whether personal orcollective, provides not only the
motivations and justifications foroffending, but also the necessary
rationalizations and neutralization thatmake it possible for the potential
delinquent to overcome whatever formal
and informal controls may stand in the wayof the offending behaviour, including thedelinquent’s moral inhibitions, religious
convictions, the threat of punishment andso forth. These motivations andjustifications are capable of transforming
the victim into a ruthless victimizer. Casesof store or house owners who, once
victimized, sit waiting with a firearm in
hand for the next robber, burglar, or thief,in order to welcome the victimizer with ahail of bullets, have occurred withincreasing frequency in the past few years.
But these are just the extreme examplesof this transformation. In schools, it is acommon experience to find children whosebooks, articles, or supplies have been stolenby other children taking revenge bystealing the same or similar things fromtheir school mates. Some youthful andadult car owners who have had some pieceor part, such as a hubcap or mirror, stolen,
do not report their victimization to thepolice, but instead, “help themselves” to thesame part from a similar car. In doing sothey feel they are only righting the wrong
done to them.
Debuyst and Joos (1971) relate the storyof a seventeen-year-old boy, Raoul, who hada collection of firearms, one of which wasstolen from him. Sometime later , he broke
into a firearms shop and stole somefirearms. His mother, breaking down intears over her son’s conduct, could notunderstand how such an honest boy, who
was from a well-to-do family, working, andwell considered by everyone, could do sucha thing.
In addition to concrete feelings ofvictimization resulting from a specificincident or incidents in which the person
was actually victimized, individuals orgroups may have sentiments of injustice
and a vague sense of victimization
unrelated to any specific event(s). In many
offenses against property, resentment overeconomic exploitation and social injustices
serves as a means of auto-legitimation.
Many thieves, professional and occasional,
tend to justify their delinquent behaviour
by citing social injustices and bycontrasting the scandalous wealth of theupper social-classes with their own miseryand poverty. White-collar tax evadersconvince themselves that the tax system
is unfair as it victimized and penalized thehard-working, like themselves, whileallowing many others to pay less or notaxes. Cressey (1953) discovered thatperceived injustice and the sense of being
victimized play an important role in thecases of embezzlement, trust violations,and one may add corruption. This may
take the form of feeling underpaid or
overworked, or of feeling unfairly treatedin some other way involving finances.
Cressey points out that it is not the fact of
being maltreated that is important, if sucha fact can be established. Rather, it is thefact that the individual feels maltreated,while, at the same time, for some reason,
feeling obligated to continue in the serviceof the organization.
Feelings of injustice and of victimization
play a crucial role in the acts of political81

RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
terrorists and of other minority groups who
have been historically the targets ofviolence, maltreatment, and exploitation.
It is true that offending is, in many
instances, a reaction to, or a consequenceof, victimization, then it is easy tounderstand why it is that punishment
quite often fails in preventing therepetition of the behaviour being punished.
There can be no doubt that for those
offenders who have been victimized,
punishment can only be seen as an added
victimization, it can only aggravate theproblem that led to offending in the firstplace. Expressions such as “getting even”,“taking it out on society” exemplify the deep
resentment and frustration felt byoffenders who already perceive themselves,
rightly or wrongly, as victims, and who are
deprived of their liberty as a means ofpunishment.
As mentioned earlier, offenders whose
violence is a retaliation against some fromof victimization view their behaviour as
perfectly legitimate, and are boundtherefore to perceive their punishment asunjust and unwarranted. If victimization
is an important factor in offending, and I
strongly believe it is, then one very effective
way of preventing crime, particularly
violent crime, would be to reduce theincidence of victimization, exploitation anddiscrimination.
B. From Offender to Victim
Not only is there a strong link between
victimization and offending, but there isalso a close link between offending andvictimization. Involvement in criminal,
illegal or deviant activity greatly enhances
the chance of becoming a victim. Sampsonand Lauristen (1990) found a significant
relationship between the risk ofvictimization and involvement in violence,vandalism, and theft offending. In otherwords, persons who engage in criminal
offending sharply increase their overall82

risk of victimization (p.120,126). They
further found that offence activity whether of a violent or a minor deviance,such as drinking or drug use - directly
increases the risk of personal victimization.
The inter-relationship between
offending and victimization was reported
in many other studies. Singer (1981) foundthat cohort members who were shot or
stabbed were involved more frequently in
official and self-reported criminal activity.
His findings were corroborated by Savitz,
Lalli, and Rosen (1977). The same pattern
was observed in England by Sparks, Gennand Dodd (1977). Gottfredson (1984)
discovered that for persons with at least
one self-reported violence offence, thelikelihood of personal victimization wasseven times the likelihood of personal
victimization for persons reporting no selfreported violent offences.
Johnson et al. (1973) followed up all
victims of gunshot and stab wounds
admitted to the City of Austin Hospital in
Texas during two years and found that 75%of the male victims had a criminal record,and 54% had a jail record. Canadianhomicide statistics for 1991 (Juristat, 1992)
reveal that almost half of homicide victims(45%) have a criminal record. And in an
American study of gunshot victims, Paul
Friday (personal communication, March
1995) found that 71% of the victims had
their own criminal histories.
Of the 92 assault victims in the hospitalbased sample interviewed by Cretney andDavis (1995, p32), 24 (26%) told theresearchers that they themselves had acriminal record, while 16 (17%) had at least
one previous conviction for assault. Other
offences committed by the sample of‘victims’ included: shoplifting; theft;robbery with violence; and possession anddealing in drugs.

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
IX. OFFENDERS’ ATTITUDES TO
THEIR VICTIMS AND HOW TOCHANGE THESE ATTITUDES
Offenders’ attitudes to their victims is
an extremely important area of study incriminology, victimology and penology.
This is so because such attitudes often playa crucial role in the motivational processes
leading to the victimization, and a decisiverole in the process of selecting the victim.
For example, in the case of genocide, of
terrorist activities, of acts of war, thepotential targets are defined and perceived
as the enemy that has to be attacked,
exterminated or annihilated. Enemies
evoke no sympathy, pity or compassion.
The same is equally true in conventional
crimes. Rapists, for instance, havedevalued images of women. They are sex
objects, they are to be used for one’s
pleasure and then discarded or even killed.
In many other offences, the victim is seen
simply as a means to an end. Sutherland(1937) insists that professional thieves
have no consideration whatsoever towards
the victims whose wealth they are trying
to steal. They think of their victims likefishermen think of a place to fish or huntersof a place to hunt.
The slang words often used by offenders
to describe their victims: whore, slut,
faggot, sucker, etc, betray not only theirutter lack of respect, but also thecontemptuous attitude they have vis a vis
the victim. The mental process by which
the victim is denied, blamed, denigrated,devalued, depersonalized may be referred
to as the desensitization process.
A. The Desensitization Process
One of the most important techniquesof offender rehabilitation is to counter what
we call in victimology ‘the desensitization
process’. Criminal victimizations, whether
directed at the victim’s person or his/herproperty, are harmful actions. They cause
physical injury, material loss, psychologicaltrauma or a combination of all three.
Feelings of guilt associated withinternational victimizations are stronger
than those evoked by negligent
victimization.
Most international victimizations
involve the deliberate infliction of pain andsuffering upon a fellow human being.
While a small minority of victimizers may
fit the psychiatric label of the heartless,callous, unfeeling “psychopath”, themajority are not completely insensitive,
apathetic, or impassible and are not totallydevoid of the human feelings of pity andempathy. Thus, unless the victimizer
desensitizes themself in advance, thevictimization is bound to create moral
tension and to elicit feelings of guilt, shame,remorse, reproach in the perpetrator. Since
the source of these negative feelings is thepain and suffering the victimization willcause to the victim, negating this pain andsuffering can be an effective means ofdesensitization. To do so, the victimizer
can use one or more of several techniquesof desensitization. These include thedenial, reification, depersonalization of thevictim, the denial of injury, blaming thevictim, devaluating or denigrating thevictim, and so forth.
The desensitization process in which thevictimizer engages themself prior to thecommission of the act explains better than“psychopathy”, “moral perversion” or“emotional indifference” why certain
offenders show no sense of guilt, remorseor repentance after having committed
brutal and cruel acts. It explains why
certain killers, while exhibiting extreme
cruelty, brutality and callousness toward
their victim, show tender love andcompassion for others, even for animals. In
a case studied by the author (Fattah, 1971)
the murderer, after savagely killing his

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victim and robbing the house, took utmost
care to feed the victim’s dog and cat, andeven left them enough food for several days,
for fear that nobody would come to thescene of the crime for some time.

is possible that a diminishedawareness of the victim plays animportant part in determining
whether or not this process is set inmotion. (p.668)

There are various techniques that
offenders use to desensitize themselves tothe harm, pain and suffering they are
inflicting on their victims. One of the mostcommon techniques of desensitization is todeny the victim, to mentally turn him/her
into an object, or to try to depersonalize
and dehumanize the victim.

The idea of stealing from or cheating thegovernment or a large organization raises
fewer moral scruples than the idea ofcheating a person or stealing from a family.

Another technique of desensitization
often used by victimizers in their attempt
to shield themselves against the victim’s
plight, to ease their conscience, and to freethemselves of any feeling of guilt, is thedenial of injury. It is a common techniqueamong rapists before and during the act.
But it is also common in property
victimization as well. Impersonal, nonspecific and intangible victims, such as thegovernment, large corporations, andorganizations, are considered by many asappropriate targets for victimization.
Victimizing them is subject to fewer (if any)moral restraints and arouses less guilt thanvictimization directed against a personal,
identifiable victim. The impersonal anddiffuse character of the victim and its
intangibility evoke little moral resistancein the person contemplating thevictimization. Sykes and Matza (1975)
wrote:
Insofar as the victim is physicallyabsent, unknown, or a vague
abstraction (as is often the case indelinquent acts committed against
property), the awareness of thevictim’s existence is weakened.
Internalized norms and anticipationsof the reactions of others must
somehow be activated, if they are toserve as guides for behaviour; and it

84

A third technique is ‘blaming the victim’.
Once victimizers are able to convince
themselves that the victim has done themwrong, that he or she is guilty of someinjustice, they can rid themselves entirelyof any compassion for that victim and of
any sense of personal culpability. By
blaming the victim and transforming him
or her into a person deserving to suffer,
victimizers are able to go ahead with thevictimizaion without conceiving ofthemselves as criminals and whileshielding themselves against postvictimization dissonance.
Theestablishment of the victim’s guilt
beforehand, whether the guilt is real or
imagined, acts as an anaesthetic on the
conscience of the potential victimizers,
enabling them to destroy or injure thevictim without pity or empathy.
Although blaming the victim is acommon and often-used technique ofautolegitimation, neutralization anddesensitization, it is not a process ofinternational distortion. In most cases,
victimizers are actually convinced of their
victim’s guilt. Nowhere is this more evident
than in crimes of passion, in politicalcrimes, and in the crimes of paranoiacs.
Crimes of passion are characterized almost
invariably by a justiciary attitude on thepart of the offender.
Blaming the victim is also the dominantfeature of crimes motivated by revenge, thetypical example of which is the vendetta.

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
Here the victimization is seen as alegitimate reprisal, a rightful form of
retaliation. The chain reactions resulting
from the use of this type of legimitation isthe development or perpetuation of a
subculture of violence.
Devaluation of the victim is yet anothertechnique of desensitization. In an attempt
to desensitize themselves to the victim’s
plight, victimizers often attribute inferior
qualities to the victim. They may devalue,denigrate and derogate the victim’s worth,so that the victim appears blameworthy
and deserving of the victimization becauseof a behaviour (he or she did something
very bad) or because its their fate as aperson (he or she is a bad person). This
psychological process of devaluating thevictim is not worked out in a logical,
rational or conscious way (Ryan, 1971).
The preparation of the criminal act at
the moral level is done, almost always, withreference to the attributes, personality,
attitude, behaviour, and conduct of thevictim. Certain attributes or qualities ofthe potential victim may be used todiscredit and devaluate him or her in aneffort to present the victim as a legitimiate
and deserving target, and to justify thedelinquent act. Attacks on homosexuals
and on prostitutes are often so legitimized.
Redl and Wineman (1951) found that for
certain adolescents, stealing fromhomosexuals is a perfectly justifiable andlegitimate act. Property crimes committed
against prostitutes are rationalized in asimilar manner. Furthermore, the forcible
rape of a prostitute is also conceived of asa legitimate and guiltless act. Their styleof life is interpreted as denying the rightto dispose of their own body as s/he pleases;
as if, because s/he sells their body towhomever pays the price, s/he no longer
has the right to protest when someone tries
to possess them by force. In such cases,
the attitude toward the potential victim

and the possibility of justifying the act are
undoubtedly important factors in the choiceof the victim.
In cases of property crime, thedishonesty of the victim seems to be seenin the same way as the lifestyle of theprostitute. The businessman is defined asa “monopolistic miser,” or as a “dishonest
merchant” who cheat customers andtherefore deserves to be victimized, and theillegal act is defined as an act of normal
indignation (Schwendinger andSchwendinger, 1967). The repugnancetoward the victim overcomes any thoughtof the victim’s right.
X. VICTIMOLOGICALEXPLANATION OF REOFFENDING
Victimological explanations of recidivism
and reoffending are quite simple and morecommon-sense than science. If
environmental conditions, if situational,
triggering and actualizing factors play animportant role in offending (and there isoverwhelming empirical evidence showingthat they do), then a released offender,
returned to these same conditions andsituations that led to the first offending,will have a very high chance of relapsingand of committing new offences. The besttreatment and rehabilitation programs incustody cannot be successful unless theenvironmental conditions to which theoffender is released have been changed,
and unless the situational, triggering andactualizing factors have been dealt with.
Changing the conditions, controlling thefactors, is generally a much easier andmore effective task than the difficult andelusive task of changing the offender’spersonality, attitudes or behaviour. Afterall, no one, not even the most violent ofoffenders, is dangerous all the time andtowards everyone.
In the vast majority of cases,
dangerousness is episodical and specific. To
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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
effectively control it, one only needs toknow the conditions and situations inwhich the person becomes dangerous, andthe person or persons against whom theviolence or aggression will be directed. As
explained earlier, many crimes are context
specific, target/victim specific. Because ofthis, the violence is usually strictly
confined. For example, in most cases offamily violence, the violence is strictly
confined to the wife (or the children). In
the case of incest, the father or
grandfather’s sexual predations are strictly
confined to their offspring. If the causes ofthe behaviour are endogenic (that is locatedin the individual himself), why is it thatthey manifest themselves or produce theviolent or sexual behaviours only in these
specific contexts, against these specificvictims?
If the cause of criminal behaviour, as
many criminologists claim, is lack of or
weakened self-control, then how is it thatthe person is perfectly able to control their
behaviour outside of these contexts andthese targets. Good-sounding programs,
such as ‘anger management’, simply ignore
the fact that the individual has no problem
controlling their anger outside of the homeenvironment to which the violence isconfined.
XI. CONCLUSION
Hopefully, this brief and hasty synopsis
of victimology has given you an idea of how
valuable victimological knowledge could be
for those who are involved in corrections
generally, or offender rehabilitation inparticular. Victimological knowledge is not
only essential for understanding theoffender and the offence, for positively andsuccessfully influencing the offender’s,
attitude and behaviour, but also because it
has direct implications and applications forthe task of rehabilitation andresocialization. Understanding the role86

victimization plays in offending, thephenomenon of role reversal, theinterchangeable roles of victim andvictimizer, is bound to change the views
and stereotypes of offenders, help
understand the motives for their behaviour,
assist in establishing a rapport with them,and thus the possibility of influencing theirattitudes and behaviour.