The five victim typologies are: primary victimization, secondary victimization, tertiary victimization, mutual victimization, and no victimization. Primary victimization is defined as victimization that is personal—i.e., the individual is the victim of a crime. A common example of primary victimization would be a targeted attack (such as an assault on the individual, with a motive being hatred or revenge); the individual is physically assaulted. Secondary victimization is when an individual is indirectly victimized (Meadows, 2007). An example of this would be if a person’s loved one is murdered: the murdered person is the primary victim and the loved one is the secondary victim. Tertiary victimization would be crimes against society as a whole: crimes that are felt by the whole of the community. An example of this might be when a government unjustly spies on its citizens. Mutual victimization occurs when the criminal is retaliated against. In this case, the criminal has a victim and then becomes a victim later as well. No victimization occurs in the case of victimless crimes, such as prostitution in which sex between consenting adults is paid for: there is no victim, but in many states this exchange is considered a crime. The difference between criminology and victimology is that criminology is the study of crime and the criminal’s role in criminal activity while victimology is the study of the victim and the victim’s role in crime (Siegel, 2008). Criminology...

Victimology focuses on how victims experience crime, how they respond, and how their response plays a role in the spread or control of crime.
A current news article that describes the crimes of Harvey Weinstein examines the 84 accusers of the Hollywood producer and takes an approach to the subject that is closer to victimology than to criminology, as its focus is mainly on the victims in the crimes and their role in the crimes (Moniuszko & Kelly, 2017). In the story, one can identify each of the five victim typologies.

First, there is the primary victimization typology, which can be found among each of the 84 accusers, who accused Weinstein of sexual abuse or misconduct. They were the personal recipients of a sexual attack and thus were the direct victims in the crime. Their experience was personally felt by them as they themselves were the primary targets of the criminal.

Second, there is the secondary victimization typology, which can be found among the friends and loved ones both the Weinstein and the victims. They can be found in Weinstein’s own firm, for instance, which has been forced to close because of the negative publicity that Harvey has attracted. Then there are the families and friends of the victims who have been forced to cope with the suffering.

Third, there is the tertiary victimization…