Victimology and criminology: parallels and differences

Victimology vs. Criminology:

Based on the society where one lives, the society is normally inclined to permit criminals to obtain leniency for their crimes because of the prevailing environment. In most cases, criminals tend to adopt the persona of a victim in order to obtain sympathy even their offenses were not influenced by the environment. This attempt proves to be successful in certain cases because well-off people may feel guilty when in the presence of less-fortunate individuals. Through adopting the role and persona of a victim, the criminal basically evades the responsibility of his/her offense. The study of crime has developed to include various disciplines such as criminology and criminology that focus on different aspects of criminal offenses.

Victimology is the study of the offender, victim, and the society or the analysis of the harm done from illegal activities. While this field is closely related to criminology, it focuses on victimization or victims associated with a particular criminal offense. Throughout its history, this field benefits from contributions of psychologists, lawyers, criminal justice officials, sociologists, social workers, doctors, nurses, political scientists and other professionals (Karmen, 2009, p. 16). As an area of specialization within criminology, victimology is considered as a discipline that is at par with other intensive study areas like penology, drug abuse, and delinquency. Generally, victimology is the recent offshoot in criminology with criminology acting as the traditional and older parent discipline.

Criminology is the oldest and most commonly used technique in determining various aspects of a criminal activity to help in explaining crime and crime causation. This discipline is described as the scientific study of the nature, cause, degree, and management of criminal behavior. Generally, this discipline incorporates various areas like the process of making laws, the act of violating these laws, and criminal offenses as social phenomena. Criminology also covers aspects like verified principle in law-making and socially deviant behavior. In other words, this field of crime investigation can be explained as the scientific study of unlawful activities, criminals and their victims, and criminal justice system and law.

Similarities between Victimology and Criminology:

An examination of both victimology and criminology reveals that they are closely intertwined though they have some similarities and differences. Some of the major similarities between the two fields include the following

Increase of Effectiveness:

As scientific study fields, victimology and criminology increases the effectiveness of the criminal justice system because of the different approach that they both take. This is largely because both of these disciplines focus on two of the most important aspects in the criminal justice i.e. criminal offenses and their victims. Through studying criminal offenses, criminals, and their victims, victimology and criminology enhances the effectiveness of the criminal justice system to deal with offenses and ensure that justice is given to the victims.

Flexibility:

The roles of both criminology and victimology are very much inter-connected given that the roles of criminals or victims can be hazed (Diehl, 2010). Since victims can sometimes become criminals due to falsification, there is a huge possibility for the flexibility of the roles of victimology and criminology. Due to the flexibility of the roles, there is a deep intricacy linked with criminology and crime because nothing is clear cut including crime.

Collection and Interpretation of Data:

The other similarity between these two fields is that both victimologists and criminologists emphasize on following the appropriate ways of collecting and interpreting data. These professionals emphasize on the proper methods of data collection and interpretation because of their impacts on the realization of the desired goals and objectives. When data is collected and interpreted incorrectly, victimologists and criminologists are unable to accomplish their objectives.

Similar Methods of Data Collection and Interpretation:

Victimologists and criminologists use similar methods as those used by social scientists such as surveys, case studies, and polls. These methods are based on various communication forms, interviews, questionnaires, carefully designed social experiments, secondary examination of documents, and systematic observations. These professionals calculate statistics, draw graphs, compute rates, search for patterns and trends, and compile profiles. Generally, both criminology and victimology research, develop theses, gather and interpret data, calculate rates, develop conclusions that lead to findings, and help in developing and evaluating policies.

Differences between Victimology and Criminology:

Regardless of the previously explained similarities in the two scientific disciplines, criminology and victimology also have some differences. This is largely because they are designed to study various aspects of crime with differences such as & #8230;

History:

One of the major differences between these two disciplines is their history since they began on different dates. The history of criminology can be traced back to the 19th Century when theories regarding the origin of criminal behavior and traits were developed by Cesare Lombroso. On the contrary, victimology is a recent scientific discipline that started in Europe after the Second World War as a means of understanding the link between criminals and victims (Lee, n.d.).

Focus Points:

One of the major differences between victimology and criminology is their divergent focus points and scope of analysis. Criminology emphasizes on studying the criminal, the offenses, and the intentions behind the criminal activity. This discipline also studies how the public and criminal justice systems react to the criminal, rate of recidivism, and punishment ("Criminology v Victimology," 2008). Criminology is regarded as a retributive model of criminal justice since its main objective is to prevent crime and punish the criminal. On the contrary, victimology normally focuses on victim instead of the criminal with the aim of restoring the victim to the condition he/she was before victimization. Other objectives of victimology are to lessen victimization rates, minimize unnecessary expenses and suffering, and heal the community/victim relationship.

The main focus of criminologists is to determine why certain individuals are involved in breaking the law while others do not. These professionals determine these aspects through analysis of the criminals' backgrounds and intentions to identify the actual reasons for their misbehavior. On the other hand, victimologists determine why some people, entities like banks, and households become the target of criminals while others are not. They seek to discover the sources of vulnerability of these sections to criminal attacks and the root causes for some victims to either act and behave carelessly or prompt others to attack/harm them. While criminals are help personally accountable for their offenses, criminologists analyze the possibility of political, social, and economic conditions to instigate criminal activity. Victimologists explore personality traits, cultural imperatives, and socialization agents that compel individuals to risk their lives. This is despite of the fact that certain victims may be responsible for outbreak of certain criminal incidents.

Findings:

As a result of their divergent focus, victimologists and criminologists normally arrive at different conclusions and findings. Criminologists recognize that many people occasionally violate certain laws at a particular age especially during adolescence but others are law-abiding. These professionals also conclude that only some who are involved in delinquent acts become hardcore and career criminals. Victimologists discover that anyone can suffer bad luck of being at the wrong place at the wrong time but don't understand why some people are targeted more than others. However, the findings by both criminologists and victimologists are used to help in explaining the concept of crime (Grivette, 2011).