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What Is Victimology

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Submitted By peacantan
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What is Victimology?
Tysheena Draten
American InterContinental University
March 25, 2012
CRJS 310-1202A-01

Abstract
In this paper, the writer gives the definition of victimology along with its history and how it was developed. The writer also explains how it is different from criminology, sociology, and psychology. The writer also discusses who established the first safe houses for battered women as well as where and when those safe houses were established. The writer then goes on to tell who established the first rape crisis centers as well as when and where they were established. Next, the writer discusses how the civil rights movement contributed to anti-discrimination efforts and the establishment of hate crime legislation and policy. The writer also tells the role children’s rights groups have played in highlighting the problems child victims face in the criminal justice system. Finally, the writer provide the organizations that an individual can contact if he/she has been victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, and homicide along with what services are not provided by government crime compensation programs.

What is Victimology? Victimololgy is a sub-discipline of criminology concerned with understanding and explaining the patterning of criminal victimization (Victimology, 2008). Victimology draws together academics, activists, and policymakers from all different type of backgrounds. There are three different types of victimological thoughts. The three different types are positivist, radical, and critical. According to Miers (1989), positivist victimology is preoccupied with the patterning of criminal victimization that was a product of interpersonal crime. When it comes to positivist victiomolgy, the victim is taken as either being defined by the criminal law or by the self-evident nature of their own suffering. Even though

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