HISTORY OF VICTIMOLOGY

By Fachri Bey, SH. MM.Dean

University of Indonusa Esa Unggul School of LawJakarta Indonesia

Senior Lecturer of VictimologyUniversity of Indonesia School of Law

Depok Indonesia

History of victimology• Victimology as an academic terminology contains two

elements :One is the Latin word “Victima” translates into “victim”

• The other is the Greek word “logos” means a system of knowledge, the direction of something abstract, the direction of teaching, science, discipline.(Kirchhoff 2005-42)

• Victim means a person harmed by a crime, tort, or other wrongful act .(Black Law Dictionary:1999)

• Victims are persons threatened, injured or destroy by an act or omission of another man/structure,organization/institution.

• (Separovic, 1969)

Wellknown victimologist

• Hans von Hentig, Benyamin Mendelshon, Paul Cornil,W.H. Nagel, Hidemichi Morosawa, Israel Drapkin, John P.J. Dussich, Gerd Ferdinand Kirchhoff,Ezzat Fattah, Zvonimir Paul Separovic, Paul C. Friday, Elias Neuman, Robert Elias, Irvin Waller, Sarah Ben David, Kerr, Reif, Marlene A.Young, Hans Joachim Schneider Sahetaphy, and so on.

•

Victim of Crime

• Victims means persons who, individually or collectively, have suffered harm, including physical or mental injury, emotional suffering, economic loss or substantial impairment of their fundamental rights, through acts or omissions that are in violation of criminal laws operative with in member state, including those laws proscribing criminal abuse of power.

• (UN Declaration 1985 on Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power)

• 1764 Cecare Beccaria in Milan introduces “modern” criminal law.

• 1923 Edwin H. Sutherland : wrote “Criminology” had the title “The Victims of Crime”.

• 1929 “There is a book on victims” by J.R. Fuguora & D. Tejera, F.Pla.

• 1937, March 29th, Hans von Hentig & Benyamin Mendelshon in a paper presented to a meeting of the Psychiatric Society in Bucharest Rumania, gave the outline of a new social science which he called “Victimology”.

• 1941 Hans von Hentig wrote and published a paper “ Remarks on the Integration of Perpetrator and Victim”

• 1947 Mendelsohn wrote a paper “ New Bio-psycho-social Horizons : Victimology”

•1948 Hans von Hentig published his book : “The criminal and His Victim” The first textbook published that wrote on crime of victims. •1954 Ellenberger made a study about psychological relationship between the criminal and his victim•1958 Mendelshon : Six demands published, serve as a classical example of the vision of new science,own journal, own institute, own international society, own international simposia, and own victimological clinics.

• 1963 Criminal Compensation Act Compensation New Zealand

• 1964 United States, UK and Australia. Margaret Fry fight for a new criminal law system.

• 1966 California State Compensation Act. Japan Criminal Indemnity Law.

• 1967 Canada Criminal Compensation Injuries Act. Cuba before Castro, and Swiss.

• 1967 Stephan Schafer introduced the terminology of compensation.

• 1970 International Congress of Criminology VI established organisation of victimology.

• 1973 The First Simposia of Victimology in Jerusalem. Prof.DR.Israel Drapkin wrote a paper ; “Critical Reasoning alone barren”

• 1974 ISC the first international recommended for Victimology

• 1975 Criminal Compensation Act in Holland• 1976 Emilio Viano edited The First Journal of Victimology

and published.• 1976 The Second Simposia of Victimology in Boston USA. • 1979 The Third Simposia of Victimology in University of

Wesphalia Germany.

• 1985 UN Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power.

• The Declaration deals with these basic principles :• Remedies to assist victims in their need information.• Participation of the victim in the criminal justice process• Restitution by the offender• Compensation by the State• Acces to victim assistance. • 1986 Robert Elias published his book and the volume

about The politics of Victimization ; Victims, ; Victimology and Human Right.

• In many criminal cases, The attention and protection of the law enforcement authorities give only to the offender, however, the victims get minor attention.

• The victims suffered harm : • Physical or mental injury• Emotional suffering• Economic loss• Substantial impairment of the fundamental

rights.

Formulation of the law, regulation, act, thinking, are dedicated only to the offenders, about how to guarantee their rigts, how to educate/ train them properly in correctional institution, how to protect their rights before the police officers, district attorney as well as in trial process before the judge

• The public prosecutor/district attorney tend to be extremely careful in indicting the accused, inasmuch they are controlled frequently by the lawyer of accused.

• The rights of the victims of crime have never been thinking seriously nor to provide them the proper and adequate treatment by the law enforcement authorities.

example• A robbery case inside the Cab: a girl back home from work. She takes an

unloaded cab. However, when the cab is driven along the street suddenly somebody appears from the front seat next to the driver. He/ she threat,assault, and picks up her valuable goods. The driver is his companion so he also take part in this crime by raping the girl. At the end, the girl was found fainted due to the raping and assaulting series.

• People who found her somewhere along the street side, take her to the hospital subsequently and she soon get medical treatment and psychological trauma treatment respectively. She bear her own costs since nobody pay attention or afford to bear her costs.

The rape trauma of the victims

• Insomnia, menstruation disorder,headache• Stress, afraid with aids, vd,difficult concentrating, feling out of

control • Self blaming, pscychosomatic• Suicidal impulses, depression• Hate/phobi to male, frigid, no libido• Become lesbian, change sex orientation• Phobi to everything relation with the rape• She suffered physical harm, mentality harm, and material/

financial harm.• So the victims need carring, preventing, protecting, assisting,

reducing suffering and restituting (Sessar 1986 919)

• In criminal justice system victims always abuse and neglect.

• Okamura claims that the official system has used and abused the victims with out giving proper rights’

• Victims want participation and they are clear about :• 1. they way a seat in the court room• 2. they want acces to the files• 3. they want to have their own interets in criminal

proceedings acknowledged (Kirchhoff 2005 -63)

• Reiff 1979 wrote about a couple husband and wife, rober and torture in New York. No one help them. They suicide in they apartment and leave a paper : we don’t want to live in fear anymore.

• The lawyer of the offenders tend to (always) talk about the human rights protection of the offender which render the public prosecutor feel uncertain.

• The scope of Victimology not only in criminal law and criminology field but has been developed to other fields as well.

• Criminology - offender oriented• Victimology - victim oriented

Conventional victims• Victims of robery• Victims of rape• Victims of murder• Victims of deception• Victims of assault/battery• Victims of torture

Inconventional victims• Victims of technology• Victims of environment pollution• Victims of traffic accident• Victims of apartheid• Victims of slavery• Victims of trafficking• Victims of genocide• Victims of organized crime• Victims of terrorist• Victims of crime against human right• Victims of malpractice• Victims of disaster

• The victimologist in the past and in the present time come from different academic or professional backgrounds – from sociology or from law, from psychiatry or from psychology, from social work, and from management, (Kirchhhoff 2005-42)

• Victimology was born from its ‘mother’, namely Criminology.

• Historically, victimology bloomed in criminology (Kirchhoff 1995-37)

• In many countries victimology are treated not only as a new knowledge , a new emerging field, but also as a “terra incognita” (undiscovered land)

• After sixty years (from 1940s) victimology has established itself both as a perspective and a viable force in the evaluation of criminal justice system around the world.

• Through the activities of the World Society of Victimology, international symposia, and courses, there has been considerable information and idea generated regarding victimology.