Victimology A horse discipline between psychology and criminology

The Victimology As a science should refer not only to crime victims, but to all types of victim. Throughout the history of the development of this discipline a somewhat tendentious bias has been appreciated.

This is the tendency to identify the concept of victim like all that is involved as a taxpayer of a criminal act typified.

On the contrary, if the object of it opened a little more, we would find ourselves, for example, with the possibility of studying victims of natural catastrophes, economic phenomena, marginalization, discrimination, etc.

Some author defines victimology as "the criminological science of the victim of crime, its elements, their role and, especially, their contribution to the emergence of crime".

On the contrary, In Spanish criminal law there is no reference to the concept of victim, but to the terms "passive subject" or "harmed", as the holder of interest (or legal) for the crime, or the person who suffers damages as a result of that one.

Content

• Victimology against Criminology
• Victimology as part of Criminology
• Victimology as an independent discipline
• Victimology as part of legal psychology
• Final comments
  • References

Victimology against Criminology

Neuman (1985) says that victimology is like criminology, But vice versa. It is the science that studies the second part of the Binomial Author Crime-Victim.

The object of this science would not be the study of crime through the victims, but the discovery and recognition of problems that mainly affect the victims of crimes.

Victimology as part of Criminology

This position is shared by most authors:

• Good as a branch of criminology, Especially when your study focuses on the "author-victim" relationship
• O well contemplated from the point of view of its object (Victim of the offender)
• Also, From the perspective of your approach (Theory and methodology that confuse it with criminology)
• Finally, they exist authors who claim that victimology has enriched itself from criminology and has changed it, constituting its central approach.

In this sense the victimology would be a branch of criminology that deals specifically from the victim as acting. That is, as a participant in a criminal event, as well as the victim as suffering, that is, per person affected by said event.

Victimology as an independent discipline

This position begins to make its way through two very significant aspects:

• The constant celebration of congresses, courses or days on Victimology to those who attend experts in the field
• To consider a part of the doctrine that the alpha and the omega of the Victimology He is the victim and not the criminal, since the Victimology As a science, the study of the victim and victimization is

Victimology as part of legal psychology

Should we talk about a psychology of victimization or a Victimology as a branch of legal psychology?

• In the first case, all psychological and legal problems around the victim would be nothing more than aspects of the new victimological science and the victim's study
• In the second case, the Victimology It would be framed by legal psychology, as one more matter, and within them all areas of interest that related to it would be ordered

Final comments

In short, although the Victimology It has always emerged as a specialty subordinated to psychology and criminology, in recent years it is beginning to take its own identity.

Currently, we are attending the birth of a true independent science. However, their axioms are still to settle and, perhaps, expand and diversify their object of study.

Regarding the Victimology, Today, everything is to be discovered. When can one say that one is contemporary at the birth of a new scientific discipline?

References

• Cárdenas, a. AND. M. (2011). Victimology as a study. Rediscovery of the victim for the criminal process. PROLEGOMENS. Rights and values, 14(27), 27-42.
• Fattaah, e. (2014). Victimology: past, present and future. Electronic Magazine of Criminal Science and Criminology, 33(1), 1-33.
• Marchiori, h. (2004). Victimology. The victim from a criminological perspective. Editorial Bruges.
• Neuman, e. (1985). The victims of the criminal system. Marcos Lerner Editora Córdoba.