Editors: The Editorial Board Jo-Anne Wemmers, Gerd Ferdinand Kirchhoff, Rika Snyman, Elmar Weitekamp   

Vol. 1.#2

From the Editors` Desk... 1997 was a very important year for the World Society of Victimology: the Ninth International Symposium on Victimology took place in August of this year and The Victimologist, the official newsletter of the WSV, was launched. Based on the contributions in this issue of The Victimologist, it looks like 1998 will be an equally dynamic year for the WSV.   1998 will mark the opening of the Institue of Victimology in Sarajevo (IVS). In his article, John Dussich, describes the background of this initiative and the aim of the IVS. Similarly, in the Message from the President Jan van Dijk, presents several new developments in and around the WSV.   Besides these new developments, this issue of The Victimologist also includes two conference reviews. Otmar Hagemann gives a personal review of the Ninth International Symposium on Victimology which took place in Amsterdam. In his article he considers some of the major issues which were addressed at the symposium and discusses the theoretical developments within the "science" of victimology .   The second conference review is by Anna Baldry. She reports on the Seventh European Conference on Psychology and Law which took place in Stockholm and addresses the importance of research in the area of psychology and law for victimologists.   

Report from the Seventh European Conference on Psychology and Law  
Anna C. Baldry   

In September 1997 the Seventh European Conference on Psychology and Law was held at the Swedish National Police College in Stockholm. The conference was organised by the European Association of Psychology and Law and Prof. Per-Olf H Wilkström. Participants were from as many as 17 European countries and a few were also from USA, Canada and Australia.    The field of Psychology and Law is a very broad one and comprises several areas. One of the main topics addressed during the conference was crime prevention and the Criminal Justice System, but victimological issues were also dealt with. The increasing interest and attention paid to victimology is shown also by the volume ‘Advances in Psychology and Law’, of proceedings from the IVth conference of the European Association of Psychology and Law, held in Barcelona, Spain in 1994, which dedicates the entire second chapter to the field of ‘victimology’. Throughout the book there are few other contributions that deal with the prevention of victimisation, treatment of victims and the protection of their rights.   Specific research topics of the Swedish conference were: cause of crime, juvenile aggression, antisocial behaviour and criminality; the police and the community. Although several of the presentations were related to offenders and crime, some were also on prevention of victimisation and dealt more specifically with victimological issues. A whole plenary session, for instance, was dedicated to the legal and psychological aspects of witnesses and evidence in court. Special attention was paid to children as victims and witnesses. The session on children and courts addressed research conducted on the accuracy of children reporting in a trial, the assessment of their testimonies and on the implementation of new devices and legal procedure to reduce the risk of further victimising children.   Another session, chaired by Prof. David Farrington was dedicated to bullying in schools and focused both on perpetrators but also on victims and their characteristics and needs. A whole session, chaired by Dr. Frans W. Winkel, dealt with the issue of ‘Coping with negative life events’ and addressed different mechanism of victims responding to their trauma.    The conference provided the participants with insight into the state of the art of Psychology and Law in different countries and enabled them to exchange knowledge and methodologies. The field of psychology and law is spreading and linking together professional both from the field of Law, Psychology, Psychiatric and Sociology. It is hoped that the increasing interest in victimological issues will bring more researchers to focus on victims needs but especially on prevention of secondary victimization and to present their findings at the 8th European conference of Psychology and Law that will take place in Cracow from the 2nd to the 5th September 1998.   See you in Cracow .....    Notes:     If you want more information about the Association of Psychology and Law and would like to become a member you can visit the Web Site: http://www.Softcorp.co.uk/EAPL    The book ‘Advances in Psychology and Law. International Contributions’, is edited by S. Redondo, V. Garriso, J Pérez, R. Barberet and published by Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and can be ordered at a special 45% discount if ordered with the other two previous books: F. Lösel, D. Bender, T. Bliesener, (1992) (eds.): Psychology and Law. International perspectives, and G. Davies, S. Lloyd-Boystock, M. McMurran, C. Wilson (1996) (eds.): Psychology, Law and Criminal Justice.

World Society of Victimology — Inter University Center for   Post Graduate Studies Dubrovnik announce:   Post graduate course (XIV)    Victimology, Victim Assistance and Criminal Justice   May 4 - 15, 1998  

The course will give a theoretical foundation of victimology as a social science of victims of human right violations including crime and it will look at different current developments in the field of victim assistance, crisis intervention and coping theory, prevention of victimization, practical prpograms of restorative justice, improvements for victims in the criminal justice process, victims in the international area of social and criminal politics, UN manual of implementation of the UN Declaration on basic Principles of Justice for Victims of crime and Abuse of Power, victims in the UN tribunals.    Students are required to give a short presentation at the end of the course on topics they choose. These presentations must be discussed with the codirectors prior to the delivery so that the content of the course can be integrated into the paper.    During the weekend of May 9 - 10, there will be an international workshop on a victimological topic -  most probably on victimization on the worklplace and de-escalation techniques.The first 1998 meeting of the Executive Committee of the World Society of Victimology will also take place at this time.    Course Directors:    John Dussich (Tokiwa Gakuen, Japan)   Gerd F. Kirchhoff (University of Applied Sciences Lower Rhineland, FRG)   Zvonimir Paul Separovic (University of Zagreb, Croatia)   Elmar weitekamp (University of Tübingen, FRG)   Frans Willem Winkel (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, NL)    Resource Persons:    Sara Ben David (Bar Ilan University, Israel); Ewa Bienkowska (University of Wearszawa, Poland) ; Ante Caric, (University of Split, Croatien); Jan van Dijk (Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, Netherlands); Paul C. Friday (University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA), Marc Groenhuizen (Univerity of Tilburg, Netherlands), Esster Kosovski (Federal Universidad Rio de Janeiro, F´Brazil); Maria de la Luz Lima (Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico Ciudad),  Helen Reeves (Victim Support, England); Hans Joachim Schneider (University of Münster, Westfalia, FRG); Peer Stangeland (University of Malaga, Spain); Ksenia Turkovic (University of Zagreb, Croatia), Aglaia Tsitsoura (University of Thrace, Greece); Irvin Waller (University of Ottawa, Canada); Marlene Young (NOVA, USA).    Registration:    Students are required to register with the   IUC, Frane Bulica 4, 50000 Dubrovnik, Croatia,   email: iuc@alf.tel.hr    More informations on  http://www.world-society-victomology.de   All inquiries to the Secretary General of WSV.   

A New Society of Victimology? A letter from the president   Jan van Dijk

New Labour in the UK and a new South Africa: so why not have a new WSV? In my opinion there is no immediate need to renew the society. The WSV has proven its viability with a successful symposium in Amsterdam and preparations for the summer course in (new!) Dubrovnik are in full swing. The election of a new president is definitely no reason for announcing a new start. And yet there is a good reason for talking of a new WSV. In Amsterdam many new members registered and paid their dues for either one or three years. This new wave of members is welcomed by the board. The new members will soon start to have an impact upon the direction of our society.    The Amsterdam symposium Caring for Victims, will be reported upon elsewhere in this issue. Reactions sent to the organising committee have been unanimously positive. For the first time in history the symposium made a small profit which will be forwarded to the WSV. Detailed reports will shortly be published in the Dutch Tijdschrift voor Criminologie (December issue) and in one of the German criminological journals.   The organising committee is meanwhile working on the publication of a book with the keynote lectures and symposium reports. In addition, plans are made for the publication of a selection of the most interesting 50 papers.    I personally cherish the memory of a truly international and multidisciplinary symposium. New elan was brought to the symposium by the many participants from the European countries in transition and from several developing countries. I want, once more, to thank Gloria Egbuji for her African arts exhibition. Building upon her participation in the symposium Gloria is presently engaged in the carrying out of the first victimisation survey in Lagos (Nigeria) with support from UNICRI. Like many of us, our Nigerian colleague resists to be qualified as either researcher or activist. Most of us are happy to wear both hats. In the same spirit Mmatshilo (Matsy) Motsei in Johannesburg is now planning to add to her support centre for victims of violence against women a research component.    From a substantive perspective I observed at the symposium the re-emergence of some classical victimological issues such as the question of victim proneness (presently presented as repeat victimisation). Researchers seem to go beyond the taboo of victim blaming and to look once again at the issues of victim proneness and precipitation. The phenomenon of repeat victimisation seems an important challenge for victimologists. How can it be explained and, better still, how can it be avoided?   Perhaps somewhat less satisfactory was the representation of new clinical victimological research. Marlene Young, for example, referred briefly to new research into the psycho-physiological impact of victimisation. It would have been exciting and relevant for practitioners to have heard more about this new frontier. The researchers involved might have chosen to attend meetings of specialised societies instead. The division of labour between our society and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) might need to be reconsidered. I will raise this issue at the next meeting of the Board.    The first occasion for new and old members to make a contribution to the work of the WSV is during the victimology course which will take place on 4 to 16 May 1998 in Dubrovnik (Croatia). On the 8th the WSV Executive Board will have its annual meeting. Members are invited to attend the main parts of this meeting. On the 9 and 10 of May Prof. John Dussich and some Bosnian colleagues will hold a seminar on the victimological aspects of the war in Bosnia. On this occasion the Sarajevo Centre for Victimology will be officially launched. It is my pleasure to inform you that funds for this centre have been secured and that it will open a small office in Sarajevo in the beginning of next year. In the first stage the centre will consist of a full time co-ordinator and a secretary. The centre will have documentary and research tasks as well as some modest service delivery tasks (e.g. needs assessment). We hope that many members will give their support to this new initiative, for example by offering books and/or attending the seminar.    During the board meeting in Amsterdam it was decided to set up some committees to promote specific activities. First of all, the board wants to revitalise the once active research committee (which counted reputed victimologists as Prof. Harding from Australia and Prof. Joanne Shapland from the UK among its members). The research committee will be asked to make an inventory of ongoing victimological research and to set up a research agenda for the coming years. Issues to be addressed are the future of the international surveys, including the plans for a standardised violence against women survey. The committee might also come up with ideas for a better co-ordination of evaluation and monitoring of service delivery. It is our intention to convene a first meeting of the new research committee in Dubrovnik around May the 8th. We hope to be able to offer the participants free rooms. On our preliminary list of members of the committee are Marc Groenhuysen (NL), Marianne Löschnig (Austria), Cousineau (Canada), Jo Anne Wemmers (NL) and Kristiina Kangaspunta (Finland). Sarah Ben David and myself will act as linking pins with the board. Other members who are interested in serving on this committee or would like to suggest names of other candidates are kindly requested to contact me or the secretary general.    In Amsterdam, a special session was devoted to the work of the United Nations Crime Prevention Programme in the field of victimology. Mr E Vetere has sent copies of the policy makers guidelines and the practitioners handbook to the member countries for comment. All WSV members are invited to comment on the present text and to sent these to the secretary general. Early next year, the Office for Victims of the US Department of Justice will host a experts meeting to finalise these documents which will then probably be presented to the Crime Commission for approval at its next meeting in April in Vienna.    In the meantime, officials at the Dutch Ministry of Justice are studying the feasibility of starting and maintaining a specialised website on victimological policy information, modelled after the website on crime prevention of ICPC in Montreal. One of the options is to transform the existing website for the Amsterdam symposium into a resource centre on policy relevant victimological information.    As you can see from this overview of upcoming activities, our society is up and doing. Allow me to finish with my very best wishes for the new year! Take care! See you in Dubrovnik?   

Review of the 9th International World Symposium on Victimology "Caring for Victims"
Otmar Hagemann   

From August 26 to 29 more than 600 participants from 67 countries met in Amsterdam to discuss   Victim Surveys  Victim Bill of Rights  Trends in Victim Support and   Abuse of Power & War Crimes.   These numbers reflect the growing importance of victimology as Jan van Dijk stated in his opening  remarks. Each day was introduced by two or three keynote speeches on the above mentioned themes. The most controversial topic was victim support in which keynote speeches were presented by Marlene Young and Ezzat Fattah. Marlene Young argued for improvements in an already well prepared field. She extended the range of victims by directing our attention towards unintended victimizations in everyday life and towards "structural" victims of famine, loneliness, unemployment, homelessness etc. to name just a few examples. She called for an introduction of a universal code of care, which allows for systematic training of paid and unpaid staff, accountability, more effectiveness and will lead to a higher standard of victim assistance as well as reaching a greater number of victims with the services. The code of care must take into account that traumatic experiences differ within different cultural contexts.   In sharp contrast to the position outlined by Young, Fattah claimed that the victim assistance movement has been cheated by politicians. Only the poorest of the poor will get any form of help. He argued that a general crime-insurance is needed. Furthermore he emphasized the "potentially disastrous consequences of doing good". Victims find themselves in a "no-win" situation, especially abused children. Counselling cannot reduce trauma. On the contrary, intervention, when not done properly, can extend coping processes. Since the victim is no innocent prey of predators, self blame can have healing functions and can be a productive means to recover from trauma without professional help.   Several speakers focused on restorative justice, including mediation, restitution and new concepts of procedural justice. This paradigm was discussed mainly by Elmar Weitekamp in a framework of ethnological perspectives. In respect to restore social peace, our societies can learn from the so-called primitive societies. The introduction of „family-group-conferences" in 1989 in New Zealand was interpreted by him (and also by Leslie Sebba) as a first step in this direction. Restorative justice means to give back the conflicts to the people who own them.  Participants could learn about this from a report on the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in South Africa, which focuses mainly on living together in the future, thus totally different from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Republic of Yugoslavia in The Hague. This retributive approach was nonetheless, seen by Zvonimir P. Separovic as a positive step towards the establishment of permanent global justice institutions. He spoke of war as the worst of all human inventions.   A special contribution from South African participants concerned the introduction of the concept of empowerment. This was related to individual victims as well as to communities. Sebba, too, stated that it would be more humane to empower the victims position than to take legal guarantees away from the offenders side. He plead for a "restorative justice" approach with responsibility on a community level. This means that bystanders (- in our global village this will be everyone -) are no longer allowed to deny their responsibility. A serious problem concerning mediation procedures is the absence of proof of guilt. This can be overcome by an old Dutch civil law procedure called "dading". This means that the parties can work together to solve the conflict and, if parties are able to come to an agreement, they can base their agreement in a civil contract (in other words the old abolitionist dream of Nils Christie).    Most of these ideas are compatible with the reflections of  Marc Groenhuijsen who dealt with the question of introducing victims rights in criminal justice procedures. Based on a re-analysis of an implementation research by United Nations Bureau in Vienna 1995 he warned against a "popular fallacy". In his view, it is not true that the position of the victim will improve then there are more rights in existence. Everything which could inhibit a fair trial against offenders as well as the modification of the criminal justice procedure into a three-party-affair is to be refused. Empirical evidence for his views are found in the international comparison of the implementation of certain victim rights by Marion Brienen and Ernestine Hoegen.      „Hate crime" seems to be a new theoretical category. This term describes certain victimizations of minorities or marginal groups of the society on the individual level (e.g. homeless people, homosexuals, foreign workers) or different ethnic groups or political enemies on macro level (e.g. in the context of abuse of power / war crimes). As both Tiby and Tomsen pointed out, it is very difficult in a given empirical case to apply this term, because individual offenders often do not know or do not talk about their real motives or even construct them afterwards.   The traditional concepts and instruments also revealed new insights. Jan van Dijk concluded from findings of the International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS)  that victimizations could no longer been treated as rare events. From Victim Surveys we know that crime decreases in general, especially violence. Wesley Skogan named commercial victims and schools as problem areas. He focuses on repeated victimizations and underlined that victimization in high crime areas is not evenly distributed. In the USA there exist no prevention programmes for the poor. The discussion of the relationship between the state and the citizens revealed that the more contacts people have with the police and prosecution agencies, the more they express discontent. Victim support agencies come in contact with less than 1% of the victims. Furthermore he stressed the importance of a theory on procedural justice and refers to the recent empirical work of Wemmers. Victims do not want to influence the outcome but will take part in the judicial process and will have a voice.   There were broad discussions on various traditional topics, adding some new pieces to the whole puzzle of victimology which has been developed throughout the last decades. Examples are: the victim surveys in several countries which had not been active in this field before, the special categories of victimization, like domestic violence and burglary, the consequences of victimization such as PTSD, fear of crime and the whole subject of crime prevention. In this respect Manuel Lopez demonstrated the close tie between victimological and economic questions and introduced the concept of  "total quality management" to the symposium.    Finally we should look at the subject which was the focus of last day of the symposium: abuse of power and war crimes. To me this field seems to be underdeveloped. The level of theoretical conceptualisation seems to be quite low still. Maria de la Luz Lima identified some fields within this area but these are not well integrated in a theory. We are still at the level of developing purely descriptive typologies. The next step will be to show how these fields are interrelated and how they could be related to victimology on an individual level. The term structural victims could probably be helpful in this respect.   As a subjective personal conclusion I would like to point to an enormous body of knowledge in some particular fields on the micro level, but at the same time to great deficits on a wider theoretical level. Despite great success in the area of criminal policy - the recent initiative on United Nations level and the work on a manual for practical application of victimological knowledge deserve appreciation - it is, in my view, still questionable whether victimology will acquire the status of a science.   

INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF VICTIMOLOGY  Volume 5.1  
N. Shalhoub-Kevorkian   

Tolerating Battering: Invisible Methods of Social Control.    H. Fenwick   Sentence Discount: The Victims’ Perspective    E. Erez, L. Roeger, F. Morgan   Victim harm, Impact Statements and Victim Satisfaction with Justice: The Australian Experience    L. Koppelaar, A. Lange, J.W. van de Velde   The Influence of Positive and Negative Victim Credibility on the Assessment of Rape Victims   

INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF VICTIMOLOGY Volume 5.2  
H. Baartman   

Compassion and scepticism in child sexual abuse; some historical aspects and explanations    M. Brienen and E. Hoegen   Information Systems for Victims of Crime: Results of Comparative Research    A. Denkers and F. Winkel   Crime Victims: Well- being and fear in a prospective and longitudinal study    H. Kury and T. Ferdinand   The Victim’s Experience and Fear of Crime   

INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF VICTIMOLOGY Volume 5.3
    J. Goodey   

Examining the "White Racist/Black Victim" Stereotype    R. Carriére   Victim offender negotiations: an exploratory study on different damage types and compensation    F. Winkel and M. Renssen   Pessimistic Client Perception and Upward Bias in Social Comparison Expectations    G. Mesch and G. Fishman   Fear of Crime and Individual Crime Protective Actions in Israel