The Need for a Critical Victimology

The Victimization of Dependent Drug Users

“…They argue for a critical victimology that seeks to understand these mechanisms by exposing the interplay of structure and agency in people's choices and actions and that calls into question the role of the law and the state. In his interpretation of critical victimology, Ezzat Fattah (1992) also emphasized the need to link understanding to action to reduce the harms of victimization, as well as the ongoing need to resist the political use of victims in justifying repressive crime policies. A study by Waidner, one of the authors of this paper, meets some of the criteria of those who call for a critical approach (Waidner 1999;Waidner and Werdenich 1999).…”

Harm: a Neglected Concept in Criminology, a Necessary Benchmark for Crime-Control Policy

“…It is also difficult statistically to separate the effect of crime rates on housing prices from other neighborhood characteristics that tend to occur along with crime (Heaton, 2010: 4). Valuing human life on the basis of income-earning potential, largely a past practice, offers limited insight when victims are also criminals (see Fattah, 1992); VSL calculations represent a substantial advancement, but they do not value life perse. Estimates of intangible costs based on jury award data reflect the latter's "extreme difficulty of translating pain and suffering into monetary ecjuivalents" (Sunstein, 2008:157).…”

Living with Paradoxes

“…Victimological studies (such as Meidinger 1999, Michaelis-Arntzen 1994, Katz and Mazur 1979, Fattah 1991and Fattah 1992 concentrate mainly on the analysis of specific socio-demographic, behavioral, temporal and situational characteristics of the victim and the aggressor, including the victims' levels of resistance, mainly asking 'Who is the victim? ', 'Who is the rapist?'…”