Positivist Victimology and
Neo-Classical Criminology:
Victim Responsibilisation
Week 2
SGM2058 Victimology
2023/24
Dr Riikka Kotanen
, Outline of the Lecture
▪PositivistVictimology
▪Key principles and questions
▪Early positivist victimologists
▪Key Studies
▪Examples: Victim typologies and victim precipitation
▪Neo-Classical Criminology and Victims
▪Key principles and questions
▪Example: Routine Activity Theory
▪Victim responsibilisation vs. victim blaming
Key concepts: Victim precipitation, victim culpability,
responsibilisation, blame attribution, victim typology,
situational crime prevention
,Keep in mind that classical criminology
foregrounded:
I. Individual responsibility for criminal behaviour
II. Individual accountability for criminal behaviour
III. Criminality is the outcome of rational choices of individuals
IV. Focus: Altering the decision-making of actual and potential
offenders
These ideas are deeply embedded in many cultures,
societies and criminal justice systems!
, Positivism
• What is positivism?
Knowledge through systematic empirical
enquiry, objective measurement, hypothesis
testing, classification, and experiment
Quantitative research (vs. qualitative)
• What is positivist criminology?
Causal conditions for criminal behaviour →
Presence of such conditions makes the criminal
‘different’ from ‘normal’ people → Offender
focused
Crime = pathological, discoverable causes (e.g.
biological), criminal ‘typologies’ (e.g.
Lombroso)
Treatment of criminal pathologies
, ‘Since the dawn of scientific criminology,
criminologists have tried to find out why some
individuals become criminal while others do not.
They conducted countless studies to discover
whether criminals are different in any respect from
non-criminals. An equally interesting and thought-
provoking question is ‘Why do some individuals
become victims of crime while others do not?’
(Fattah 1997, pp. 143)
, What is Positivist Victimology?
A sub discipline of criminology → ‘The science of the victim’
Facts of victimisation
Measuring (I) the nature and extent of criminal victimisation
and (II) the characteristics of such victimisation, for
example:
How many victims?
Causes of victimisation?
Repeat victimisation and victims’ role in victimisation
Socio-cultural factors that ‘produce’ victims
Types of victim → Victim characteristics
Why are some people victimised and others not?
How do offenders decide who to victimise?
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