NCJ Number
76285
Date Published
1980
Length
64 pages
Annotation
An analysis of papers and proceedings from the Victimology Research Agenda Development Project Workshop and the recommended research topics are presented.
Abstract
The Project represents an effort of the National Institute of Justice to develop a program of basic victimological research which improves knowledge of the correlates of crime, develops crime control methods, and increases crime prevention capability. Papers delivered at the workshop in March 1980 related to antecedents, processes, and consequences of victimization. Important themes emphasized during the workshop are the limits of national crime surveys, definitional problems inherent in victimology, the need for deductive rather than inductive theories and typological rather than common explanatory mechanisms, generalizability requirements, and problems of inferring causality. Papers focusing on antecedents of victimization discuss the lifestyle exposure model, multiple victimization, and overlapping of offender victim populations. Papers also explore victim-offender interaction, behavior that prompts victimization, causes of fear of crime, and the social meaning of crime for the victim and for society. Research topics recommended include lifestyle and exposure to risk in the etiology of victimization; typology of the social, behavioral, and psychological concepts relating to the etiology of victimization; characterization of multiple victimization; relationships between victim and offender experiences; dynamics and situational aspects of victimization and crime prevention and risk-reducing behavior. Goals, potential activities, and issues surrounding each topic are outlined. An appendix contains the workshop agenda.