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6 J. Hum. Just. 4 (1994-1995)

handle is hein.journals/ctlcrm6 and id is 1 raw text is: Has Victimology Outlived Its Usefulness? Robert Elias, University of San Francisco Victimology has made important contributions to understanding victimization in the last several decades. Yet it has done little to reduce victimization. Instead, victimological findings and victim advocacy have been used by policymakers to promote ineffective 'law and order' crime policies. Victimology has been substan- tially co-opted, largely because it has either shunned politics or at least implicitly endorsed a counterproductive politics. Instead, victimology must re-examine its direction and politics. The possibilities are illustrated by examining several alterna- tive, anti-crime ideologies and case studies. The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Albert Einstein INTRODUCTION Several years ago, in a paper presented at the 5th International Symposium on Victimology, Donald Cressey claimed that: Victimology is not a scientific discipline. Neither is it an academic field ... to which scholars and scientists trained in various disciplines make theoretical and research contributions. It is, instead, a non-academic programme under which a hodgepodge of ideas, interests, ideologies, and research methods have been rather arbitrarily grouped ... victimology is characterized by a clash between two equally desirable orientations to human suffering - the humanistic and the scientific. This conflict ... seems to interfere with both the humanitarian and the scientific efforts on behalf of victims. The humanists' work tends to be deprecated because it is considered propagandistic rather than scientific, and the scientists' work tends to be deprecated because it is not sufficiently oriented to social action. Each set of victimologists would probably be better off if it divorced the other and formed alliances outside the shadow of the victimology umbrella. (1992: 57) This is pretty strong criticism. Cressey posed two possible solutions: Victimology should limit itself only to scientific victimologists, and push the humanistic victimologists into human rights activism or social work. Or victimology should fade away altogether, with the scientific victimologists merging with the criminologists (Cressey 1992). Was Cressey right? Do internal contradictions undermine victimology's effectiveness? Is it making a contribution or has it lost its direction? Has victimology outlived its usefulness?

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