Victimology Principles

1) There is always a reason why victims become victims.

The first and main principle of victimology may seem unfair or even unrealistic to some (especially people who have already victimized) is that there is always a reason why victims have become victims.

- Indeed, when you consider the mind of a criminal, there is something he sees in the victim that motivated him to act. For the criminal, there is either a selection or at least a negative perception of the potential victim, what will trigger for any reason the acting out, with or without mobile.

- Victims are never victims by chance (or rather misfortune), whether there is a mobile (vengeance, greed, passion...) or not (paranoia where the offender thinks the victim persecutes him, sexual fantasies where the offender will select specific types...).

- Victims sometimes become victims due to their own vulnerability. Some studies have shown that a person who has already suffered a trauma, who has already been a victim, or has not done anything to overcome the trauma, are more likely to be victimized again than others.

2) Who look alike come together, complete and recognize each other.

- That applies to everyone: you wouldn't stay with someone a long time with someone you don't share common interests or elements of complementary. Therefore, it will be easier for a person who has been victimized to turn to other victims who would be more understanding, would be able to help and accept this person. Moreover, the way other people look at the person who has been victimized is very important to the victim.

- A victim has a tendency to take some distance with the family and friends because it is hard for this person to handle that the loved ones are suffering for the person who has been victimized. The victim doesn't want to cause any suffering, and this suffering is just adding up to the victim's own suffering.

- At the same time, when someone is feeling depressed, "normal" and happy people disturb, they are a reminder that the victim is not "normal", failures and sad. The victim will therefore take some distances and try to get closer to those more alike who will be able to turn the bad emotions around into better ones.

- People don't come together by chance or by misfortune: in general, a dominant person needs a submissive one, as much as a submissive one needs a dominant one for example. Take domestic violence, very often the victim is in a state of mind leading up to the violence, and very often thinks that the beating was deserved. I am not saying that the victim deserves the beating, nobody deserves it. What I am trying to say is that some people think so bad of themselves that they meet people who do to them what they think they deserve (does that make sense?). This explains (partly) why even if the victim leaves the violent partner, it is only to meet a new one that is also violent and abusive.

- Once someone is getting used to lean towards certain types of people or profiles of people, the victim develops the ability to decode people and behaviors with similar characteristics.

3) Every offender has been a victim, and every victim may become an offender

- The judicial logic and practice tends to focus towards the offenders, the people who are causing harm to society. However, people are not born criminals, they become criminals. The causes and origins of criminal behavior are always multi-factorial, and all these factors operate in a very dynamic and interactive life process where, step by step, people become offenders.

- Anyone can become an offender if: 1) their past and personality predispose them, 2) if the circumstances are favorable, 3) an event triggers the acting out.

- But as much as every offender has been a victim of some sort at some point in their life, every victim does not necessarily become an offender.