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Victimology: A Consideration of the Radical Critique

The decade of the 1970s witnessed the full-fledged emergence of a new radical paradigm in criminology and a new subdisciplinary area of concern, victimology. These two important developments have been quite independent and, indeed, have involved rather little direct interaction or reciprocal influence. In the present essay the often implicit-and occasionally explicit-radical concept of crime victimization is delineated, with its roots in Marx and Engels' original formulations identified. The argument is advanced concerning the contemporary situation that the radical understanding of victimization provides an important corrective to mainstream approaches and broadens the focus of our concept of victimization. An essential question addressed in this context is whether the radical concept is too broad and diffuse to be meaningful. At the same time a frequent mainstream criticism of radical criminology has been its alleged rationalization of conventional street crime and its consequent analytical disregard for problematic issues in victimology, as well as a basic insensitivity to the reality of predatory violence victimization. This allegation is examined critically. The essay concludes with some projections on likely future directions of both radical criminology and contemporary victimology.