Von Hentig's Typology Of Victims

Wolfgang once used victim precipitation to describe situations where the victim was the assailant in the action that led to their harm or loss. It wasn’t only in his research but also in the early typologies and research of Mendelsohn. He states that when one offender provokes another to commit a crime than it is more likely that the victim is guilty. It’s also in Von Hentig’s [1] typology who precipitates his victimization by torturing his family. In Schafer’s [2] typology with victims and explicitly with precipitative victims. These typologies were developed by people such as lawyers who attempted to understand the responsibility that the victim carried relative to that of the offender. There were attempts to reduce the actions of the criminal. …show more content…
Victims are viewed as always good or and offenders as bad. Crime reality exists somewhere in the hazy middle. No doubt in my mind that the crime would still occur in many cases regardless of the victim’s actions. If not for the victim’s actions in other cases the crime would not have occurred, at least at that time. Ignoring this is to ignore the reality behind crime which is not an attempt to understand it. Because of this, colleagues and the authors believe that victim precipitation should not be ignored because it is a feature of crime. It is my contention that it should be studied further so that people can develop a better understanding of the types of victim precipitation that exist today. It also helps people understand the factors that contribute to precipitative actions. Being able to understand this is a set farther into truly understanding the context of crime, criminal and victim behavior, and therefore hope to reduce or eliminate (at least certain types) of crime. The following reasons are proposed for not only retaining the theory as a useful construct in the understanding of crime, but also to expand upon it through research of the theoretical base on which it