ABSTRACT
The potential influence and importance of each needs to be understood both by reference to the nature of victimology and the nature of my own biography in turn. This chapter describes a brief overview of the nature of victimology as a vehicle for studying 'victims' and 'victimisation'. Academically, the work of Sparks, Genn and Dodd laid the groundwork for the development, application and refinement of the criminal victimisation survey. Whilst feminist work had long challenged the presumption that the 'fear of crime' was associated with strangers in public places, Stanko's work took that challenge a stage further. Giddens suggests that there are two key features to the modern world: the globalization of modernity and the radicalisation of modernity. The chapter endeavoures to trace the developments within victimology in parallel with assessing the emergence and importance of ideas outside of that discipline for the future development of it.
