ABSTRACT
The sufferer is allowed to demand compensation, the punishment imposed upon the offender is partly determined by the sufferer's anger or mercy; he witnesses the offender's punishment, is allowed to take part in inflicting it, and usually is supposed to be among those who symbolically receive the offender back into the community. A comparatively recent development, a sign of progress and civilisation, is the appearance of a fourth factor, which may be called 'the agents of the community', such as policemen, judges, lawyers, gaolers, executioners, psychiatrists, etc. The modern humane penal systems undermine this impressive psychotherapy from several directions. The general tendency is to exclude the sufferer from the drama as far as possible. The offence itself has to be dealt with; the question of damages is usually quite a separate affair, and no damages, or only token ones, are awarded. Science has developed two methods for studying delinquency: the global or statistical and the individual or psychological.
