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In the opening section the author refers to the classical book of Dutch criminologist Willem Bonger on the links between poverty/social injustice and levels of crime. He then introduces his own work on the International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS) since 1989. The ICVS trend data on crime in Western countries during 1989 up to 2010 show a curvilinear movement peaking around 2000. The upward trend seems to track economic growth and to have mainly been caused by increased opportunities of crime. His analytical results concerning car theft and household burglary suggest that the international falls in crime since 2000 are largely caused by improved security. A comparative analysis shows for example that burglary rates have fallen in countries with high levels of home security such as Great Britain and the Netherlands and have continued to rise in low security countries such as Denmark and Switzerland. The author concludes that criminology has evolved both methodologically and theoretically since the publication of Bonger's book in 1905. Some fundamental principles of the discipline, however, appear to have remained unchanged. Van Dijk's own work is, just like that of Bonger, policy- oriented. It is driven by the motivation to assist governments in finding better ways to reduce suffering of human beings from crime, either as victims or as offenders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article goes into the history of victimology and analyses the developments of this academic field up until now. It becomes clear how much the ideas of the founding fathers of victimology like Hans yon Hentig and Benjamin Mendelsohn have been influenced by their experiences in the Second World War. In the beginning much emphasis was put on the question on how much victims were to blame themselves for the crime they had become a victim of. Later, attention shifted to giving more help to victims and trying to get a better understanding of them and their needs, for example through victim surveys. The authors also address how victimology as a multi disciplinary science is related to mono disciplines like psychology and sociology. The authors also briefly refer to the discussions on the exact boundaries of the science of victimology and to the question if a limitation to victims of criminality only is desirable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]