VICTIMOLOGY: THE STUDY OF VICTIMS IN CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS

The victim has traditionally been ignored as a component of the crime. Hopefully, this article has provided the reader with an insight into not only how important the victim is to an investigation, but why they are important in the overall scheme of the crime. A complete victimology will usually provide information about the victim's life, and this coupled with an examination of other aspects of not only the victim's risk, but the risk the offender was willing to take to acquire that person as a victim, may provide information about the offender as well.

Any examination made of a crime with an unknown offender that does not consider the victim as a part of the crime will be lacking in information from the outset. As the accuracy and completeness of the whole investigation rests almost completely on the accuracy and completeness of the information provided, it is important for investigators to focus as much on the victim as they do on the potential perpetrator. Only then will they be provided with the maximum amount of information to examine, in the hope of solving serious violent and serial crime.