International Journal on Criminology Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2014 | Page 49

The Impact of Victimological Theories on the Rights of Crime Victims in France
contested this “art of blaming the victims.”
This in itself gave rise to an initial and very
productive epistemological break, without
which victimology would undoubtedly not
have survived. Wishing to understand the
harm done to women as a whole, they set
up victimization inquiries (following the
very popular model of the self-confession
investigations reserved for possible criminals).
The results were unique and highly
relevant. They allowed the first “profile” of
victims to be drawn up, permitted systematic
examination of the reasons for which
victimization is not reported, and allowed
for a clear description of the stigmatizing
experience inflicted on victims by the legal
apparatus in its wider sense.
Based on these successive achievements
over a matter of just decades, victimologists
from the 1980s onwards developed
scientific approaches to the hidden
side of crime, using constantly updated
knowledge from the neurosciences, psychology
(in the wider sense), sociology,
and recently, restorative victimology. The
latter, with its global approach to the criminal
phenomenon, seems able to reconcile
the various penological and criminological
doctrines, which some still see as strictly
opposed and incompatible. In fact, available
research confirms the true proximity
between the protagonists, at least as concerns
the infractions of our basic social values
(crimes and serious offenses involving
violence, deception, or force). 4 They are
shown to be close in terms of instability and
vulnerability (which may be personal, emotional,
familial, educational, professional,
social, cultural, or spiritual), as well as
in relationship terms (in the vast majority
of crimes against people, the protagonists
know one another). These shared types of
vulnerability, in environments that may
be unavoidable (the family), coincidental
(school and peer group), or chosen (living
environment), often make the roles of victim
and perpetrator interchangeable, creating
an almost fatal cycle which our exclusionary
societies are unable to break (or do
not wish to, where the causes are known). 5
Such social brutality, which is intolerable in
a democracy, must give rise to essentially
preventative criminal and penal policies,
and where these fail, to policies of resocialization.
Anyone wishing to engage in scientific
study of this subject, without giving
in to background penal populism, knows
very well that penalties depriving perpetrators
of their freedom, although necessary
for serious offenses (which account for
20% of criminal convictions—and therefore
0.5% of offences—in France), are extremely
counterproductive in fighting recidivism.
This is true as concerns the time in prison
itself (Kensey and Tournier 2005; Kensey
2007; Tournier 2010; Kensey and Benaouda
2011) and also as concerns the cross-disciplinary
or multiprofessional individualization
of the sentence, which is essential
for progressive and effective reintegration
4
It is useful here to remember that French criminal law does not explicitly define criminal offenses other than
via a classification by seriousness (as crimes, offenses, and infringements (article 111-1 of the French Penal
Code). In its criminological sense, “crime takes the form of a breach of a value established as fundamental for
the human, cultural, and social wellbeing of members of a group in which the conflict emerges,” (Cario 2008,
191).
5
The first victimologists were not unaware of most of these different factors. They included the random allocation
of the roles of criminal and victim, fair and full compensation for victims, multidisciplinary clinical
assessments, and the importance of protagonists’ vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, given what is known today,
science cannot validate the emphasis that “victimology of the act” places on the fault of the victim (particularly
in cases of sexual violence against women) or “predispositions” (specific or general) to become victims.
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