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Preface by prof. Ezzat a. Fattah: a social science for tomorrow. The promising future of victimology1

1. THE EVER EXPANDING INVENTORY OF VICTIMIZING BEHAVIOURS IN MODERN, INDUSTRIALIZED SOCIETIES

The more advanced a society is the more behaviours will be defined as victimizing and the higher the recorded victimisation will be. At first glance this may seem like a paradox but it is actually quite understandable. The steady progression towards a more humane society continuously requires a broadening of the definition of victimisation. This inevitably leads to the identification and addition of previously acceptable or tolerated behaviours to existing lists of victimizing acts. Not only this, but as society moves forward on the path of humanity the awareness of hidden and not too hidden types of victimisation is enhanced and the recognition of subtle kinds and forms of victimizing behaviours is sharpened. Growing humanitarianism also leads to a heightened awareness of the pervasiveness, the extent and seriousness of various types of victimisation. It further generates an enhanced sensitivity to the pain and suffering of various types of victims whose plight was previously unacknowledged, belittled or ignored. This is bound to result in commendable intensive efforts to identify, help and protect hidden, predisposed and vulnerable victims. It also leads to a much deeper understanding of the close link between victimisation and offending and the interchangeable roles of victim and victimiser. And as Victimology has amply shown, in advanced societies, the major part of violence is not predatory but retaliatory in nature.

2. FUTURE SOCIETIES WILL HAVE EVEN GREATER NEED FOR VICTIMOLOGY THAN PRESENT ONES AS THEY WILL BE CONFLICT-RIDDEN AND RIFE WITH VICTIMISATION

Let me now make a pessimistic though a realistic forecast about the society of tomorrow. There are compelling reasons to believe that it will be conflict-ridden and rife with victimisation.

If what we witness now, if what we watch daily in the news, is any indication of how societies in the future will be like, there is unfortunately little reason for optimism! Genocide which we thought was a phenomenon of a particularly dark era in the history of humanity is still being perpetrated. The condemned practice of child labour is rampant in developing countries. Attempts to prevent human trafficking have not been successful. Oppression, suppression, extra judicial killings, mass disappearances, liquidation of political foes, rivals and opponents are regular features of many world regimes. Police killings of, and police brutality against, members of minority groups, against dissidents and protestors, have become first page news following publicized incidents in different parts of the world. Mass shootings in the most advanced society in the world are a daily occurrence. Hate crimes are common place. Racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, islamophobia, homophobia, etc. are deeply rooted in many cultures and have proven to be resistant to eradication even change. The victimisation of minorities be it ethnic, religious, cultural or sexual minorities, continues unabated, even in some of the most democratic and most prosperous societies. Advanced technologies have resulted in new forms of victimisation and many new types will inevitably come into being and claim as victims millions of daily users. The aging of society has created a group of citizens who are particularly vulnerable to victimisations of various kinds. The Corona pandemic, to which they became the primary victims, revealed to an unsuspecting world the victimizing and dehumanizing conditions in which they were living, even in the richest countries on earth.

And most threatening of all is the controversy surrounding the greatest danger to the planet earth: climate change. One has to wonder, how is it that despite compelling scientific evidence, it is still being labeled by many, including the former president of the USA, as a hoax!

3. SADLY, THE UTOPIAN DREAM OF A PEACEFUL, HARMONIOUS, EGALITARIAN, AND JUST SOCIETY HAS NOT MATERIALIZED

The overly optimistic and positive predictions of social reformers suggesting that humans have matured, that monstrous atrocities are relics of the past, and that the 21st century will be a century of peace, justice and love, have not materialized. In fact they were proven to be no more than wishful thinking. So the ideal of a non-violent, harmonious, egalitarian and just society sadly remains an elusive utopian dream. The optimistic expectation that, slowly but surely, humanity will triumph that love will replace hate, compassion will supersede cruelty and friendliness will prevail over animosity, evaporated like morning dew under the rising sun. To the disappointment and disillusion of many, the world seems more troubled and in greater turmoil today than it has been in the past several decades!

So what does the future hold? History tells us that the more competitive a society is the more conflicts are generated among its members and the more disputes are likely to occur within that society. Today’s society is a highly competitive one and tomorrow’s society is likely to be even more so. The ever-growing scarcity of natural resources creates a social and economic environment where only the fittest can survive. Divisive issues such as climate change, the use of fossil fuels, migration, inequality, disparities in wealth and power, to mention but a few, will continue to cause major rifts, discords and frictions. Religious schisms will likely escalate. Mounting antagonism and animosity are bound to lead to hostility, strives and clashes between opposing factions. We all watched in disbelief what happened on January 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. So it is to be expected that friction, enmity and acrimony will create a fertile terrain for victimisation of all kinds. And this in turn will generate a pressing and strongly felt need for Victimology.

4. IN TOMORROW’S SOCIETY VICTIMOLOGY WILL HAVE A MAJOR ROLE TO PLAY AND MAY EVENTUALLY BECOME THE SOCIAL SCIENCE OF THE TIME

Despite major and frequent setbacks in various parts of the world, despite failures and disappointments, the quest for justice and the struggle for freedom and equality continue. The intensity and speed of the march towards those ideals vary from one country to the next.

Once a society has reached a high degree of egalitarianism and humanitarianism and once it has achieved a reasonable level of progress and prosperity victimisation will become the primary social concern. All forces and resources will be geared towards the prevention of various types of victimisation: violent, sexual, economic, cultural, etc... In democratic societies the quest for justice and equality will flourish and intensify. In totalitarian and authoritarian societies the struggle and mobilization will be geared to fight victimisation by the state and to have democracy established or restored. It is fair to predict that in tomorrow’s society, preventing victimisation, reducing its incidence, alleviating its traumatic consequences and helping victims recover and become whole again will be the primary mission and central focus of those who hold the strings of power and who are responsible for the well-being, the safety, security and peaceful co-existence of the citizens.

This major and heavy responsibility will create a pressing need, an urgent demand for objective, unbiased and independent scholarly research that studies and analyzes the victimisation phenomenon, its extent, its manifestations, its contexts, its protagonists, as well as the ways and means of controlling it, reducing its incidence and alleviating its impact. Victimology becomes the social science par excellence. More than any other discipline, it has the potential of providing empirical factual data on, and credible measurements of, victimisation and to offer evidence – based solutions. In the conflict ridden society of tomorrow, Victimology will be called upon to play a primary role similar to the one medicine was asked to perform when the Corona pandemic struck. All indicators suggest that the need for Victimology will become more evident and more pressing. Victimology will gain in importance and stature and will be constantly appealed to and called upon to provide not only valuable and much needed information but also answers, explanations and potential solutions.

To reiterate what was mentioned above let me emphasize that in the multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi religion, multi class society in which we live, conflicts and frictions are common and hard to avoid. Peace and harmony are not easy to achieve. At the risk of stating the obvious, let me offer an advice, based on my life experience that I always gave to my criminology students: it is impossible to legislate love just as it is not possible to outlaw hate. The most we could do as responsible citizens is to strongly condemn, monitor and try by democratic policies and peaceful methods to prevent violence of all types, regardless of what the motivation is and what the contexts are: predatory, retaliatory, political, sexual, hatemotivated, etc.. Although the means to achieve such prevention differed, this has always been the primary goal of social reformers. Regrettably, for millennia society’s policy to prevent victimizing behaviours has been to inflict harsh punitive sanctions which achieved little or no success. Restorative justice has shown that a more effective means of changing people’s behaviour is to appeal to their human instincts and to sensitize them to the pain and suffering their behaviour causes to fellow humans. This is precisely the humanitarian message that Victimology teaches. Empathy and compassion are not inborn, they are learned, and need perpetual nurture and reinforcement. In an attempt to inculcate a better understanding and sharper sensitivity in the minds of the young, it is not inconceivable that Victimology courses may, in the not too distant future, be made a compulsory subject, not just at the college or university levels but in school curricula as well.

This will signal the arrival of the golden age of Victimology!

Let me end this brief preface with a word of caution and a glimpse of hope. The prominence that Victimology is likely to achieve among social sciences in the future will not be without risks. Just like its sister discipline, Criminology, the young science of Victimology is particularly vulnerable to distortion, pressure, manipulation, and exploitation. Victimologists will need to always be on their guard to avoid being manipulated or exploited for political or other ends. The fact that Victimology is an interdisciplinary science will provide some protective shields. At the same time, it creates enormous possibilities for cooperation, collaboration and cross-fertilization with many other disciplines. Victimology will be urged to look far beyond its traditional frontiers, to broaden its horizon, extend its boundaries and to tackle areas and problems that, at present, are not part of its current subject-matter. In fact, there seems to be no bounds to the issues, problems and questions that Victimology of the future will be asked to address, study and analyze. And this, in turn, will create limitless opportunities for strongly motivated and well-meaning students and researchers2.

1.E. A. Fattah, one of the early pioneers of Victimology, is the founder of the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, where he is professor emeritus.

2.I am deeply honoured and enormously flattered to be given the opportunity to write a brief preface to this comprehensive treatise on Victimology and my sincere thanks go to the author, a long time carrier of the Victimology flag, my esteemed colleague, Prof. Gema Varona.