Dear subscribers and followers of the Forensic Sciences Club, this time we present a summary of the article "Focus on the victimological issues " by Preetam Upadhyay, which explains the importance of studying victimology in crime investigations.

Victimology is important in the general crime investigation process because it not only tells us who the victims were, their health and personal history, their social habits, and their personality but also offers insights into why they were chosen as victims. Victimology in its simplest form is the study of victims or victims of a particular offender. It is defined as the exhaustive study and analysis of the characteristics of the victim, and it can also be called “victim profiling”.

The victim is as much a part of the crime as the crime scene, the weapons, and the eyewitnesses. The victim has traditionally been neglected in police investigations. This should not be interpreted to mean that any police service uses the victim's information, but until recently, many have neglected to consider the victim's past as important. Often the best way to approach a profile is through victimology, and it is one of the most beneficial tools for classifying and solving a violent crime.

In fact, victim information should be available to victim profilers before they start working on the case; Information such as physical features, marital status, personal lifestyle, occupation, education, medical history, criminal justice, system history, last known activities, including a timeline of events, personal journals (if known and available), map travel history before the offense, drug, and alcohol history, friends and enemies, family history, employment history and these will lead to not only some answers but also more questions, which should be addressed as well.

There are some important questions that should accompany any study of the victim; Why was this particular person a victim? What are the chances of the person becoming a random victim? How did you address the person? Or was the person a victim of opportunity? What risk did the offender take to commit the crime? How did you approach and/or attack the victim? What was the victim's likely reaction to the attack?

In some criminological investigations, it is clearly found that the victim has been the main cause of the crime. Therefore, to determine the cause of the crime, the victim must be considered.

Victim provocation has a definite part in the etiology of victimization. For example, if a person has not acted with reasonable self-protection for a long time with their money, jewelry or valuables, and has become a victim of a robbery, they cannot be considered an innocent victim, they have created a situation of opportunity for temptation, giving incentives and criminal help. The fallout of victims is linked to culture, time, and place. Offenders may perceive certain victim behaviors as facilitating action (including temptation, invitation, etc.). It could be said that in these cases the action of the victim has triggered the behavior of the offender,

It is therefore summarized that the behavior of the victim in interaction with the offender matters, while the creation of a special risk is associated with the attributes or habitual behavior of the victim rather than with some characteristics of the offender.