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Victims’ perspectives underexposed in law and science

Published: 16th December 2015 Last updated: 30th April 2019

PRESS RELEASE 16 Dec. 2015 - Where the position of victims of crime or large-scale human rights violations is concerned, there is a yawning gap between the perspective of criminal law and the perceptions of the victims themselves. Whereas criminal law is about doing justice, victims are interested in removing or coping with injustice.

This was argued by Professor of Victimology Antony Pemberton in his inaugural lecture at Tilburg University, on Friday, December 11.

The past few decades have seen growing political and policy interest in the position of victims of crime or large-scale human rights violations. The Netherlands is one of the pioneers in Europe and even worldwide, where victim support and the development of the position of victims in criminal law is concerned. It has also played a groundbreaking role in victimology, the study of the experiences of victim of crime. Tilburg University’s research institute on victimology, INTERVICT, is an important player in this context.

In his inaugural lecture, Antony Pemberton points out some important lacunae in both the academic approach to victimization and in views of victims’ perspectives about justice processes. For instance, referring to the work of the American political theorist Judith Shklar, he shows that undoing injustice takes the concrete experiences of victims as the starting point, and is often at variance with solutions based on a body of accepted rules. Doing justice is of course aimed to undo injustice, but it is also a predictable and rule-bound way of dealing with social problems.

If a social science like victimology is limited to a search for general victimological laws, it ignores the essence of victimization as an experience rooted in a particular context, Pemberton states. He therefore argues in favor of an approach that emphasizes narrative and historical elements of victims’ experiences.

Dr. Antony Pemberton (1975, London, UK) is Professor of Victimology at the International Victimology Institute Tilburg (INTERVICT). He is the Chair of the Victimology Working Group of the European Society of Criminology and a member of the scientific council of Victim Support The Netherlands. As an expert advisor of the European Commission, he played an important role in drafting the EU Directive on the rights of victims of crime. He is a member of INTERVICT's management team and, from January, 1, 2016, he will be the Institute’s deputy director. He has published more than 75 papers, books, and book chapters on victimology.

Note for editors

Professor Antony Pemberton presented his inaugural lecture, entitled Victimology with a hammer: The challenge of victimology, on Friday, December 11 at Tilburg University. For more information, please contact press officer Corine Schouten, e-mail persvoorlichters@tilburguniversity.edu; phone +31 13 - 466 4000.