Book review: A companion to crime, harm & victimisation
| Author | Tinneke Van Camp |
| Published date | 01 May 2017 |
| Date | 01 May 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0269758017694727 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Karen Corteen, Sharon Morley, Paul Taylor and Jo Turner (eds)
A companion to crime, harm & victimisation.
Bristol: Policy Press, 2016, ISBN 9781447325727, xix þ304pp.
Reviewed by: Tinneke Van Camp, California State University, Fresno, USA
DOI: 10.1177/0269758017694727
A companion to crime, harm & victimisation is an edited collection of succinct articles on a wide
variety of topics associated with victims and victimisation and it is splendid. It undoubtedly has
the potential to become a go-to resource for anyone involved in the field of victimology.
Victimology is a relatively young discipline and this book helps it establish and assert its position
as a social science, not merely as a sub-discipline of criminology but possibly as a discipline in
its own right. The positivist, cultural and critical perspective adopted in criminology is com-
plemented with a positivist, cultural and critical perspective on victims and victimisation and
what justice means for victims. Victimology builds on and borrows from criminological theories
(e.g. routine activity theory was developed to explain the onset and involvement in crime but is
also extensively applied to explain risk of victimisation) but is no longer an afterthought of
criminology. As the editors intended, ‘the contributors and contributions exemplify a victimo-
logical imagination that can no longer be ignored or regarded as a sub-discipline of criminology
or criminal justice’ (p.xviii).
In the preface, the editors further specify that they aimed for contributions to reflect contem-
porary policies, legislation, theories and research, display the multidisciplinarity on which victi-
mology hinges, and allow for a conventional and less conventional focus on the field. To do so,
they collected contributions from an impressive selection of academic and non-academic experts.
They also adopted a broad definition of victimisation. More specifically, throughout the book
readers are encouraged to think about victimology as the study of the consequences of harm, not
merely of crime or infractions of the law, and about victim rights as human rights. It is argued that
victimology should not only explore the consequences of property and violent crime, war crime,
transnational crime, terrorism and hate crime, but also the adverse consequences on individuals
and groups of aversion therapy; displacement following social conflict, war or economic uncer-
tainty; disasters; wrongful convictions; the death penalty; austerity (especi ally for the already
disadvantaged); and environmental harm (e.g. as a result of fracking). Specific attention is paid
to iatrogenic harm, which is defined as harm caused by institutional or governmental interventions
or treatment in response to crime and victimisation, such as excessive stop and search interventions
that target minorities and have a counterproductive impact on society. The entry on legal crimes is
particularly insightful in this regard. In it, Passas explains that legal crimes are ‘acts and practices
that the law allows, and governments often encourage or even subsidise, which have adverse
social, economic and environmen tal consequences’ (p.125), such a s toxic waste disposal, the
commercialisation of cancer screening products, excessive risk-taking and non-accountability for
investment banks, or overfishing. These are ‘lawful but awful’ (p.125) acts that are associated with
power asymmetry and end up amplifying social inequality and cannot therefore be ignored by
victimologists.
As a result, A companion to crime, harm & victimisation offers valuable insights into a com-
bination of classic and general topics that are more or less established, and new, potentially less
predictable topics. For instance, readers will find useful entries on historical perspectives on
Book reviews 227
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