Book Review: Victimology: The Victim and the Criminal Justice System
| Date | 01 January 1991 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026975809100100407 |
| Published date | 01 January 1991 |
| Author | Cathy Cobley |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
366
the ICS are generally comparable with other national victimization
surveys, however.
The ICS cover a number of topics that could not be summarized in this
review, including victimization abroad, fear of crime, attitudes toward
sentencing and the police', participation in Neighborhood Watch, the
reporting of crimes to police, assistance to victims, and the distribution of
theft insurance and handguns. Unexplained national patterns
will
give
readers from different nations a great deal to think about. Sexual assault
and violence was distinctively high in Austrialia;
as
a nation, Spaniards
most distrusted the police, but the bottom score on that measure was
recorded in pre-thaw Warsaw; Canada looked more like the US than most
there would probably hope; and the
Swiss
are safe at home but seem to be
highly at risk whenever they leave their country. The book concludes with
a promise that more details
will
follow about individual nations, in further
reports on the ICS.
Wesley G. Skogan
Northwestern University, Illinois, U.S.A.
VICTIMOLOGY:
THE
VICTIM AND
THE
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
SYSTEM. Sandra Walklate. Unwin Hyman; London, 1989.
xix
and 200
pp, £25.00 h.b., £8.95 p.b.
Sandra Walklate acknowledges that it
is
almost a commonplace to observe
that there
is
now an increasing interest in victims of crime (p. xi), yet her
recent publication
is
to be welcomed
as
a useful addition to the literature
on the subject. The book focuses on victims of crime and the way in which
·they are perceived and treated by society in general and the criminal
justice system in particular. However, it would be a mistake to regard the
book as just an 'introduction to victimology'. Perhaps the book's most
outstanding feature
is
the breadth of its scope. Walklate considers issues
raised not only at an academic level, but also incorporates political
responses to recent research and discusses policy questions raised. Thus
the book
is
of interest to a wide variety of readers, including all those who
share in the rapidly increasing interest in victims of crime.
Each chapter
is
introduced by an outline of the issues to be considered
and
is
concluded with a short overview of the points raised, drawing
together various themes where appropriate. This, together with the
coherent style in which the main body of the text
is
written, makes this an
eminently readable book. The reader
is
able either to approach each
chapter as an individual work, thereby concentrating attention on
individual areas of interest,
or
to read the book as a whole in order to gain
an overall understanding of the subject area.
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