The Culpable Victim in Mendelsohn's Typology / Mary C. Sengstock.

This paper provides a review of Benjamin Mendelsohn's delineation of a typology of criminal victims. The typology consists of six categories: (1) completely innocent victims; (2) victims with minor guilt; (3) voluntary victims; (4) victims more guilty than the offender; (5) victims who alone are guilty; and (6) the imaginary victims. It is noted by the author that of the six categories, only two are concerned with victims whose guilt is less than the guilt of the perpetrator, and an argument is presented that the strong orientation toward the culpability of the victim lies in the preponderance of rape studies on the victimology literature. It is suggested that one of the greatest needs in victimology is for data collection on victimization for a wide variety of offenses--rather than primarily on rape which may not be generalizable. (Author/YRJ)

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