Book Review: Walklate, S. (Ed.). (2007). Handbook of Victims and Victimology. Cullompton, UK, and Portland, OR: Willan. 526 pp

• Author: Don Chon
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016808325615
• Published date: 01 June 2009
• Date: 01 June 2009
• Subject Matter: Articles

Book Reviews 265

lies the main shortcoming of St. Jean’s work; it is lacking in terms of integrating his find-

ings into the extant literature and putting forth a revised theory of crime at place. For

instance, the concept of ecological disadvantage is clearly related to routine activities the-

ory; yet, this body of work is never cited or mentioned in the book, nor are other related

topics such as situational crime prevention or crime prevention through environmental

design. Despite this criticism, St. Jean’s study provides a step forward in thinking about

crime at place and is a must read for scholars interested in this topic. Future research should

aim to explicitly outline a theory of crime at place that integrates the ideas of ecological

disadvantage, broken windows, and collective efficacy. Such a theory should focus not only

on offenders’ reactions to disorder and collective efficacy but also look at the effect of

disorder on residents. Does untended disorder actually lead to fear of crime and resident

withdrawal? How does the ecological disadvantage play into this? Finally, great progress

could be made if criminologists would stop focusing on broken windows and collective

efficacy only as competing theories. The broken windows thesis suggests that disorder

leads to crime by causing residents to withdraw, thus lowering informal social controls.

What is this if not a weakening of collective efficacy?

Joshua C. Hinkle

University of Maryland, College Park

Walklate, S. (Ed.). (2007). Handbook of Victims and Victimology. Cullompton, UK, and

Portland, OR: Willan. 526 pp.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016808325615

The handbook is contributed by 25 authors who are mostly academics in the areas of

criminology and law, and practitioners working for victims in the United Kingdom. The

handbook discusses theoretical and policy problems facing contemporary victimology. The

handbook is divided into five parts. Part 1 examines the theories of victimology. Kearon

and Godfrey (chapter 1) reviewed the changing status of the victim from Anglo-Saxon

times until the present day. The role of crime victim was underestimated and ignored in the

criminal justice system until recent years. However, there were some studies that reevalu-

ated the important role of the crime victim. Kearon and Godfrey discussed the works of

Mendelsohn and Von Hentig from the 1940s. In chapter 2, Rock articulated the issues of

victim precipitation, feminism, criminal victimization surveys, and routine activity theory

in relation to the outgrowth of victimology.

Hope (chapter 3) directed the readers’ attention to measurement issues in victimology.

Hope introduced the U.S. National Crime Victimization Survey and the British Crime

Survey. He raised an important question of whether victimization is a discrete or continu-

ous experience and suggested that each of these different positions had implications for our

understanding of criminal victimization. Hope discussed victims’ vulnerability in terms of

individual vulnerability, neighborhood-level vulnerability, and context-specific vulnerability

(i.e., the interaction of individual vulnerability and neighborhood-level vulnerability).