Criminology and Victimology

Criminology is the scientific study of crime, including its causes, responses by law enforcement, and methods of prevention. It is a sub-group of sociology, which is the scientific study of social behaviour. Criminology is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and social sciences, which draws primarily upon the research of sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, biologists, social anthropologists, as well as scholars of law.

Criminology aims to understand the criminal's motives and the underlying causes of crime, while Victimology focuses on helping victims heal after a crime. Though both victimology and criminology are vital in the criminal justice field, they are different from one another both in aim and scope. Victimology, branch of criminology that scientifically studies the relationship between an injured party and an offender by examining the causes and the nature of the consequent suffering. Victimology is the scientific study of the physical, emotional, and financial harm people suffer because of illegal activities. Victimologists first and foremost investigate the victims' plight: the impact of the injuries and losses inflicted by offenders on the people they target. Criminology is the study of crime from a social perspective: the causes of crime, the social impact of crime, and the criminals involved in the crime. Criminologists study criminology in an attempt to better understand what motivates the criminal to act in a criminal manner.