Victimology vs. Violence in the Study of Criminology | Opinion

Criminology seeks to uncover the why behind a crime, and the answers are complex, different for each offender. The victims and their suffering are usually left to one side, far less important to us than understanding the killer and their motives.

"What we teach is 'how come?' Not 'how,'" noted James Allen Fox, a criminology professor at Northeastern University. "Studying Criminology is not going to make you a criminal, and it's not going to make you a better criminal."

This is clearly true in the case of Bryan Kohberger, the University of Washington doctoral student in criminology, now accused of the horrific stabbing deaths of four students at the nearby University of Idaho.

These killings have sent shockwaves through the academic world. The irony of a man who studied the criminal mind potentially possessing such a mind has left us confounded. A former professor described him as "brilliant." A fellow doctoral student, Ben Roberts, found him exceedingly "academic."

In the debate about what role, if any, his higher education in criminology and criminal justice played in his alleged murders, the consensus is that his choice of majors is a symptom, not a cause, of his psychopathology. Former FBI profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole confirmed this, saying, "I don't think it was a cause-and-effect situation...people go into these subjects because they have an intellectual appetite for it."

As a criminologist who has spent her career interviewing hundreds of violent offenders, their victims, and the family members of deceased or missing victims, I have found one constant among the perpetrators. It isn't merely a complete indifference toward human life, it's about brazen disregard for the victims' suffering.

In Poughkeepsie, New York, in the 1990s, Kendall Francois killed Gina Barone and seven other women. I was asked by the victims' families to study the killer himself. I interviewed Francois in Attica prison over several years to identify the variables that led to his murders.

During an interview in August 2001, where I sought to isolate the factors in Francois' choice of victims, the serial killer pointed to a Time magazine in the visitors' room. The cover featured an image of a great white shark baring rows of bloody teeth, with the title SUMMER OF THE SHARK.

Francois shrugged. "Anyone stupid enough to swim in shark-infested waters deserves to be eaten," he said.

Such callousness is also reflected on page four of Kohberger's arrest affidavit, which details a account by a roommate of the four slain students hearing someone in the house just after 4 a.m. She heard "what she thought was crying" coming from her housemate's room followed by a man's voice saying, "It's okay, I'm going to help you."

A few minutes later, a security camera outside their house picked up audio of a whimper, followed by a loud thud.

That the perpetrator might have reassured his dying victim that he was her savior while repeatedly inflicting mortal wounds suggests a level of depravity, even psychopathy, that no criminology professor could have foreseen. Still, if the discipline of criminology didn't create the monster, but instead fed its appetite for violence, don't we professors have some responsibility to ensure a balanced diet?

By balanced, I mean that for every aspect of criminology we teach in our courses, especially those that focus on violent crime and criminal psychology, we should offer a big serving of victimology to add perspective.

Victimology, which includes the study of crime victims, the psychological effects of their experience on them and their survivors, as well as theories of victimization, can be an important counterweight when certain students become preoccupied with the mind-boggling and prurient details of a particularly violent crime.

This is especially true when teaching those popular—and for some, titillating—case studies of violent sadists, serial and mass murderers, child molesters, and rapists. For every deep dive into the mind of a killer like Francois (which happens every semester in my seminar on homicide studies) we must include an equal amount of time discussing the impact of that crime on the victims, their families, and our communities.

With redesigned curricula, we can refocus on victims along with every criminal case study. In addition to victimology statistics and theories, I showcase guest speakers—victims of violent crime and the family members of those who were killed—to assuage students' fascination with the macabre.

These speakers discuss their experience with victimization, often communicating suffering, pain, and loss with words and expressions of grief that no academic article can capture. For the Barone family (and every family of a homicide victim I have studied) there is no closure. There are varying levels of suffering, but it is endless—like riding an endless roller coaster from hell—with nothing more than a promise that some days will be better than others.

Some of these guest speakers, like Marc Klaas, Maureen Kanka, and Hedda Nussbaum, are more famous than Pat Barone, but they all have equally important stories to tell—lessons to impart—to the impressionable minds in the audience. Tears are shed, hugs are exchanged, and students leave with an understanding of the victims' experience that transcends the content of any criminology textbook.

Ben Roberts, the WSU graduate student who studied criminology with Kohberger, clearly gets this.

"The stories you're reading...the cases you're reviewing, the studies you're doing, it can be easy to forget that they're connected to real people," Roberts told the Idaho Statesman. "People lose people and find their kids' bed empty. There's a real heaviness looking at that and realizing and remembering, this is not just some sterile academic subject. This is something that affects people."

No, criminology didn't create the enigma that is Bryan Kohberger. But studies in victimology, much earlier in his academic career, might have pierced his telltale heart.

Casey Jordan, Ph.D., J.D., is a criminologist, attorney, and victim advocate. A frequent media commentator, she is a professor in the Division of Justice & Law Administration at Western Connecticut State University, a contributor for Warner Media's HLN.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.