A Look at the Victims (Victimology and the challenges facing prison pastoral services)

Source: (2000) Paper presented at International Prison Chaplains Association Conference Kronstad, South Africa, August 25-30, 2000. International Prison Chaplains Association. Downloaded 9 December 2003.

The victim of a crime, writes Jose Luis Perez Guadalupe, is the forgotten person in police investigations, the judicial process, serving of a sentence, and the pastoral concerns and actions of the Church. In response to this reality, victimology has emerged in recent years as both an advocacy movement and a research discipline. Three processes of victimization are often identified in the field of victimology: primary victimization; secondary victimization; and tertiary victimization. Guadalupe maintains that these three processes of victimization should be kept in mind in pastoral work inside prisons, especially tertiary victimization as it refers to trauma endured by the criminal during the judicial process and serving of a prison term. Hence, he discusses these three processes and indicates some of the challenges that affect pastoral treatment of “victimsâ€? in prison work.