Victim Behavior and Offender Liability: A European Perspective

Abstract

1. In criminal law theory the victim usually plays no significant role. Rather, the victim is viewed as a “passive subject” or even as a “material object” of the crime. In fact, it is commonly stated that modern criminal law came into existence “with the neutralization of the victim.” At that point, the satisfaction of the injured person was substituted by the retribution of an unfair act. As time went by, this neutralization reached a point in which it seemed feasible to describe the conflict at the core of the crime as follows: “In criminal matters there are always two rival and opposite concerns. Society has the right to punish and the person being accused has the right to conduct his defense.” Therefore the victim is completely ignored. Criminal law is said to be a consequence of a historical evolution that runs from the personal reaction of the victim or his family to the monopoly of the state in inflicting punishment and exercising violence in nowadays society. In other words, the process of “de-privatization” of criminal law is, at the same time, an evolution of “de-victimisation.” Regardless