15. Conclusion: Understanding Victimisation and Effecting Social Change

This concluding chapter reminds the reader that the central focus of this book has been to acknowledge and pay tribute to the role of activism in the development of victimology as an academic discipline. The chapter also reminds the reader of the key features of the book as a whole and that our aim has been to critically examine the range of complex and competing factors that have impacted upon and altered the criminal justice landscape in terms of how victims of crime are perceived. Furthermore, this concluding chapter identifies and summarises the key themes emerging from the volume. It synthesises the commonalities and reviews some of the key enduring features emerging from the chapters that precede it. As editors and authors, we then make some forward looking and informed yet speculative assessments, about victimology as a thriving academic discipline and activist movement. In our efforts to prioritise the safeguarding of victims and survivors and prevent further harm and victimisation, we set out what we see as some of the obvious and immediate areas that must be given precedence on an agenda for reform. The chapter thus concludes with our own past- and future-looking assessment of victimology as an academic discipline and an activist movement.