A distinguished visitor to Mönchengladbach: Prof. Dr. Janice Joseph, President of the World Society of Victimology (WSV), recently visited the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences in Mönchengladbach from Stockton, USA. Prof. Dr. Joseph, a world-renowned expert in criminal justice, has been recognized by the United Nations, among others, for her outstanding achievements. Founded in 1979, WSV is a non-profit, non-governmental organization with consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council and the Council of Europe.
Victimology (Latin victima 'victim') is predominantly understood as a sub-discipline of criminology, but also as an independent scientific discipline dealing with victims of crime. The research focuses, among other things, on relationships between victims and offenders, the consequences for victims of crime or their personality structures.
After her postgraduate course in Victimology in Dubrovnik, Croatia, which was also attended by Prof. Dr. Peter Schäfer, Sabrina Krause and four students from the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences, the WSV President made a stopover at the Faculties in Mönchengladbach. There she gave an exciting lecture in English on the topic of Femicide to students of the Master's Degree programme in Social Work with a specialisation in Psychosocial Counselling and Mediation.
Since the WSV has the legal form of a registered German association, Prof. Joseph also took care of some formalities in Mönchengladbach. In her role as the new WSV President, she registered the new Executive Board and a comprehensive amendment to the Statutes through a notary public. Once again on the internationally staffed Executive Board or Executive Committee is Prof. Dr. Peter Schäfer. The lawyer, criminologist and mediator as well as former Dean of the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences is treasurer there and the only member from Germany so far.
In the office of Dean Prof. Dr. Michael Borg-Laufs, they exchanged views on the situation of students in the USA and Germany. There are some parallels here: In the U.S., too, many have to finance their studies themselves through jobs, which makes it difficult to organize the time and content of studies. Corona had further exacerbated this. Financial support through scholarships is also an important issue, he said, due to their numerical limitations and endowments. Access to studies is a major social problem that depends largely on class or milieu affiliation and thus leads to social inequality.
The Hochschule Niederrhein plans to design a qualified certificate course in applied victimology and psychosocial process support and offer it to students of the faculty and to working social specialists.
