After discussing the stereotypical imagery surrounding the victim-offender relationship, several hypotheses about the main, conditional and context-specific effects of a prior relationship are tested. the victim-offender relationship is found to have a significant impact on various dispositional decisions primarily because it invokes multiple crime scripts. In contrast to other criminal conceptions, however, these auxiliary images not only appear to be the basis for differential treatment between known offenders and strangers, but also contribute to notable differentiation within each category of the victim-offender relationship. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for further research on stereotypical conception and criminal processing. (Publisher abstract)