The recognition of crime victims has resulted in a major reorientation in criminological thinking. Innovations in criminal justice and legislative efforts provide further evidence of this development. Some States have made attempts to enrich and supplement the criminal law through the concept of victim compensation. The Anglo-American approaches of restitution, mediation, and reconciliation are viewed as models in this area and have often been adopted by the legal systems of Europe. Criminology has turned to victim surveys or to crime surveys, not least to seek approaches to international comparisons of criminality through international comparisons of the amount and kind of victimization. Victimological research, however, still has shortcomings concerning, on the one hand, theoretical analysis and, on the other, limits concerning two categories of crime, the so-called crimes without victims and offenses where victim characteristics are unstable, for example, in white-collar crime and environmental crime. Also, research projects are often restricted to specific kinds of offenses; the total variety of crimes is not always considered. Still, recent perspectives that arise from critical approaches within victimology enrich the state of knowledge and the level of reflection. 66 references