After discussing the neglect of the victim in criminological theorizing and research, the chapter addresses the origins of victimology. This is followed by a discussion of victim-precipitation of crime, which was the focus of the first scholars who addressed crime victims. Victim precipitation refers to the provocative, collusive, or casual impact of the victim's behaviors in interaction with the perpetrator as a factor in the crime's occurrence. Unfortunately, this pursuit undermined the political and analytical standing of this subdiscipline thereafter. The chapter next discusses feminism and victimology, a connection that occurred as feminists addressed the injustices inflicted on women and girls in the structure and functioning of a patriarchal order. One of the targets of feminist victimology was criminology's focus on victim precipitation, which feminist criminologists viewed as blaming the behavior of women victims for their being raped, abused, and assaulted by men. The next section of the chapter considers crime surveys, which focus on obtaining data on crimes from the reports of a population's experience of crime over a given period, usually a year. Another trend that stemmed in some respects from victim surveys was the development and analysis of routine activities theory, which posits that victimizations occur as victims' routine activities (lifestyles) put them in locations and activity pursuits that place them at higher risk for encountering predatory criminals. This is followed by a section entitled "miscellaneous victimological ideas." This refers to the studies of crime victims conducted by sociologists, psychologists, and criminologists who might not refer to themselves as victimologists but whose work contributes to the body of victimological theory. The chapter concludes with a discussion of "opportunistic theorizing." 12 notes and 55 references