The objective of the volume is to encourage discussion of a wide variety of approaches to victimology, problems of delimiting the research area, victim types and offender-victim overlappings, and victimization as a result of society's structure. In the following section, results and methodological problems of victim surveys in the United States, Holland, and Tokyo are outlined. The next section is devoted to theoretical approaches: risks of becoming a victim, attitudes toward the offense and offender, recommendations for replacement of personality-oriented victim typologies with a taxonomy of situations conducive to victimization, and basic principles for a research project on sexual victimization. The section on empirical research examines the effectiveness of using questionnaires to establish dark figures for sexual victimization, murder victimization risks within particular age categories, overlappings of victims and offenders, and characteristics of child abuse situations and legal means of dealing with the problem. Finally, the section on victim assistance and victim protection discusses programs for victim restitution, protective programs for children, women as victims of structural and personal violence, the development of rape crisis centers, and U.S. programs to assist victims and witnesses, as illustrated by the Turnaround Project. Prospects and limitations of research on victimology are briefly assessed in the final essay. Separate bibliographies, tables, and illustrations, as well as an appendix of recommendations proposed by the 1973 Jerusalem Symposium and the 1975 Bellagio Institute Conference on Victimology are furnished. For individual articles, see NCJ 72717-39.