VICTIMOLOGY AS A FOUN DATION OF OFFENDER PROFILING: ASSESSING THE ROLE OF VICTIM CHARACTERISTICS IN BEHAVIOURAL INVESTIGATION IN INDIA

Offender profiling is usually pictured as the study of the offender’s mind. Good behavioural investigation tends to start somewhere else, with the victim. Victimology asks who the victim was, how they were connected to the offender, how the victimisation happened, and which risks, routines and vulnerabilities may have influenced the offender’s choice of target and conduct. This article examines how victim characteristics are used in behavioural investigation in India. Its central claim is that victim analysis is an investigative method and has nothing to do with shifting blame onto victims. Done properly, it narrows the pool of suspects, helps reconstruct the offender’s decisions, and separates planned offending from opportunistic offending. The discussion draws on the Indian legal and institutional setting, including the victim-oriented provisions of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, the National Crime Records Bureau’s figures for 2023, and decisions of the Supreme Court. It closes by identifying the evidentiary, ethical and institutional obstacles that keep forensic victimology at the margins of Indian investigative practice. Keywords: victimology, offender profiling, behavioural investigation, victim characteristics