Ratio of potential and real victims as a victimological problem

The article examines the ratio of potential and real victims as a victimological problem. The author of the article highlights two sides of the problem: the first is related to the methodology for determining the criteria for potential victims and real victims; the second is associated with a direct objective transition from the number of potential victims to the number of real victims. In the context of the first side (related to the methodology for determining the criteria of potential victims and real victims), the author of the article points to the pluralism of opinions, summarizes diverse scientific and official doctrines and notes the corresponding range of criteria: the circle of potential victims is considered within the framework of the positions from “a person may suffer as a result of committing crime” to “any person”, the range of real victims is considered within the framework of positions from “a person is officially recognized as a victim of an act with signs of a crime” to “a person has suffered from an act with signs of a crime, regardless of the official recognition of the status”. In the context of the second side (associated with a direct objective transition from the number of potential victims to the number of real victims) the author of the article notes: the connection of the problem with priority attention not to a dangerous act or event, which is not always formally criminal, but to a crime as a formally qualified act in this way; the specificity and complexity of the process of victimization and its understanding . To solve the first part of the problem, the author of the article suggests: primary attention should be focused not on a crime, but on a dangerous act or event, including a possible one; application of the criterion “in the field of regulatory legal regulation” or similar. To solve the second part of the problem, the author of the article suggests: the structural-victimological aspect should become part of all criminological research, analysis and assessment of all acts, events, incidents; introduction and expansion of the used victimological indicators and other means of studying the consequences of dangerous acts, events, incidents, and their victims themselves.