Teaching About Victimization in an Online Environment: Translating in Person Empathy and Support to The Internet

With the significant increase in online education, particularly in the field of criminal justice, guidance on migrating instruction from a face-to-face format to an online format is needed. This is especially the case for courses focused on topics with the potential to elicit a strong emotional reaction from students, such as victimology. This article presents a framework for teaching a victimology course that allows for the full discussion of ideas in a manner that is supportive of victims of crime and does not inflict additional harm. It shares tips on what to include on a syllabus, guiding discussion and responding to student disclosures of victimization. In doing so, this contributes to the emerging pedagogy on teaching about trauma and victimization.