This collection has been compiled in memory of Professor Nils Christie, Professor of Criminology at the University of Oslo, who sadly passed away on 27 May 2015. There are many excellent tributes to him and his work in the wake of his death published by those who knew him best and that expertly capture the enormous impact that he had on the criminological domain. This collection seeks to offer an alternative form of tribute through scholarly engagement with his ideas, specifically, his seminal work on the ‘ideal victim’, by those who have been inspired by his work over the years.

I first read Nils Christie's papers during my undergraduate studies, which was an excellent introduction to the world of critical criminology at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. The passion imparted by many of the lecturers there (including David Scott, who has graciously written the Foreword) emulated the sentiments espoused by Christie and his cohort. They embodied a desire to challenge, question and change (for the better) the status quo; this was a position I readily adopted and have continued to impart (often via Christie's teachings) to my own students over the years. Christie's work resonates with me personally as my research interests focus on gendered and sexual/sexual identity victimisation. My explorations into people's experiences of and responses to domestic violence, sexual violence, violence against women and homophobic violence are founded by a desire to know more about the interconnection between misogyny and homophobia, particularly in light of the emergence of ‘hate crime’ studies. As such, I find myself straddling various research camps: part ‘violence against women’ and part ‘hate crime’; increasingly more ‘gender and sexuality’ than ‘gender’ and ‘sexuality’; and ever-more ‘victimologist’ than ‘criminologist’.

Victimology has grown significantly as a topic of both academic study and scholarly research. As most victimological texts assert, the study of victims was initiated by several researchers working to understand the role of victim precipitation in crime prevention. However, like criminology, the positivistic approach adopted by many early victim researchers led to a significant backlash from an emerging cohort of critical and radical scholars, particularly those concerned with the impact of ‘victim precipitation’ discourses on female victims of sexual and domestic violence. This is evidenced clearly in Christie's writings, with many references made to the societal inequalities informing additional hardships faced by women victims of crime.