Menachem Amir

Menachem Amir was an Israeli criminologist who held the Benjamin Berger Chair of Criminology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem until his retirement in 1999 and became one of the first two criminologists awarded the Israel Prize, in 2003. His 1971 book Patterns in Forcible Rape, building on his widely cited 1968 article on victim precipitated rape, was among the first large scale studies of rape victims and offenders, drawing on Philadelphia cases from the late 1950s, and his portrayal of rapists as psychologically ordinary influenced subsequent anti-rape advocacy. He also researched juvenile delinquency, crimes against elderly victims and organized crime.