Victims of Violence: The Emerging Field of Victimology. In Jane L. Ireland, Philip Birch, Carol A. Ireland (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Human Aggression: Current Issues and Perspectives (original) (raw)
Related papers
In the dawning of an age in which victim rights and victim-centred justice responses are gaining momentum, inspiring nationwide debate, and giving birth to new legislation and action, we must, more than ever, consider taking sides. Indeed, if we are to truly improve the " justness " of our justice responses, we must seek neither neutrality nor partiality as our guiding motto, but take the side of every individual who comes within our custody, our care, our Circle, and our conflict community. This is because mounting research shows that victimization is socially constructed, imperfectly captured by our legal systems, obfuscated by contextual variables, and often shared by multiple parties in a conflict. Thus, uniting the reality of victim needs and the need for a more shared reality about victimization, this chapter calls for an increase in multi-partiality, an approach that allows us to speak up for not only " official " victims but all those who experience victimization when acts of harm occur.
Workshop Report: The Journey From victim to Survivor, Challenges for Justice (2016)
This report has come out of our national workshop on “The Journey from Victim to Survivor: Challenges for Justice”, organized jointly by CWDS and PLD in February 2016 in memory of Professor Lotika Sarkar. With the participation of women’s rights, child rights, disability rights, minority rights, Dalit rights, queer rights activists, and counselors amongst others, the workshop sought to understand justice in terms of recovery and healing of victims of violence. Victim-centric interventions like compensation, comprehensive crisis support, shelter-homes and counselling were some themes discussed. The report captures the presentations and discussions on each of the themes.
Trends and issues in victimology
2008
The following chapters are grouped in three sections: Justice for victims, issues of sexual victimization, and illustrated examples of victimization. The first section targets perception and the process of change in perception as they affect victimology and justice for victims. In Chapter One, Noach Milgram postulated that ideology is inherent in perception and critical in understanding the mind set of victims. Ideology, whether manifest or below awareness, contributes to the construction of perceptions and proactive and reactive behavior. Noach provides innovative and provocative illustrations of the power of ideology in his studies on battered women and victims of Palestinian terrorism. Uri Timor proposes in Chapter Two a different view by challenging the perceptions that underlie etributive punishment. Uri presents an alternative solution to the conflict between offender and victim that is based on Jewish theoretical formulations and restorative approaches. He advocates transferring at least partial responsibility for the offender-victim conflict to the prevailing social order; this recommendation is consistent with Jewish tradition attributing to the community some degree of responsibility for the transgressions that take place within its confines. Esther Shachaf-Friedman and Uri Timor present in Chapter Three, findings from a study of victims’ perceptions in family–group conferences with juvenile delinquents. Based on the analysis of these perceptions, Esthi and Uri suggest practical guidelines to prepare and implement restorative justice processes in victim-focused intervention. The same pragmatic victim-needs and rights approach was presented by Sharon Aharoni-Goldenberg and Yael Wilchek-Aviad in Chapter Four on restitution to victims of property offences. Victim-focused restitution is contrasted with the prevalent legal procedures applied to property offenders that do not help the direct victims, according to Sharon and Yael. In the fifth and final chapter in this section, K. Jaishankar, P. Madhava Soma Sundaram and Debarati Halder describe and discuss the position of the victim in ancient, medieval, British and modern India; the authors analyze the role of Malimath Committee in restoring the forgotten voices of crime victims in the Indian criminal justice system. Jai, Madhavan and Debarati illustrate the process of change that a developing society goes through when attempting to adopt the thought of modern victimology, and at the same time, to integrate it with ancient Indian wisdom. Sexual harm and offences usually leave distinctive mark on individuals who were sexually victimized. The sexual violation of intrapersonal intimacy calls for particular understanding and intervention. The second section addresses this issue specifically. Yifat Bitton offers in Chapter Six a feminist perception of the treatment of women victims of sexual violence in the justice system that is needed to prevent further victimization and to overcome the consequences of the initial victimization. Yifat calls for reorientation of tort litigation to enable women victims of sexual violence to reclaim the power that was brutally taken from them. Hadar Dancig-Rosenberg highlights the gap between therapeutic dialogue and legal dialogue in Chapter Seven and calls for accommodating existing judicial processes to the unique needs of sexual assault victims. Hadar suggests that while the adversarial system of judicial procedures is likely to remain, it must undergo reforms that will advance therapeutic goals in behalf of the victims. Inna Levy and Sarah Ben-David broadens in Chapter Eight the discussion on sexual victimization by focusing on a neglected group, the “innocent” bystanders. Reviewing theoretical and empirical literature, Inna and Sarah address the way bystanders are perceived and offer models of bystander blaming. In Chapter Nine, P. Madhava Soma Sundaram, K. Jaishankar and Megha Desai address sexual harassment in the modern work places in India. In their empirical pilot research, Madhavan, Jai and Megha describe the prevalence and characteristics of sexual harassment in a major Indian city, Mumbai. In the final chapter of this section, Chapter Ten, Sarah Ben-David and Ili Goldberg present the results of a study of male prisoners. Their study establishes the relationship of past traumatizing experiences in sexual offenders, their PTSD symptoms and drug dependency, and their own perpetration of sexual crimes. Sarah and Ili found that prisoners who were sexually abused in the past and who developed a cognitive avoidance style tended to become sexual offenders as adults, while those who developed drug dependency tend to exhibit non-specific criminal behavior. The third section of the book illustrates and analyses several examples of victimization. In an empirical research design, Avital Laufer and Mally Shechory investigated in Chapter Eleven distress levels in Israeli youth, 18 months after they were forced to leave their homes during the Israeli government mandated disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Avital and Mally found direct relationships between perception of the traumatic experience, feelings of alienation, and distress level. In Chapter Twelve, Nandini Rai presents a novel focus on known phenomena. She offers a socio-geographical analysis of the distribution of criminal victimization from the perspective of places with specific identities. Nandini asserts that reduced social interaction and a decline in mutual trust in the society make the places of interaction unsafe. In Chapter Thirteen, Ehud Bodner reviews the major factors in the etiology of suicide among soldiers and in the failure of professional authorities to provide help to soldiers at risk. Soldiers who attempt suicide may be perceived and consequently treated as disturbed youth who are trying to manipulate others rather than as victims of their own suffering. Ehud presents some practical suggestions for the prevention of suicidal behaviors in soldiers. K. Jaishankar, Megha Desai and P. Madhava Soma Sundaram target in Chapter Fourteen the stalking phenomenon in India and relate this form of victimization to a transformation in social-cultural perception of this phenomenon. Jai, Megha and Madhavan present results from a survey of college students that indicate patterns of repeated intrusions and harassment techniques. They document victim reluctance to report this behavior, and effects of stalking on the victims. In the closing chapter in this section, Chapter Fifteen, Brenda Geiger presents a qualitative research of domestically abused Druze women, a group whose voice is rarely heard. These women have to struggle on two fronts: (a) to content with their abusive spouses; and (b) to contend with the context-relevant ideology, norms and perceptions of their extended families. Their family attempts to force them to reconcile with the abusive spouse and to reconcile themselves to continued abuse. As Noach Milgram indicated in the opening chapter of this book, ideology may deny the natural human rights of victims. Brenda presents, however, an optimistic picture of the struggle of abused Druze women and their successful claim for rights and power.
A New Approach for Researching Victims: The ‘Strength-Growth-Resilience’ Framework
British Journal of Criminology, 2021
This paper proposes a new framework for researching victims that blends appreciative inquiry methods used by prison researchers with narrative interview methods used by desistance researchers to investigate victim ‘strength-growth-resilience’. Alongside established victimological concerns with the extent, distribution and treatment of crime victims, this framework offers an alternative lens that focuses on victim agency, identity and transformation. Building on the emancipatory project of feminist victimology, narrative and cultural criminology and an emerging narrative victimology the framework aims to provide a new conceptual reference point for victimological research. The article’s objectives are to demonstrate that this framework delivers a theoretically, empirically and ethically robust approach for exploring the mechanisms by which victims become resilient, and can even flourish, in the aftermath of criminal harm.
This is a book about victims of crime, survivors of abuse, the consequences of social harm, the nature of victimhood and the extent and impact of victimisation. It is a book concerned with the study of victims and victimisation, and is written from a critical perspective that seeks to: challenge taken-for-granted assumptions about the study of victimology; question key concepts and approaches to thinking about victims and survivors; critique ways of understanding the nature and extent of victimisation; and provide an alternative reading of many conventional approaches to responding to victims' needs and experiences. It is a book that provides students of criminology, criminal justice and victimology with an all-encompassing, in-depth critical analysis of the relationship between victims, crime and society. We hope it will become essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the social, political, economic and cultural context of victims in society, historically, contemporaneously and globally. Throughout its chapters the book addresses a number of critical questions including: Who are the victims of crime? How did the study of victims emerge? What is the nature, extent and impact of victimisation? What are the core perspectives that shape victimological thinking? How do media constructions influence our understanding of crime victims and victimisation? What is the relationship between social relations, politics, globalisation, the economy and structure and agency in generating, exacerbating and/or obfuscating forms of victimisation? What are the factors that drive unequal experiences of victimisation across social groups, geographical locations, jurisdictions and historical periods? How can victimisation be managed, prevented and/or responded to? Having studied and taught victimology for many years, it is our contention that these questions not only animate students' curiosity, and thus their criminological imagination, they also underpin important societal questions about the precise nature of crime, victimisation, harm and injustice in contemporary society. The study of victims and victimisation has converged with the discipline of criminology for many decades now. It is our view that over the next few decades victimology will become more contested as it continues to challenge at the heart of the study of crime and its control. Victimology has the potential to shape debates that affect the future landscape of victimisation and the ability and willingness of the state and its agencies to provide for victims of crime. Moreover, it has the capacity to challenge criminology to transform itself into a progressive social democratic discipline willing and able to provide a social blueprint for understanding and intervention. In order to explore those questions detailed above, and to bring alive what is after all a fast-moving (and exciting) area of academic study, the book is structured around three key central organising themes.
Victims, Victimization and Victimology
NLUJ, Jodhpur, 2005
1.1 HISTORY OF VICTIMOLOGY 1.2 THE CONCEPT 1.3 MEANING AND DEFINITION 1.4 SUBJECT MATTER 1.5 VICTIMOLOGY: APPROACHES 1.6 THEORIES IN VICTIMOLOGY 1.7 VICTIMOLOGY: THE NEED
Building the Future: Victim and Survivor Issues in Context
2016
Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I cannot, in the short time available, do justice to the rich and thoughtful comments made over the last day and half about the Strategy for Victims and Survivors 2009-2019. Therefore, I am only going to make a few comments focused on “the future” in terms of victim issues in and about Northern Ireland. That said, as the Strategy for Victims and Survivors alludes, thinking of the future, so to speak, is also tied into how we deal with the past.
Victimology: A Social Science in Waiting?
International Review of Victimology, 2008
Victimology was first proposed as a social science in the 1940s during a shift in interest in victims to gain a better understanding of crime. The early victimologists focused on the role that victims played in crime, which resulted in the concept that some victims contribute to, or precipitate, their victimisation. Later victimologists focused on the process of victimisation, including the treatment of victims in the criminal justice system. These and other theoretical perspectives have evolved from data obtained from various investigational techniques, such as victim surveys. As empirical knowledge has evolved so too has the push for victimology to be considered a social science. This paper canvases the debate on whether victimology is a social science. It proposes that victimology cannot be a social science unless victimologists apply a scientific method. This paper also argues that victimology, like other social sciences, cannot employ the pure scientific method associated with the natural sciences but victimologists should be empirical, theoretical and cumulative. As well, it gives an overview of several steps taken by victimologists to raise the status of their fledgling science, including establishing institutes and even proposing a single victim-centred theory. It concludes that victimology has not yet attained the status of a social science but also it is no longer just a sub-discipline of criminology, as it once stood accused.
Victimology: Past, Present and Future
Criminologie, 2000
As popular as victimology has become, it is surprising that no comprehensive history of the discipline has ever been written and there are no systematic assessments of its present state or of likely future developments. The present paper is an attempt to remedy this situation. Victimology is a young, promising discipline and a fascinating subject. And although victimization is as old as humanity itself, it was not until after the Second World War that the scientific study of crime victims emerged as an essential complement to criminology's well-established research on offenders. Because it emerged to fill a serious theoretical void, it did not take long for victimology to become an integral part of criminology. And although victimology has by now affirmed itself as a major research area within criminology, its nature, importance and standing continue to generate a great deal of comments and controversy. Be this as it may, the study of crime victims and of criminal victimization ...