Revisiting the ‘Ideal Victim’: Developments in Critical Victimology (original) (raw)
Related papers
“Respectable” Victims and Safe Solutions: The Hidden Politics of Victimology?
Northern Ireland Law Quarterly, 2017
This paper offers a critique of the dominant role that victim centered discourse has come to occupy in debates about crime and criminal justice in Ireland. It argues that such a discourse works with an unacceptably simplistic and reductive notion of the term ‘victim’, it can lead to reforms that result in revictimisation rather than victim empowerment and it distorts the experiences of many crime victims for whom victimisation is inconvenient rather than traumatic.
Free the Victim: A Critique of the Western Conception of Victimhood
International Review of Victimology, 2009
In Western languages those affected by crime are universally labelled as ‘victims’, meaning the sacrificed ones. According to the author this practice seems to originate from the association of the plight of victims with the suffering of Jesus Christ. In his view, the victim label, although eliciting compassion for victims, assigns to them a social role of passivity and forgiveness that they may increasingly find to be restraining. He analyses the narratives of eleven high-profile victims such as Natascha Kampusch, the couple McCann and Reemtsma to illustrate this thesis. The article continues with a critical review of biases deriving from the unreflexive adoption of the victim label in various schools of thought in victimology and criminal law. Finally, the author argues for the introduction of stronger procedural rights for crime victims in criminal trials and for a new focus within victimology on processes of victim labelling.
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.
Dangerous victimology: My lessons learned from Nils Christie
Temida, 2016
This article first discusses the key concepts of Nils Christie?s victimological-oriented work drawn from ?Conflicts as property? (1977) and ?The ideal victim? (1986). Using international criminal justice as an example, it demonstrates the enduring importance of Christie?s insights to victimology. Subsequently the paper offers a three-fold critique of Christie?s work. First, the stereotype of the ideal victim is confronted with the bodies of literature on the justice motive and the phenomenon of framing. Second, Christie?s views on the role of the state in ?Conflicts as Property? are discussed against the backdrop of libertarian and communitarian theories of political philosophy. Third, the notion that ?crime does not exist? is rebutted using a victimological perspective.
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.
ON VICTIMHOOD: CONCEPTUAL CHALLENGES
2020
This exploratory paper builds on the notion that victimhood is socially constructed and, as a result, conceptually fluid. Its epistemic authority therefore should be questioned. The conceptual challenges to victimhood are explored through the lenses of three interconnected disciplines: philosophy, politics, and law. The philosophical outlook highlights the moral ambiguities in the definition and labelling of victims, presenting the notions of victim's character and victim agency as highly problematic. Agency gives the discussion a political dimension, and this leads to the examination of the so-called political victim. The paper identifies 'status givers' as the primary political force behind victim recognition, and, based on that, two factors are suggested as influential in the process of recognition: affiliation and negative affiliation. Next, because of the philosophical moral dilemmas regarding suffering and victimisation and due to the influence of politics over the legal system, the notion of legal neutrality and clear justice to victims is put under scrutiny. By exploring and challenging some of the common orthodoxies about victimhood, the paper does not seek to deliver final conclusions, but rather lay additional groundwork for future research.
Notions of victimisation in the UK have undergone significant transformations in the past two decades. Once largely overlooked, the victim is now a far more strategic stakeholder in the British criminal justice system (CJS), inspiring a host of academic research, government policies and reports into best practice and victim satisfaction (Rock, 2002; Goodey, 2004). Myriad forms of victimisation have been officially recognised through new laws, particularly with regards to identity prejudice. The socially constructed nature of identity and its corresponding impact on legal engagement with victims and offenders provides an ample site for investigation to assess how value and validation shape the CJS’s response to specific types of victimisation. Addressing identity prejudice is the focus of both ‘hate crime’ legislation and the Equality Act 2010. 'Hate crimes' refers to acts motivated by racial, religious, sexual orientation, disability and transgender prejudice, addressing this in the offence/sentencing process (see Chakraborti and Garland, 2009). The Equality Act consolidates and/or replaces pre-existing equality and anti-discrimination laws pertaining to seven ‘protected characteristics’: race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender and age. The Act also extends protections afforded to people discriminated against because of their perceived or actual affiliation to someone with a protected characteristics. Carers of disabled people or partners/relatives of transsexual people are protected. Symbolically, addressing inequality or prejudice through such legislation promotes a broader message of intolerance to identity discrimination. However, while such measures appear progressive in theory, how applicable they are in practice may be impeded by social prejudices held toward historically marginalised groups. The notion of ‘vulnerability’ is central to understanding these legal developments. In 2001, Betsy Stanko wrote of a need for the CJS to address ‘targeted victimisation’ through a conceptual lens of vulnerability, rather than creating new ‘hate crimes’ based on a vaguely defined concepts of identity prejudice: ‘the social context of targeted violence recognises the special vulnerability of individuals because they are in some relational ‘disadvantage’ to the perpetrator without bracketing the kind of vulnerability into a category’ (2001: 318). Nonetheless, the legal incarnations which emerged firmly entrenched specified identity categories, diverting ensuing debates away from theorising vulnerability in favour of ascertaining the pros and cons of 'hate crime'. This chapter focuses on vulnerability, suggesting that factors exist which renders certain victims more vulnerable to victimisation but simultaneously impedes them from accessing ‘justice’ or recognition. It examines the experiences of, and responses to, victimisation encountered by two identifiable groups commonly perceived as vulnerable to victimisation: Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers (hereafter ‘Gypsies and Travellers’) and street-sleeping homeless people. The former constitute a legally recognised category, the latter do not. Gypsies and Travellers and street-sleeping homeless people may incur prejudice related to their use of space and how this is factored in the construction of their identities. For Gypsies and Travellers who live in mobile homes in communities formed upon large expanses of land, there is a visibility and vulnerability issue in that they are set apart from the domiciled norm; this may form a basis for their victimisation (James, 2007). For street-sleeping homeless people, the occupation of public spaces provides an exposure which, coupled with a generally negative social construction, may serve to heighten their vulnerability to victimisation (Fitzpatrick and Kennedy, 2000). The chapter explores the victimisation incurred by these groups which reinforces the undervalued position they occupy in both society and political discourses. It illustrates how, rather than being seen as more vulnerable and in need of protection, their identities have been devalued (Gypsies and Travellers) or deemed invalid (street-sleeping homeless people). Prioritised minority groups have achieved recognition through capitalisation on high-profile cases and/or grass roots activism; for those where no cause célèbre or pressure group exists, their marginalised status quo remains (Strolovitch, 2006). Therefore, the chapter concludes by suggesting an adoption of Stanko’s (2001) ‘targeted victimisation’ framework to marginalised and vulnerable groups in order to focus on enhanced levels of vulnerability rather than socially constructed identity when validating victims' experiences.