Abstract
The critical approach to victimology invites professionals, scholars, and students to expand their perspectives on criminal justice practice and theory. Selected universities and colleges have acknowledged this as an emergent issue, writing victimology courses into criminal justice curriculum and, in some instances, developing major and minor programs of study. Editors Dale C. Spencer and Sandra Walklate include a variety of theoretical discussions and global case studies to illustrate critical victimology’s value to the study and practice of criminal justice, corrections, victims’ services, international law, and a number of interrelated fields. Spencer is an assistant professor of law and legal studies at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada) and Walklate is the Eleanor Rathbone Chair of Sociology at the University Liverpool and a professor of criminology at Monash University (Australia). Together, they gathered the work of 16 authors to address key areas of development and critique in the field of victimology from the United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden, Australia, and the United States.
Spencer and Walklate explain in their introduction, “critical victimologists utilize the concepts of the ideal victim and intersectionality to challenge the tendency of victim blaming” (pp. xvii). Borrowing from Star and Grisesemer’s (1989) concept of a “boundary object” (described in Chapter 7), the field of victimology spans both communities of practice and communities of interest. These intersecting and overlapping communities include the victims/survivors themselves as well as law enforcement practitioners, social workers and psychologists providing support and advocacy, scholars examining victims’ perspectives, legal practitioners (from lawyers to judges), and the at-large community grappling with legacies of victimization at both individual and group levels.
The contributors to the volume examine a number of contexts in which individuals and societies are victimized, including contexts of gender bias, discrimination, and hegemony (Chapters 2, 3, and 9); volatile family relationships and networks of advocacy (Chapters 4 and 11); models of addressing hate crimes (Chapter 5); and impact of prolonged violence, institutional violence, and genocide (Chapters 8, 10, and 11). These chapters examine procedures of documenting, investigating, and prosecuting crime writ large as well as the various forms of community feedback in the wake of criminal justice procedures. Chapters focusing on crimes committed in the name of social, political, or economic prejudice challenge prevailing notions of what institutions and victims require during justice proceedings (Chapters 1, 5, and 8) and which voices are to be heard. In the case of genocide, for example, the interests of victims often, as these authors note, stand in contrast to measures international or domestic legal bodies dictate is necessary to restore human rights and trust to an injured legal system. Along a similar vein, other authors emphasize pressures victims feel to adhere to a dominant cultural standard of practice or attitude, often resulting in the stifling victims’ narratives (see the discussion of parents subject to violence by minor children as described in Chapter 4).
The strength of the volume lies in addressing a large number of audiences connecting several themes concurrently throughout the volume. Readers confront the redefinition of victims’ roles in the study of crime and recognizing identities of “hidden” victims. Volume contributors also examine rehabilitation as an issue confronting global criminal justice systems (e.g., Chapter 6). Specifically, several chapters address the impact on victims of the contrasts between goals of criminal and civil justice systems. Finally, with discussion regarding these previous two themes, readers are challenged to reenvision legal policies and international conventions protecting the human and legal rights of victims writ large. The contributors succeed in communicating complicated and often convoluted matters, rendering them accessible to readers with differing levels of experience with critical victimology.
Case studies from a variety of international and legal contexts provide discussion material for upper-level university curricula in comparative victimology. Readers (be they students or professionals) are challenged to appreciate the broad application of critical theory to instances of genocide, terrorism, and mass violence (Chapters 8, 10, and 11); to young men trapped in an incarceration system who battle histories of lifelong trauma (Chapter 3); and to the history of key cases against women in the last century (Chapter 9). Readers will also find value in its cross-cultural comparison of procedural justice, opening a space where critical examination of victims’ experiences frame mandates for social justice. Future editions or companion volumes would benefit from examples originating from a greater number of international contexts, particularly those outside of Euro-American criminal justice models. Just as criminal justice practitioners and students should be expected to develop comparative understandings of global systems of justice, they should also feel a similar demand to understand the process of victimization in a variety of social, political, and economic contexts.