In the early twenty-first century, criminal victimisation is everywhere. From high-definition videos of the latest terrorist atrocities beamed into our homes, our phones and our laptops by 24-hour news networks (BBC 2017) to the bite-size, personal, accounts from victims of crime, their families and their supporters appearing on our social media feeds. Under such conditions, members of the public can feel more personally connected with such instances of victimisation than at any time in recent history. Whether it be the collective outrage felt when terrorists strike at the âheart of our democracyâ (ITV 2017) or a deep sense of personal empathy felt for the victims of historic sexual abuse coming forward to âtell their storiesâ (Alaggia 2004), the notion of âstanding alongsideâ and showing âsolidarityâ with the directly victimised is becoming ubiquitous in modern society. Under such conditions, public consciousness has become flooded with concepts like âpost-traumatic stressâ and âtraumaâ. At the same time, an increasingly informed public can engage like never before in detailed debates over how precisely such victims should be treated and what they should expect from the criminal justice process. In the flurry of such debates, opinions from members of the public on highly technical legal issuesâsuch as the cross-examination of rape victims in court, compensation for victims of violent crime and the nature of âconsentâ in sexual offencesâare now routinely juxtaposed with those of agents of the state, prosecutors, lawyers, politicians and professional scholars.
As the above developments continue apace, governments of the day in almost all industrialised countries continue to reassure their electorates that a transformation is indeed occurring within their criminal justice systems (CJS) to better incorporate the needs and expectations of victims of crime (Wilson and Ross 2015). In the social context set out in the last paragraph, the expectations of the public at large (or at least that section of it in a position to voice their opinion) are as politically significant as those of the victims themselves. As such, public scrutiny of official practice, labelling and decision-making connected to particular forms of victimisation has never been greater. At the same time, an ever-more diverse array of officially mandated and less officially mandated actors and organisations are taking up the cause of crime victims. Responsibility for victims is thus increasingly spread widely across a range of organisations, individuals and sectors: sometimes many steps removed from direct government oversight. All of these actors and interest groups exert their own influence over the development of victim policy1 and all feed into the broader society-level debate set out above.
Criminal justice systems are under increasing pressure in this environment to offer victims (and increasingly their supporters) more in terms of service and participation than has traditionally been possible as a matter of law or, for many, desirable as a matter of judicial or penal philosophy. The oft-repeated pledge espoused by many governments around the world for the last 20 years to âput victims at the heart of the criminal justice processâ (see Hall 2009) has become something of a mantra in terms of its rhetorical standing whilst continuing to be a somewhat vague proposition in its application. Indeed, it has long been argued that such reforms that are made to criminal justice systems in the name of âvictim careâ can often be deconstructed and exposed as furthering very different aims and values (Elias 1986). Sometimes these alternative aims seem to correspond with overtly political objectives (Rock 2004). In other cases, such reforms have been argued to support punitive criminal justice philosophies (Dignan 2005). A further argument that is frequently put forward by critical commentators is that reforms to assist victims have had less to do with the needs of victims per se and much more to do with neo-liberal market philosophies and cost-cutting in all criminal justice systems (Duggan and Heap 2014).
Academic commentators have approached the above broad-ranging developments from a number of angles. From a sociological perspective, Rock (1986, 1990, 1993, 1998, 2004) has highlighted in a number of discussions how victim issues have been combined with political priorities by the agents of the state. Both Doak (2003, 2005) and Hall (2010) have examined victim policy from a more legalistic perspective. In so doing, both authors have problematised the notion of âvictim-centred criminal justiceâ. Ashworth (2010) has examined victim reform from a right-based perspective and expressed marked concern for what he views as the eroding of defendantsâ rights in the guise of victim care. Elias (1983, 1986) argued that victims are used as tools of the powerful âto bolster state legitimacy, to gain political mileage, and to enhance social controlâ (p. 231). At a macro-social level, Garland (2001) branded victim policy as constituting part of a wider âculture of controlâ in which governments of many jurisdictions have reacted to falling confidence in the ability of their criminal justice systems to control crime by redefining its success criteria in terms of the efficient management of cases and the provision of minimum standards of service to victims.
A recent important addition to these debates has been made by Duggan and Heap (2014) who argue that victim policies in the UK have strongly reflected the commitment of successive governments to neo-liberal principles of individual autonomy, the marketisation of services and individual responsibilisation. Essentially, the authors argue, these polices are heavily influenced (indeed, driven) by economic imperatives and a right realist approach to expanding criminalisation and control. In addition, the case is made that austerity measures and the increased pertinence of social media have both served to catapult the victim still further into political consciousness. As the authors note:
the examples outlined in the above section demonstrate how increases in the politicization and administration of victimization are set in the context of a seemingly disgruntled and cash-strapped UK, where behavioural tolerance is being constantly redefined. (p. 55)
In short, Duggan and Heap conclude:
Current victim policy seeks to manage the victim experience in the CJS in line with the dominant political ideology underpinning current developments in criminal justice. (2014: p. 35)
The present volume will draw on all of the above perspectives, but it will also seek to build on them by bringing together three distinct areas of concern to modern victimology. Briefly put, these elements are: firstly, the âcultural turnâ taking place over recent years in our understandings of what it means to be a victim of crime; secondly, the impact of widening governance mechanisms relating to victim policy and thirdly, the more legalistic issues which in practice often determine the place victims achieve in practice within a criminal justice system. The focus of this exercise will be the development and application of victim policy and law relating to the criminal justice system of England & Wales2 since the formation of the 2010 Coalition Government of the United Kingdom3 and covering the period up until the UK general election of June 2017. The aim will be to expose how a combined analysis of the three core issues set out above (and discussed in more detail in the following paragraphs) can provide a more complete and culturally nuanced picture of the present state of the so-called victimsâ movement in that country. Although the focus is on England & Wales, examples of similar processes and impacts will be drawn from around the world. The argument will thus be put forward that the cultural influences exposed in this domestic context can also be seen in other jurisdictions, and as such, the approach taken to the critical analysis in this volume can be applied much more widely. Before progressing further with this exercise, this chapter will first unpack the three core areas of concern introduced above at greater length.
In the first instance, this volume is rooted in the development of what has been called âcultural victimologyâ. Cultural victimology represents a relatively new direction taken in the victimological literature over recent years in an attempt to incorporate a number of features of the modern social, political and cultural landscape which both surrounds and permeates the notion of being a âvictimâ. These features include the increasingly visual nature of social life and the symbolic displays of shared emotion that go along with this. In this context, the notion of âstanding alongsideâ victims of crime becomes more prevalent. Victims of crime (and their supporters) in turn provide increasingly public accounts of the harm they suffer. Cultural victimologists are also interested in the means by which the victimisation experience is mapped through the workings of the criminal justice system. Through such a process, public narratives concerning these experiences are developed, some of which become features of a shared cultural understanding about what it means to be victimised. In short, cultural victimology foregrounds suffering, how it is presented to society and what sense that society then makes of it. This reaches beyond critical victimology approaches (to be discussed below) to place emphasis on the nature of victimisation itself in addition to the social standing of the person or group being victimised (Mythen and McGowan (2017).
Secondly, this book will assess the interaction between the more cultural understandings of victimhood outlined above and the ever-wider network of actors and organisations who now exert influence over the development of victim policy, whilst at the same time feeding into the cultural narratives discussed above. In so doing, the book will draw on aspects of governance theory to explore how responsibility for and influence over victim reform has developed in recent years to the point where much of this process now occurs at armâs length from government institutions. The book will examine the implications and the impact of these new governance arrangements, noting in particular that the resulting âpolicy networkâ4 of influencing parties includes both those with officially mandated responsibilities for victims as well as other organisa...