Supporting young crime victims: discursive environments and formula narratives

Abstract

Within the crime victim movement and discourse on victimization, a novel victim category has been introduced: the young crime victim. This article analyses the professional discourse formed around the new notion, focusing on the needs of the young crime victim along with the practices, tools, and techniques used to deal with resistance at a support centre for young crime victims in Sweden. The institutional or professional discourse, which functions as an environment for the youths’ stories about crime and victim support, affirms some stories and marginalizes others. It is reproduced through two overarching formula narratives helping to organize and lend legitimacy to the support work: one constructed around the ‘bad’ or resistant victim and the other around the ‘good’ or compliant victim. The young crime victims interviewed for this study generally reproduced the narrative on the ‘good’ victim in reporting on their experience. Although other findings indicate that there is possible room for an alternative approach to help-seeking clients, a third narrative emphasizes the uniqueness of the client's needs and personal competences. This narrative nonetheless remains but a subordinate one, evidently not part of the dominant professional discourse.