The ideal minority victim – Roma in Swedish criminal courts

Abstract

Nils Christie famously drew up criteria needed to be fulfilled in order to be recognized as an ideal victim. Concerning victims from a minority population, I will argue, additional criteria are needed in order to achieve recognition as an ideal victim. This study will point to these criteria by scrutinizing the ways in which victims from Roma communities are framed by the Swedish criminal justice system. Based on a narrative analysis of court documents, and by drawing on postcolonial theory, the findings in this article indicate that a minority victim must be understood culturally as one of ‘us’ – being ‘culture-free’ – in order to fit into the framework of an ideal victim. As such, this is an attempt to develop tools than can help us grasp the understanding of, and approaches to, minority victims in the criminal justice system, by adding a postcolonial theoretical perspective to the classic work of Christie.