Ideal Victim Research Articles

#WhyIDidntReport: Exploring victim accounts of non-reporting

Following the controversy surrounding the 2018 appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court, hundreds of thousands of victim/survivors of sexual violence took to social media to share their reasons for not reporting their experiences to the police. A sample of these tweets was collected and thematically analysed to identify the main reasons cited for the decision to not report. Results suggest that the decision to report is complex and influenced by multiple factors both within and beyond the criminal justice system including a vulnerable victim, varied types of fear, shame and blame. These findings are discussed in light of the existing literature on rape myths and the ideal victim.

Rethinking the Scope of Sexual Violence for Criminal Law Reform

Rape survivors are mostly women, and the perpetrators are mostly men. So, it has a social and cultural dimension. In the article, the problems regarding rape law are shown from the angle of the female rape survivors. The paper discusses how rape is interpreted in Georgian criminal law practice and why one paradigm of rape prevails to this day - a male stranger and a fighting woman who physically resists the perpetrator. Criminal law sets the standard of the “ideal victim’’ for a woman, the “rational” rules of action during rape; in particular, it determines what the “typical behavior” is for a woman before, during, and after sexual violence. If the female rape survivor’s response does not fit into this standard, she remains outside the legal system; her voice is suppressed and disbelieved by the justice. The paper critically examines the Georgian legislative and judicial definition of rape; However, the research is not limited to this; it also includes an analysis of the approaches and scientific views of other jurisdictions. The paper supports a liberal understanding of sexual autonomy and consent. The goal of the paper is to show the essence of non-consensual sexual violence and its superiority compared to the old rape law.

Contested Victimhood: (Un)Courting Victims of Terrorism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Despite the growing number of victims of terrorism globally, research is scant about a class of victims who, in theory, epitomize Nils Christie’s concept of the “Ideal Victim,” deemed worthy of public sympathy and social support. The difficult experiences of terrorism victims in Israel, particularly in military court proceedings as documented through interviews, court transcripts, and observations, highlight how the politicization of terrorism exacerbates secondary victimization for terror victims and their families. We postulate that, in addition to the adversarial legal system constraints victims experience in legal proceedings, victim identity in Israel is culturally eschewed in favor of a national(ist) meta-narrative that valorizes strength and self-reliance. A militarized Israeli society asserting its superior might is a symbolic rejection of a helpless victim status, historically forced upon Jews facing persecution and terror. We conclude that terror victims’ treatment mirrors a given society’s image of itself.

“We Can’t Work With Them, We Can’t Work Without Them”: The Police-Victim Advocacy Nexus in Processing Sexual Offenses in the Nigerian Justice System

Previous studies posited that survivors of rape receive better treatment from the police when advocates are involved and the police embrace collaboration. However, the collaborative relationship between the Nigerian police and rape victim advocates has yet to receive scholarly attention. To address this, a qualitative study was conducted, with 24 police officers of sexual offense units in six Police Commands, and 50 rape victim advocates from 28 advocacy groups. A thematic analysis of the narratives was carried out. Findings indicated problematic police-advocate collaboration in the process of reporting, interviewing, investigating, and prosecuting rape cases. Advocates stated that officers exhibited rape myth acceptance. Officers stated that advocates often display aggressive approaches in interfering with interviews, are ignorant of police procedures, and often wrongly accuse officers of corrupt practices. These findings have important practical, policy, and further research implications if criminal justice efficiencies and ideal victim support services are to be achieved.

Constructing the Ideal Victim: Glorification of Crown Prince Sado in South Korean Popular Culture

Constructing the Ideal Victim: Glorification of Crown Prince Sado in South Korean Popular Culture

Beyond victim and hero representations? A comparative analysis of UNHCR’s Instagram communication strategies for the Syrian and Ukrainian crises

Abstract The Ukrainian crisis has received substantial Global Northern policy support and favourable news coverage, contrasting sharply with Global Southern crises. Nevertheless, refugee organizations can influence public perceptions through social media. This study comparatively analyses UNHCR’s Instagram communication strategies for the Ukrainian and Syrian crises (2022–2023). Applying a multimodal critical discourse analysis on UNHCR’s Instagram posts (N = 90), we discern interacting humanitarian and post-humanitarian appeals, involving inter- and intra-group hierarchies of deservingness, expanding research on humanitarian communication. While UNHCR mainly represents forcibly displaced Ukrainians as victims and focuses on ‘ideal victims’, it mostly portrays forcibly displaced Syrians as empowered individuals, likely due to context-specific differences and partially countering news and policy narratives. Both humanitarian representations often intersect with post-humanitarian strategies, facilitated by Instagram affordances. This study thus contributes to the literature on humanitarian communication with comparative crisis-specific and platform-specific insights and causes. Moreover, it nuances the often-assumed importance of post-humanitarian imageries on social media.

Men’s Violence against Women as Portrayed in the Swedish Media: The Construction of Victimhood and the Role of the Perpetrator

Men’s violence against women is an international problem and while global and national initiatives have been created to better the criminalization process, the influence of news reporting on violence against women has not been successfully addressed in such policy. The aim of this study is to contribute to understanding how media frames violence against women in the Swedish context, which is both highly protective of crime reporting and where violence against women is a central policy and public discussion issue. A mixed methods approach was used in the analysis of 295 digital news articles that were published by four media outlets (Aftonbladet, Expressen, Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter) within the period January 1st, 2019–December 31st, 2021. The study found that digital news articles first frame the issue of violence against women as episodic, but later transform into a thematic frame when follow-up articles were written on a given case. The study found a construction of victimhood by Swedish news media that allowed for two victim personas to be identified: the ideal victim and the ideal minority victim. In connection with the portrayal of the victim, the study also identified two different portrayals of the perpetrator: the ideal foreign perpetrator and the Swedish perpetrator. Both the description of the victim and perpetrator allowed for insights to be made regarding the role of racialization in news reporting and how this effects the framing of social issues. Finally, the study presented a set of news values that were most frequently found in articles that reveal several news factors of violence against women that contribute to the topic being seen as newsworthy.

Social Media, Newsworthiness, and Missing White Woman Syndrome: A Criminological Analysis

Missing White Woman Syndrome has been widely acknowledged within traditional mainstream media, resulting in a heavy focus on missing white women and a simultaneous underrepresentation of missing women from minority ethnic communities. However, less is known about whether this has carried through to social media, wherein users play a key role in determining what becomes widespread news. This review seeks to examine this issue with reference to existing research. It begins by exploring the concept of newsworthiness and the ways in which social media influences the distribution of news. It will then review the concept of the ‘ideal victim’, and its continued association with ethnicity. Finally, the review will examine Missing White Woman Syndrome and the ways in which it has historically manifested within traditional media and continues to manifest on social media. The review will conclude with a discussion on findings and avenues for future research in Ireland and internationally.

Is a Woman a Better Refugee Than a Man? Gender Representations of Refugees in the Polish Public Debate

Within the framework of global mobility regimes, some bodies are encouraged to move while others are pushed back. Nation-states create control mechanisms to block those who are “undesirable”. Apart from political utility, the colour of the bodies is indicated by the critics as the main criterion of division. However, one more important dimension that intersects with race here is the gender of these bodies. A woman fits the figure of an ideal victim better due to the nationalist patterns of femininity: she is vulnerable, submissive, and deprived of agency. Contrary to a man: his duty in the context of war is to remain in his homeland and fight for it. A man who does not do that, seeking asylum in Europe, is morally doubtful: he is a migrant posing a threat to “our” prosperity and security. This is how people crossing the Polish-Belarusian border are presented to public opinion and contrasted with female Ukrainian refugees. The article offers a critical analysis of gender representations of refugees in the Polish public debate through the prism of postcolonial theory, demonstrating that gendered and racialised colonial discourses underpin rationalisations about who has and who does not have a right to be a refugee.

Identifying Sexual Abuse in Same-Sex Relationships: Turning Points and Meta-Narratives

Abstract Purpose Youth intimate partner violence (YIPV) is an under-researched topic within the field of domestic violence. This is particularly true of same-sex YIPV. In this article, the words of one young man, Philip, are analyzed to explore how he narrates his process of defining his sexual experiences as abuse and, consequently, himself as a possible victim of IPV. Methods The qualitative in-depth interview with Philip was conducted as part of a larger study on YIPV in Norway, with a specific focus on sexual YIPV. The article is framed both theoretically and methodologically by the assumption that narratives give meaning to our experiences. Meta-narratives and turning points are used as tools for narrative analysis. Results Important contextual issues in Philip’s storyline include his prior exposure to severe homophobic bullying, being forced to return to the closet as his partner had not yet come out, and no prior experience of serious romantic relationship. Influential cultural meta-narratives regarding IPV and gender that complicate his process of identifying his experiences as abuse include the violence of adult men towards adult women, the ever-present male sex drive, and the importance of physical violence and bodily size and strength. The findings are discussed in light of the theory of the ideal victim. Conclusion Schools need to include sexual minority youth when teaching about sex and relationships, and professionals working with youth need to actively ask them about experiences of violence and abuse in their relationships, regardless of their sexuality.

The ‘ideal victim’: A cage for victims’ narratives at the International Criminal Court

AbstractDespite Article 68(3) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) granting victims an autonomous standing in proceedings, victims’ participatory rights have often been tailored to fit within the retributive structure of the trials. This contribution aims to provide a different perspective on victims’ role and their narratives in proceedings at the ICC, building upon the expressivist model of international criminal justice and focusing on a specific strand that engages with the adjudication process’s performative and communicative features. In providing a better understanding of how victims’ narrative unfolds in trials at the ICC, the article addresses two issues: how the concept of the victim is constructed at the ICC; and whether and, eventually, how this construct impedes progress in recognizing their narratives in proceedings at the ICC. Concerning the first issue, drawing on criminologist Nils Christie’s theorizing of the ‘ideal victim’, it will be observed that the construct of victims in proceedings at the ICC reflects three main attributes: weakness; innocence; and dependency. The second issue shed light on the extent to which the emphasis on the ‘ideal victim’ can serve as a tool in the hands of institutional actors at the ICC to pre-empt, constrain and subordinate victims’ narratives, in a manner that oversimplifies victimhood. To impose a particular narrative upon victims’ experiences, three main procedural mechanisms have been identified: appropriation of victims’ interests; legal representation of abstract victimhood; and exclusion from the trial of victims who do not conform to the ideal victim.

Practitioner Understandings of Older Victims of Abuse and Their Perpetrators: Not Ideal Enough?

Abstract This article reports data from interviews with 66 professionals working across safeguarding, health, criminal justice and specialist domestic abuse services exploring their views about older victims’ experiences of domestic abuse. The findings reveal that older victims, despite embodying many of the criteria of Christie’s ideal victim, are not ideal enough as they fail to conform to the stereotype of the young, female victim of intimate-partner abuse. Similarly, their perpetrators, whether older partners or younger sons/other family members, fall short of the necessary criteria to be seen as legitimate offenders—they are not quite ideal—meaning domestic abuse against older adults is frequently repackaged as a health issue, with significant implications for professional practice.

Media presentation of hospital discharge to care homes during the COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeAt the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic the United Kingdom Government implemented a policy to rapid discharge hospital patients into care homes. This study aimed to examine how the media in the United Kingdom portrayed hospital discharge to care homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThis study was a qualitative document analysis. Four sources (Daily Mail, The Independent, The Guardian and BBC News) were selected to represent political orientations encompassing right-wing, centrist and left-wing perspectives, and were searched for mention of hospital discharge, care homes and Covid-19 pandemic between 1st January 2020 and 24th February 2022. Article text was copied verbatim into Microsoft Word documents prior to analysis. Data were thematically analysed, followed by coding the sentiment in the included articles as well as coding the sentiment of themes and sub-themes.FindingsOf 722 identified articles, 133 were eligible for inclusion as the final corpus. Data represented a moralistic narrative consisting of four themes: (1) Government as villain, (2) care homes as antiheroes, (3) patients as ideal victims and (4) moral outcomes. Most of the corpus had a negative sentiment (78.1%). One theme, moral outcomes, had considerably more positive sentiment (32.4%) than others (range 15.1%–21.9%).Originality/valueA moralistic argument for improving cross-boundary interactions between health and social care services is provided, and the media can play a role pushing cross-boundary working higher up the policy agenda. Future work should examine how direct stakeholders, including those working in healthcare and care home settings, perceived the discharge policy.

Inside Victims, Outside Offenders: A Case Study on Crime Reporting

In political and media rhetoric throughout Europe, migrants and refugees are often linked to crime; especially to gender-based crimes. This paper, focusing on Hungary, examines whether media discourses perpetuate this image and to what extent do other attributes of offenders (such as ethnicity and class) influence the way the media represent those involved in rape cases. The 720 articles sampled for this study were analysed using qualitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis, with Lindgren and Lundström’s model on inside victims/offenders and outside victims/offenders and Nils Christie’s theory on ideal victims being applied to the findings. Results show that the media in Hungary is more likely to grant victim status to those who are insiders (Hungarian, white, middle class) when their offenders are outsiders (migrant, Roma, lower class), while socially marginalised offenders are automatically externalised. The paper also shows that marginalised people are externalised collectively, while insiders are externalised individually. The application of Christie’s theory further strengthens the relational hypothesis that the ideal (or outsider) offender makes the ideal victim.

A Decade of Decision Making: Prosecutorial Decision Making in Sexual Assault Cases

In the United States, it is estimated that fewer than 30% of sexual assaults are reported to law enforcement, less than 5% will result in an arrest, and approximately 3% will result in a felony conviction. The present study examines a census of sexual assault reports from 2012 to 2020 in a large police department in the Midwest region of the United States, considering only those cases presented to the district attorney’s office for consideration (n = 700). Victim characteristics, suspect characteristics, and incident characteristics were examined as relating to a prosecutor accepting a case for charges. Further, a series of “ideal victim” characteristics were identified and used to create an additive scale based on prior research. The most significant predictors of prosecutor acceptance in the full sample were a lack of “date rape” drugs, continued cooperation from the victim, the suspect having a prior arrest for sexual assault, and the assault being reported within 24 h of occurring. A separate model was conducted for only those cases with continued cooperation from the victim. The researchers discuss the implications of these significant factors and suggest training to change false perceptions of victims among criminal justice officials and to increase victim reporting/cooperation in cases of sexual assault.

To Be Heard Through The #Metoo Backlash

The Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard defamation trial constitutes what Sarah Banet- Weiser (2018) calls a 'feminist flashpoint': it has become a media event that facilitates and shapes discourses around gender-based violence in the public sphere. The cultural significance of the social media commentaries on the trial is threefold. First, the sheer volume of media traffic turns sexual violence into a media spectacle. Second, commentary featured discussion of domestic violence and situated it within the legacies of #MeToo. Thirdly, the stark divide between Depp and Heard supporters reveals shifts in cultural understandings of sexual violence since #MeToo but also a backlash against the movement. Cultural understandings of gender-based violence and feminism, popularised by #MeToo, are acknowledged, but the same digital tools that enable online feminist activism are mobilised in the backlash. The authors explore the re-activation of the myth of the 'ideal victim' Heard's resistance to dominant representations of the passive victim; and the 'memeification' of Heard (Valenti 2022) as a form of gendered surveillance and policing. The trial exemplifies a new iteration of postfeminism, one that acknowledges the cultural and political significance of #MeToo yet upholds the same rape myths that were previously criticised.

Constructing Sexual Victimization: A Thematic Analysis of Reader Responses to A Literary Female-on-Male Rape Story on Goodreads

ABSTRACT Τhe aim of this study was to provide a detailed understanding of unprompted audience responses to a literary story of female-on-male rape on Goodreads. Thematic analysis of 429 reviews revealed 5 key themes and 16 sub-themes, which evolved around appraising the social function of the book, evaluating its literary features, assessing the depiction of female-on-male rape especially in terms of its perceived realism, as well as around a variety of explicitly emotional and cognitive responses. The esthetic features of the story proved to be of particular importance for shaping reader engagement. Reflective elaborations on the female rapist were found to constitute a marginal response pattern. Findings identified the existence of an overarching cognitive schema that construes sexual victimization as feminized and is linked to a tripartite pattern of comprehending female on- male rape (female-focused, gender-inclusive, gender-neutral). The study highlights the persistence of gendered rape myths structured around an “ideal victim” – “ideal offender” paradigm, which, however, co-exist with alternative responses oriented toward de-gendering sexual victimization. These findings suggest the importance of addressing audience responses in future investigations of female sexual violence (hands-on and hands-off behaviors) and pursuing an interventional agenda of more inclusive conceptualizations of victimization.

Non-Ideal Victims or Offenders? The Curious Case of Pyramid Scheme Participants

ABSTRACT Pyramid schemes, including their various forms such as chain letters and illegal forms of multi-level marketing, harm people that are often far from ideal victims. While many lose cash and suffer emotional, health, and other harms; victims also facilitate pyramids by actively recruiting new victims and turning them into more recruiters ad nauseam. Research in this area is, however, small. This paper seeks to add to this small body of research by constructing a typology of actors in pyramid schemes being inspired by concepts of ideal victim and non-ideal victim and building upon the characteristics of pyramid schemes. It provides a unique insight into a complex network of relationships featured by pyramid schemes and contentious areas between victims and perpetrators of economically motivated crimes and wrongs. The paper presents policy implications and argues more research is needed on this group and their needs as they are often neglected by the criminal justice systems.

When ideal victims don’t make ideal offenders: The (re)framing of legacy case prosecutions against elderly perpetrators of state violence

This article undertakes a victimological critique of media coverage, social media commentary and parliamentary debate on the prosecution of former British soldier Dennis Hutchings for the death of an unarmed and vulnerable adult in Northern Ireland in 1974. It argues that a careful reframing of events and actors by the media, politicians and veterans’ movement has obfuscated perceptions of victimhood by creating a climate that favours the perpetrator rather than the victim. While this victimological reframing may reflect the natural sympathy felt towards aged and ailing defendants, it also speaks to the ability to manipulate coverage of the case so that it serves current interests: on the one hand it fits with the UK Government’s socio-political interests in how historic state violence in the North of Ireland should be ‘dealt with’, while on the other hand it also reflects longstanding cultural sensitivities that the British ‘imagined community’ has about its military veterans. This has seen Hutchings being framed less as an ‘ideal offender’ who targeted an unarmed and vulnerable person and more as an elderly victim of a politicised ‘witch hunt’ against military veterans.

‘It sounds like lived experience’ - On empathy in rape trials

In this article the intrinsic relation between the formal and the informal aspects of rape trials in Sweden will be scrutinized and discussed, for two main reasons (that are intertwined). Firstly, rape cases are characterized by a word-against-word situation, with few other forms of evidence, and with a rate of convictions much lower than for other criminal cases. The fact that the parties’ statements are placed at the core of the presentation and assessment of the evidence leaves much scope for argumentation about normality, rationality, logic and common sense. Secondly, rape trials have been subject to a significant amount of critique, in public as well as in legal debate due to gendered stereotypes, assumptions about autonomy, objectivity, ideal victims, real rape etc.The article aims to explore and shed some light on parts of the continuum of formality and informality in criminal trials in Sweden. By deconstructing rape trials through the lens of the emotion-sociological concept of empathy, the article contributes to deepened knowledge of the work performed by the legal actors in court in general and their work as empathic translators, in particular. We will focus on a specific part of the empathic process, namely emotion management to stage credible testimonies, in the sense that the stories told by the parties and/or witnesses are framed and presented by legal professionals in court as if they have been acting and reacting normal, natural, reasonable and rational.We present the analysis of the intrinsic relationship between the formal framework and the informal work performed by the legal actors, by exploring how the legal concepts are embodied in stories from everyday life in the trial, framed by the legal actors. The analysis includes a description of the stage at which these trials take place (the objectivity ideals and self-images) and the most important formal aspects and parts of the criminal and procedural regulation of rape trials. The article ends with final conclusions and reflections on the continuum of formality and informality in rape trials.The material in the study from which this article derives consists of observations of 18 rape cases, including written judgments and interviews with legal professionals in these cases.