Victims


Book Description

The study of victims of crime is a central concern for criminologists around the world. In recent years, some victimologists have become increasingly engaged in positivist debates on the differences between victims and non-victims, how these differences can be measured and what could be done to improve the victims' experience of the criminal justice system. Written by experts in the field, this book embraces a much wider understanding of social harms and asks which victims' voices are heard and why. McGarry and Walklate break new ground with this innovative and accessible book; it offers a broad discussion of social harms, the role of the victim in society and the inter-relationship between trauma, testimony and justice and asks: how has harm been understood and under what circumstances have those harms been recognised? how and under what circumstances are those harms articulated? how and under what circumstances are the voices of those who have been harmed listened to? Each chapter draws on case studies and a range of questions designed to assist in reflection and critical engagement. This book is perfect reading for students taking courses on victimology, victims and society, victims’ rights and criminal justice.




The Red Dot Club


Book Description

This read will take you on a real-life journey as peace officers are getting shot and desperately fight for their lives. These are not made up stories, but you will live the events as they actually happened. These stories are told by those officers who were shot, in a millisecond by millisecond, and bullet by bullet sequence. You will experience fear, anger, sadness, and happiness in the triumph of the human spirit, as you go through a profound emotional roller coaster ride that is extremely compelling. If you've ever wondered what it is really like to be in a gunfight, this is a must-read book. Many of these storytellers have received the Medal of Valor from their respective departments for their actions. One storyteller received the Congressional Badge of Bravery, an award that is rarely bestowed. All the locations are listed so the reader can access Internet maps, go to the street view and see the actual places where the shootings occurred. This is a one of kind read that will chill you, make you cry, and at the same time give you a new sense of respect for peace officers because of what they go through and the values they embrace.




New Versions of Victims


Book Description

It is increasingly difficult to use the word "victim" these days without facing either ridicule for "crying victim" or criticism for supposed harshness toward those traumatized. Some deny the possibility of "recovering" repressed memories of abuse, or consider date rape an invention of whining college students. At the opposite extreme, others contend that women who experience abuse are "survivors" likely destined to be psychically wounded for life. While the debates rage between victims' rights advocates and "backlash" authors, the contributors to New Versions of Victims collectively argue that we must move beyond these polarizations to examine the "victim" as a socially constructed term and to explore, in nuanced terms, why we see victims the way we do. Must one have been subject to extreme or prolonged suffering to merit designation as a victim? How are we to explain rape victims who seemingly "get over" their experience with no lingering emotional scars? Resisting the reductive oversimplifications of the polemicists, the contributors to New Versions of Victims critique exaggerated claims by victim advocates about the harm of victimization while simultaneously taking on the reactionary boilerplate of writers such as Katie Roiphe and Camille Paglia and offering further strategies for countering the backlash. Written in clear, accessible language, New Versions of Victims offers a critical analysis of popular debates about victimization that will be applicable to both practice and theory.




Voices of Courage


Book Description

Twelve accounts from sexual assault survivors.




Victims and Perpetrators of Terrorism


Book Description

This volume examines how both victims and perpetrators of terrorism are relevant to our understanding of political violence. While the perpetrators of political violence have been the subject of significant academic research, victims of terrorism and political violence have rarely featured in this landscape. In an effort to capture the vast complexity of terrorism, and to widen the scope of the agenda that informs terrorism research, this book presents a series of analyses that examines the role of the perpetrators, the experience of the victims, the public and media perceptions of both, and given the inherent intricacy of the phenomenon, how we might think about engaging with perpetrators in an effort to prevent further violence. By considering the role of the many actors who are central to our understanding and framing of terrorism and political violence, this book highlights the need to focus on how the interactivity of individuals and contexts have implications for the emergence, maintenance and termination of campaigns of political violence. The volume aims to understand not only how former perpetrators and victims can work in preventing violence in a number of contexts but, more broadly, the narratives that support and oppose violence, the construction of victimisation, the politicisation of victimhood, the justifications for violence and the potential for preventing and encouraging desistance from violence. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and political violence, victimology, criminology, security studies and IR in general.




Victims and Memory After Terrorism


Book Description

This book contributes to the study of collective memory and the sociology of terrorism by analysing the role of memorialization in relation to terrorism, its victims, and the broader society. While various social scientists have extensively theorized and analysed how trauma and memory interact, grow apart, and reinforce each other, this book puts the rights and needs of the victims centre-stage. Departing from the prescriptive, legal blueprints of memory, this book introduces the concept of ‘memorial needs’ to challenge and complement existing victimological frameworks. It critically assesses the efficacy of public memorialization and its success in assisting those affected by violence by exploring how victims engage with memory and memorialization. It investigates personal and collective responses to urban terrorism in Europe that have taken a wide range of forms including media coverage, spontaneous memorials and public mobilizations, literary and artistic works, trials, and controversial counter-terrorism measures. Making a case against the fetishization of memory as an overarching answer to curing visible and invisible wounds provoked by violence, Victims and Memory After Terrorism sends out a practical invitation to the field to 'repair symbolic reparations' in a way that memorialisation is not just an expression of potential, an aspiration for a more moral and just society and a promise of healing for the victimised. An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of victimology, criminology, sociology, politics and those interested in the relationship between collective memory and terrorism.




The Victims of Terrorism


Book Description

Organized groups of victims' families and friends have emerged since September 11, 2001, to become a powerful voice in U.S. counterterrorist policy and legislation. These groups were remarkably successful in getting the 9/11 Commission established and in getting the commission's most important recommendations enacted. This report documents these groups and compares them to groups formed in response to other terrorist attacks.




Ex-Combatants’ Voices


Book Description

This book develops the discourse on the experiences of ex-combatants and their transition from war to peace, from the perspective of scholars across disciplines. Ex-combatants are often overlooked and ignored in the post-conflict search for memory and understanding, resulting in their voice being excluded or distorted. This collection seeks to disclose something of the lived experience of ex-combatants who have made the transition from war to peace to help to understand some of the difficulties they have encountered in social and emotional reintegration in the wake of combat. These include: motivations and mobilizations to participation in military struggle; the material difficulties experienced in social reintegration after the war; the emotional legacies of conflict; the discourses they utilize to reconcile their past in a society moving forward from conflict toward peace; and ex-combatants’ subsequent engagement – or not – in peacebuilding. It also examines the contributions that former combatants have made to post-conflict compromise, reconciliation and peacebuilding. It focusses on male non-state actors, women, child soldiers and, unusually, state veterans, and complements previous volumes which captured the voices of victims in Northern Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka. This volume speaks to those working in the areas of sociology, criminology, security studies, politics, and international relations, and professionals working in social justice and human rights NGOs.




Encyclopedia of Victimology and Crime Prevention


Book Description

Victimology and crime prevention are growing, interrelated areas cutting across several disciplines. Victimology examines victims of all sorts of criminal activity, from domestic abuse, to street violence, to victims in the workplace who lose jobs and pensions due to malfeasance by corporate executives. Crime prevention is an important companion to victimology because it offers insight and techniques to prevent situations that lead to crime and attempts to offer ideas and means for mitigating or minimizing the potential for victimization. .In many ways, the two fields have developed along parallel yet separate paths, and the literature on both has been scattered across disciplines as varied as sociology, law and criminology, public health and medicine, political science and public policy, economics, psychology and human services, and more. The Encyclopedia of Victimology and Crime Prevention provides a comprehensive reference work bringing together such dispersed knowledge as it outlines and discusses the status of victims within the criminal justice system and topics of deterring and preventing victimization in the first place and responding to victims' needs. Two volumes containing approximately 375 signed entries provide users with the most authoritative and comprehensive reference resource available on victimology and crime prevention, both in terms of breadth and depth of coverage. In addition to standard entries, leading scholars in the field have contributed Anchor Essays that, in broad strokes, provide starting points for investigating the more salient victimology and crime prevention topics. A representative sampling of general topic areas covered includes: interpersonal and domestic violence, child maltreatment, and elder abuse; street violence; hate crimes and terrorism; treatment of victims by the media, courts, police, and politicians; community response to crime victims; physical design for crime prevention; victims of nonviolent crimes; deterrence and prevention; helping and counseling crime victims; international and comparative perspectives, and more.




Antinuclear Citizens


Book Description

Following the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, tsunamis engulfed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant located on Japan's Pacific Coast, leading to the worst nuclear disaster the world has seen since the Chernobyl crisis of 1986. Prior to this disaster, Japan had the third largest commercial nuclear program in the world, surpassed only by those in the United States and France—nuclear power significantly contributed to Japan's economic prosperity, and nearly 30% of Japan's electricity was generated by reactors dotted across the archipelago, from northern Hokkaido to southern Kyushu. This long period of institutional stasis was, however, punctuated by the crisis of March 11, which became a critical juncture for Japanese nuclear policymaking. As Akihiro Ogawa argues, the primary agent for this change is what he calls "antinuclear citizens"— a conscientious Japanese public who envision a sustainable life in a nuclear-free society. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic research conducted across Japan—including antinuclear rallies, meetings with bureaucrats, and at renewable energy production sites—Ogawa presents an historical record of ordinary people's actions as they sought to survive and navigate a new reality post-Fukushima. Ultimately, Ogawa argues that effective sustainability efforts require collaborations that are grounded in civil society and challenge hegemonic ideology, efforts that reimagine societies and landscapes—especially those dominated by industrial capitalism—to help build a productive symbiosis between industry and sustainability.