Reconceptualizing Victims

Abstract

Chapter 4 suggests that a reconceptualization of victims and victimization has emerged. Processes of politicization in contemporary victim policy have constructed new hierarchies of victimization whereby certain victims face enhanced levels of criminal justice bureaucratization, whilst others have been overlooked entirely. These victim hierarchies have been reconstructed along three lines: demarcation, prioritization and responsibilization. Although extolled as being part of a wider ‘victim-focused’ agenda, this instead indicates a move towards administrating victimization whereby 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. The chapter concludes by considering how victims currently feature in wider political rhetoric and calls for a renewed victimological focus on administrated victimization.