Ideal Victim Essay

Assignment 2: Effects of crime and how the public services support victims and witnesses of crime

This essay looks at Indigenous Australians in relation to the institution of ‘Criminal Law’. In this context, criminal law refers to legal processes such as police questioning, investigation and detainment as well as arrest, custody and bail. It also encompasses associated court procedures up to the point of sentencing. The focus will be to first outline the importance of criminal law to Indigenous Australians and then provide a critical analysis of the unique experiences and barriers that this group encounter in accessing criminal law in a positive way. Following this analysis, the development of possible ways to improve Indigenous access to criminal law will be discussed. Particular attention will be given to the way in which Indigenous Australians are affected by the transition of our modern justice system toward broader social justice concepts that incorporate risk management of potential criminal behaviour. From this discussion a conclusion will be drawn as to whether or not Indigenous Australians enjoy equality of criminal law and whether the structural elements of the law itself perpetuate Indigenous injustice and disadvantage.

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) in 1991 provided documentation on the death of indigenous Australians in prison or police custody. In doing so the report highlighted the substantial over representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Criminal Justice system and provided detailed analysis of underlying factors. The reports findings were believed to be the foundation of change. However, regardless of a range of policy changes and crime prevention programs in repose to the report, over representation in the criminal justice system remains. The issue is one of the most significant social justice and public policy issue in the contemporary Australian criminal justice system. The RCIADIC made 339 recommendations, most of which have been implemented into the criminal justice system over the past two decades. Never the less the systematic over representation remains prevalent. The purpose of this essay is to understand over representation as it exists in the contemporary criminal justice system. Particular emphasise will be placed on the levels of women and youths in the criminal justice system, their contact with the system and empirically based risk factors pertaining to over representation. An evaluation of alternative programs in the pre and post sentencing stage and the impact such programs would have on the over representation will be conducted.

How many different types of mindsets are there? According to Dr. Skip Downing there are at least two major mindsets. He refers to them as Victims and Creators. What are the definitions of these types of mindsets? A Victim is someone who feels that they cannot influence their own outcomes in life and let things happen without trying to shape the result. A Creator is someone who consistently make choices that result in the outcome that they want. David Mirman has written an article that provides this clear example of Victim and Creator mindsets using the example of two college students searching for a textbook “The instructor asked them if they had the text. The first said “No, I do not have the textbook. I was not able to get it because the

Although Jews were the primary victims of the Holocaust, many other groups were targeted based on racial or political grounds. Other groups that were attacked by the Nazis included LGBTQ individuals, the physically and mentally disabled, Roma(gypsies), Poles, Slavic Peoples, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and members of political opposition groups. These Non-Jewish victims were not considered as victims of the Holocaust. So, why did Adolf Hitler kill 11 million people? First, we need to inspect Hitler’s crazy ideas. Adolf Hitler was the Chancellor of Germany during the Holocaust. He came to power in 1933, when Germany was experiencing financial trouble. Hitler promised the Germans that he would bring them great wealth and he stated that he would make

The perception of the Australian criminal justice system’s legitimacy is determined by the actions of three institutions, and the manner in which they address issues of justice within society. For the criminal justice system to be seen with integrity and valued for its role, it is vital that all members of the community see the appropriate rectification of injustices through the police, courts and corrections. However, particular groups within society encounter the illegitimacy and social inequity embedded within these institutions, diminishing the effectiveness to which they fulfill their role. For women in particular, the institutions of the criminal justice system are notably unethical in their treatment of both victims and perpetrators of crime. Despite many reforms and recommendations for change, the criminal justice system ultimately fails in achieving justice for women, with the courts demonstrating the most significant attempt to eliminate social inequality and victimisation.

The media today, is highly selective in their constructions of offences, offenders and victims. Media representations of crime are moulded and women are portrayed in a way that is entertainment driven and is appealing to the audience. Despite the fact that women seldom stalk, murder outsiders or commit sequential murders- in fact they are rarely vehement, “accounting for only ten percent of convicted violent offenders- those who do so are highly newsworthy because of their novelty” (Jewkes 2011, p. 123) Present day media admits that because fierce women are comparatively uncommon, they are all the more appealing and diabolical to the audience as a result. The essay shall discuss the reason and presentation in the media of female offenders, female victims and women specific crimes.

Observers have noted in recent years a shift in government policy toward what is perceived as ‘redressing the balance’ in criminal justice, to be more advantageous to victims and less so to the accused. (have implications for current exclusionary rules)

Throughout this essay, a personal interaction with the criminal justice system will be the focus of discussion. Miria Bastock, a citizen of Queensland and victim of attempted murder, illustrated a personal interaction with the criminal justice system through her experience in 1989. Other matters that will be discussed in this essay are victim precipitation and the personal consequences of her victimization.

In victimology, there are still many unanswered questions and difficulties to find patterns that would easily classify victims, because nobody is exempt from becoming a victim. Nevertheless, some clichéd views about victims are embedded in our society. For example, Christie (1986) describes the idea of the ideal victim, which is, in fact a person who is easily given the status of being a victim. Ideal victims are perceived as blameless, law-abiding, usually female, vulnerable and worthy of help, sympathy and attention. Walklate (2005) used the fairytale of little red riding hood to illustrate the ‘ideal victim’; young, innocent, female out doing good deeds only to be attacked by

There are many theories that criminologists use to evaluate criminal events. As a result, doing so will expose the flaws of the justice system so that they can be improved. That is because these improvements will reduce the probability of such cases happening again. For example, a recent crime has just been reported where a 29-year-old French nationalist, Smail Ayad, had been convicted of two counts of murder. It was in Shelly’s Home Hill hostel, in North Queensland where Mr Ayad repeatedly stabbed British backpacker, Mia Ayliffe-Chung. The other victim, Tom Jackson, was also stabbed repeatedly after intervening. As witnesses had claimed Mr Ayad was infatuated with Miss Ayliffe-Chung. Over 30 witnesses also claimed that Mr Ayad was yelling

The traditional criminal justice system is criticized for its neglect of victim importance and needs, for example (Symonds, 1980) acknowledges, that the criminal justice system is concerned about looking back at the event rather than focusing on how to rehabilitate and as a consequence making victims be in a ‘secondary victimization’ effect. This is the attitudes, behaviors and the beliefs of the people in the criminal

Within society, there is an engrained belief of what makes a person a legitimate victim and often their status as a ‘victim’ is questioned. This is especially true if the victim does not fit the typical stereotype of who is considered to be a legitimate victim. This is most widely illustrated in cases involving male victims of sexual assault.

Victims of heinous crimes know all too well the horrid road of recovery that lies ahead: what about the true victims? The wrongly accused, the people who are pushed to the breaking point without having committed any crime but are still prosecuted, are the real victims.

What we know and what we think we may know about victims is greatly influenced by what we see on television, on the internet and in many other forms of media. This representation although sometimes may be misleading it helps shape our outlooks and understandings of victims and the assumption we as society make about them. Media has always been seen as an influential tool that can manipulate society’s opinion and perceptions of a victim. In the public’s mind the term ‘victim’ is seen as a person who has become powerless or submissive due to the result of crime, whether they are injured, killed or involved in events or actions of misfortune in which they are seen as some kind of victim. The increasing visibility of victims within mass media due