Evans, D., Trahan, A., & Laird, K. (2021). Shame and blame: Secondary stigma among families of
convicted sex offenders.
Not only does the public blame families of offenders for perceived flaws in genetics or parenting
practices, the legal system can hold parents accountable for their adolescent’s problem behaviour.
Goffman coined this ‘courtesy stigma’, but this study uses ‘secondary stigma’ (Condry, 2007:Furst and
Evans, 2015) to remove the implication of politeness and denote the predominantly negative
consequences of stigma by association. Secondary stigma due to criminal justice system involvement can
contaminate families and intimate others, particularly when it accompanies a sex offence conviction,
altering their identities to become, as found in the current study, parents or partners of a sex offender.
All 30 participants discussed experiencing secondary stigmatisation because of their loved ones’
conviction and incarceration for sex offences. The results of the thematic analysis show four major
themes, each of which has several subthemes. The four major themes, which relate to sources of stigma,
include ‘social networks’, ‘media’, ‘the system’ and ‘guilt/ self-blame’. Social networks refer to stigma
from participants’ families and friends. Media refers to stigma deriving from public reports of loved ones’
alleged offences, arrests and/or convictions. The system describes secondary stigma participants
encountered through interactions with officials during the criminal justice process. Guilt/self-blame
refers to feelings of self-blame among participants’ for their loved ones’ incarceration. Each theme
comprises several subthemes
Social networks:
Two subthemes were derived from discussions of stigma from social networks. First, participants
described a sense of loss and feeling alone because of stigmatisation from friends and family. They
already felt that they lost their loved ones, and now they were losing other important people in their
lives. Second, several participants attempted to hide their loved one’s arrest and incarceration from
people in their social network because of anticipated judgement and blame. They described persistent
fear that friends or extended family might discover their secret and often went to great lengths to
conceal it.
Media:
The thematic analysis shows three subthemes related to secondary stigma from media. First,
participants commonly derided the narrative contained in media reports. The media described their
loved ones’ alleged offences in exaggerated, emotionally laden imagery and language. Participants felt
the media dramatised the alleged crimes and their loved ones in a defamatory manner.
Second, Internet reports, particularly the sex offender registry and social media, exacerbated
stigmatisation. Stories about their loved ones on the Internet are permanent and available to everyone,
everywhere. Several participants explained that media reports on the Internet, more than anything else,
permanently changed their lives.
The third subtheme is retribution, which refers to descriptions of fear among participants that
inflammatory reports of their loved one’s alleged crime and incarceration would lead to real
consequences. Some participants feared vigilantism
,The system
These results portray the criminal justice system as imposing negative labels not just on people who
offend but also their families. Participants often described how confronting criminal justice actors
aggravated perceptions of legitimacy towards the legal system.
Self-blame
The results show three subthemes in participants’ talk of self-blame. The first sub-theme was parental
regret. It, of course, was unique to parents of incarcerated children, but this particular source of guilt
was profound. Participants expressed regret over how they raised their children and described persistent
feelings that their child’s incarceration was somehow due to choices they made while raising them.
Second, participants expressed guilt about alleged victims. This took two forms. In the first, participants
who believed their loved ones were guilty often experienced a sense of responsibility for the victims’
suffering. In the second, participants who believed their loved ones were innocent often expressed guilt
over their apparent role in allowing the accuser to get close to their loved one.
In the third subtheme, some participants described redemption. These participants overcame their
sense of guilt. Some attributed their redemption to their religious faith, Other participants realised over
time that the past cannot be changed and decided to focus on the future.
,Van Dijk, J. (2009). Free the victim: A critique of the western conception of victimhood.
International Journal of Victimology, 16(1), 1-33.
In Western languages those affected by crime are universally labelled as 'victims', meaning the sacrificed
ones. According to the author this practice seems to originate from the association of the plight of
victims with the suffering of Jesus Christ. In his view, the victim label, although eliciting compassion for
victims, assigns to them a social role of passivity and forgiveness that they may increasingly find to be
restraining. He analyses the narratives of eleven high-profile victims such as Natascha Kampusch, the
couple McCann and Reemtsma to illustrate this thesis. The article continues with a critical review of
biases deriving from the unreflexive adoption of the victim label in various schools of thought in
victimology and criminal law. Finally, the author argues for the introduction of stronger procedural rights
for crime victims in criminal trials and for a new focus within victimology on processes of victim labelling.
The victima label precludes any hope of a rapid recovery or, in fact, of any recovery at all. Moreover, the
use of the label puts the behaviour of the perpetrator in a strangely favourable light. By calling the
affected persons sacrificial objects, the speaker suggests that the perpetrator has been motivated by
higher, unselfish motives. The perpetrator is put in the venerable position of the sacrificing priest.
The victima label's first and foremost connotation is that of compassion or comisery. By labelling those
affected by crime or disaster victims, speakers express their compassion with their deep and innocent
suffering. In this view, Nils Christie's often cited concept of the 'ideal victim' as an innocent old lady
(Christie, 1986) can be understood as grounded in Christian theology: the victim is seen as a person in
the image of Jesus Christ.
The issue under investigation is not, for example, to what extent victims suffer from neatly described
mental disorders such as post traumatic stress syndromes. The issue is whether focussing on such
disorders when describing those affected by crime is objectively justified or reflects a hidden bias
resulting from the labelling of such persons as victims
The first common thread in the testimonies of the eleven victim/survivors is that they have all
discovered unexpected inner strengths while coping with their victimisation and/or its aftermath. It
could be argued, as said above, that victims who manage to write books about their stories must by
definition possess considerable inner strength. In this they may not be representative of all victims.
However, the existence of unexpected deposits of inner strength in many crime victims has in recent
years been confirmed in numerous clinical studies. It forms part of the recently discovered phenomena
that are called 'victim resilience' (Bonnano, 2004) and 'post traumatic growth' (Zoellner and Maercker,
2006). The proportion of victims who experience unexpected inner strengths or personal growth seems
in fact larger than those suffering from stress disorders. In this respect, the high profile victims may be
more representative oflarger groups of victims than has been assumed. The simultaneous discovery of
the phenomena of victim resilience and post traumatic growth by clinical psychologists and the new
publishing trend of victim biographies is probably not coincidental. Both events seem dependent on the
growing awareness in Western societies that the experience of being victimized by serious crime
amounts to more than deep suffering.
A second recurrent theme in the testimonies is the victim's feelings of anger towards the offender and a
related refusal to offer him forgiveness.
, A third dominant theme that cuts across the testimonies of the eleven victims is their commitment to
engage in social activities on behalf of other victims of misfortune. This theme is so ubiquitous and so
pronounced that it cannot be coincidental. Ger Vaders, survivor of the first terrorist attack in The
Netherlands, became a leading figure in the development of victim support in his country.
The themes of resilience, fantasies of revenge and post-traumatic altruism are clearly at odds with
conventional representations of victimhood in terms of passive suffering and helplessness. What is
special about the theme of unexpected inner strength is not that it is so common but that the
protagonists have themselves been surprised by it. It seems as if an important aspect of the experience
of being a victim is experiencing that the personal experience does not fit the internalised stereotypes of
passivity and helplessness. Especially important seems to be the mismatch between the self-perceptions
of victims and how they are perceived by their environment. Victims who want to remain faithful to
themselves are forced to resist their assigned social roles as victims.
These experiences of secondary victimisation could be interpreted as instances of straightforward victim
blaming. As discussed in the literature, blaming the victim is a well known defense mechanism that
serves important psychological functions for those confronted with the victimisation of others (Ryan,
1971 ). By blaming the victims for their fate, we can reassure ourselves we live in a just world.
In the secondary victimisation of the victims at issue, a distinct pattern can be discerned. In the first
instance, the victims are met with sympathy and are offered all sorts of support. As long as the victims
duly accept the help given and do not interfere with the official handling of their case, victims can in
principle count on a sympathetic response to their plight. However, victims should be careful to comply
with their role expectation of vulnerability and helplessness. Victims that show resilience such as
Reemtsma and Mrs Lamplugh can expect to be censured and criticized. As soon as victims start to
reclaim their autonomy by criticizing their treatment and/or interfering with the official investigation or
prosecution of the official assessment of the case, the response pattern of the environment can even
switch into a negative mode.
Early victimologists like Mendelsohn and Von Hentig developed typologies based on the extent of the ]
victim's own culpability.
The second wave of victimological studies focused less on the victim's possible guilt and more on the ]
various emotional problems and needs of crime victims during and after the crime.
Victim labelling in a broader sense takes place in both informal and formal settings and may entail both
benefits and negatives for those so labelled. On the positive side victims in modem societies can, as
discussed, expect sympathy and support both from their social environment and, in most Western
societies, from an increasing number of official organisations (Van Dijk and Groenhuijsen, 2007). On the
other hand, the connotations of passivity and helplessness may be perceived by victims as
therapeutically unhelpful and even as stigmatising.
convicted sex offenders.
Not only does the public blame families of offenders for perceived flaws in genetics or parenting
practices, the legal system can hold parents accountable for their adolescent’s problem behaviour.
Goffman coined this ‘courtesy stigma’, but this study uses ‘secondary stigma’ (Condry, 2007:Furst and
Evans, 2015) to remove the implication of politeness and denote the predominantly negative
consequences of stigma by association. Secondary stigma due to criminal justice system involvement can
contaminate families and intimate others, particularly when it accompanies a sex offence conviction,
altering their identities to become, as found in the current study, parents or partners of a sex offender.
All 30 participants discussed experiencing secondary stigmatisation because of their loved ones’
conviction and incarceration for sex offences. The results of the thematic analysis show four major
themes, each of which has several subthemes. The four major themes, which relate to sources of stigma,
include ‘social networks’, ‘media’, ‘the system’ and ‘guilt/ self-blame’. Social networks refer to stigma
from participants’ families and friends. Media refers to stigma deriving from public reports of loved ones’
alleged offences, arrests and/or convictions. The system describes secondary stigma participants
encountered through interactions with officials during the criminal justice process. Guilt/self-blame
refers to feelings of self-blame among participants’ for their loved ones’ incarceration. Each theme
comprises several subthemes
Social networks:
Two subthemes were derived from discussions of stigma from social networks. First, participants
described a sense of loss and feeling alone because of stigmatisation from friends and family. They
already felt that they lost their loved ones, and now they were losing other important people in their
lives. Second, several participants attempted to hide their loved one’s arrest and incarceration from
people in their social network because of anticipated judgement and blame. They described persistent
fear that friends or extended family might discover their secret and often went to great lengths to
conceal it.
Media:
The thematic analysis shows three subthemes related to secondary stigma from media. First,
participants commonly derided the narrative contained in media reports. The media described their
loved ones’ alleged offences in exaggerated, emotionally laden imagery and language. Participants felt
the media dramatised the alleged crimes and their loved ones in a defamatory manner.
Second, Internet reports, particularly the sex offender registry and social media, exacerbated
stigmatisation. Stories about their loved ones on the Internet are permanent and available to everyone,
everywhere. Several participants explained that media reports on the Internet, more than anything else,
permanently changed their lives.
The third subtheme is retribution, which refers to descriptions of fear among participants that
inflammatory reports of their loved one’s alleged crime and incarceration would lead to real
consequences. Some participants feared vigilantism
,The system
These results portray the criminal justice system as imposing negative labels not just on people who
offend but also their families. Participants often described how confronting criminal justice actors
aggravated perceptions of legitimacy towards the legal system.
Self-blame
The results show three subthemes in participants’ talk of self-blame. The first sub-theme was parental
regret. It, of course, was unique to parents of incarcerated children, but this particular source of guilt
was profound. Participants expressed regret over how they raised their children and described persistent
feelings that their child’s incarceration was somehow due to choices they made while raising them.
Second, participants expressed guilt about alleged victims. This took two forms. In the first, participants
who believed their loved ones were guilty often experienced a sense of responsibility for the victims’
suffering. In the second, participants who believed their loved ones were innocent often expressed guilt
over their apparent role in allowing the accuser to get close to their loved one.
In the third subtheme, some participants described redemption. These participants overcame their
sense of guilt. Some attributed their redemption to their religious faith, Other participants realised over
time that the past cannot be changed and decided to focus on the future.
,Van Dijk, J. (2009). Free the victim: A critique of the western conception of victimhood.
International Journal of Victimology, 16(1), 1-33.
In Western languages those affected by crime are universally labelled as 'victims', meaning the sacrificed
ones. According to the author this practice seems to originate from the association of the plight of
victims with the suffering of Jesus Christ. In his view, the victim label, although eliciting compassion for
victims, assigns to them a social role of passivity and forgiveness that they may increasingly find to be
restraining. He analyses the narratives of eleven high-profile victims such as Natascha Kampusch, the
couple McCann and Reemtsma to illustrate this thesis. The article continues with a critical review of
biases deriving from the unreflexive adoption of the victim label in various schools of thought in
victimology and criminal law. Finally, the author argues for the introduction of stronger procedural rights
for crime victims in criminal trials and for a new focus within victimology on processes of victim labelling.
The victima label precludes any hope of a rapid recovery or, in fact, of any recovery at all. Moreover, the
use of the label puts the behaviour of the perpetrator in a strangely favourable light. By calling the
affected persons sacrificial objects, the speaker suggests that the perpetrator has been motivated by
higher, unselfish motives. The perpetrator is put in the venerable position of the sacrificing priest.
The victima label's first and foremost connotation is that of compassion or comisery. By labelling those
affected by crime or disaster victims, speakers express their compassion with their deep and innocent
suffering. In this view, Nils Christie's often cited concept of the 'ideal victim' as an innocent old lady
(Christie, 1986) can be understood as grounded in Christian theology: the victim is seen as a person in
the image of Jesus Christ.
The issue under investigation is not, for example, to what extent victims suffer from neatly described
mental disorders such as post traumatic stress syndromes. The issue is whether focussing on such
disorders when describing those affected by crime is objectively justified or reflects a hidden bias
resulting from the labelling of such persons as victims
The first common thread in the testimonies of the eleven victim/survivors is that they have all
discovered unexpected inner strengths while coping with their victimisation and/or its aftermath. It
could be argued, as said above, that victims who manage to write books about their stories must by
definition possess considerable inner strength. In this they may not be representative of all victims.
However, the existence of unexpected deposits of inner strength in many crime victims has in recent
years been confirmed in numerous clinical studies. It forms part of the recently discovered phenomena
that are called 'victim resilience' (Bonnano, 2004) and 'post traumatic growth' (Zoellner and Maercker,
2006). The proportion of victims who experience unexpected inner strengths or personal growth seems
in fact larger than those suffering from stress disorders. In this respect, the high profile victims may be
more representative oflarger groups of victims than has been assumed. The simultaneous discovery of
the phenomena of victim resilience and post traumatic growth by clinical psychologists and the new
publishing trend of victim biographies is probably not coincidental. Both events seem dependent on the
growing awareness in Western societies that the experience of being victimized by serious crime
amounts to more than deep suffering.
A second recurrent theme in the testimonies is the victim's feelings of anger towards the offender and a
related refusal to offer him forgiveness.
, A third dominant theme that cuts across the testimonies of the eleven victims is their commitment to
engage in social activities on behalf of other victims of misfortune. This theme is so ubiquitous and so
pronounced that it cannot be coincidental. Ger Vaders, survivor of the first terrorist attack in The
Netherlands, became a leading figure in the development of victim support in his country.
The themes of resilience, fantasies of revenge and post-traumatic altruism are clearly at odds with
conventional representations of victimhood in terms of passive suffering and helplessness. What is
special about the theme of unexpected inner strength is not that it is so common but that the
protagonists have themselves been surprised by it. It seems as if an important aspect of the experience
of being a victim is experiencing that the personal experience does not fit the internalised stereotypes of
passivity and helplessness. Especially important seems to be the mismatch between the self-perceptions
of victims and how they are perceived by their environment. Victims who want to remain faithful to
themselves are forced to resist their assigned social roles as victims.
These experiences of secondary victimisation could be interpreted as instances of straightforward victim
blaming. As discussed in the literature, blaming the victim is a well known defense mechanism that
serves important psychological functions for those confronted with the victimisation of others (Ryan,
1971 ). By blaming the victims for their fate, we can reassure ourselves we live in a just world.
In the secondary victimisation of the victims at issue, a distinct pattern can be discerned. In the first
instance, the victims are met with sympathy and are offered all sorts of support. As long as the victims
duly accept the help given and do not interfere with the official handling of their case, victims can in
principle count on a sympathetic response to their plight. However, victims should be careful to comply
with their role expectation of vulnerability and helplessness. Victims that show resilience such as
Reemtsma and Mrs Lamplugh can expect to be censured and criticized. As soon as victims start to
reclaim their autonomy by criticizing their treatment and/or interfering with the official investigation or
prosecution of the official assessment of the case, the response pattern of the environment can even
switch into a negative mode.
Early victimologists like Mendelsohn and Von Hentig developed typologies based on the extent of the ]
victim's own culpability.
The second wave of victimological studies focused less on the victim's possible guilt and more on the ]
various emotional problems and needs of crime victims during and after the crime.
Victim labelling in a broader sense takes place in both informal and formal settings and may entail both
benefits and negatives for those so labelled. On the positive side victims in modem societies can, as
discussed, expect sympathy and support both from their social environment and, in most Western
societies, from an increasing number of official organisations (Van Dijk and Groenhuijsen, 2007). On the
other hand, the connotations of passivity and helplessness may be perceived by victims as
therapeutically unhelpful and even as stigmatising.
