Victims of the Powerfu
Critical Victimology part I
Week 4
SGM2058: Victimology
2023/24
Dr Riikka Kotanen
, Outline of the
Lecture
• Origins of critical victimology
• What is critical victimology?
• From critical victimology to
zemiology
• Case study: Grenfell Tower fire and
victims of state-corporate crime
• Case study: Hillsborough disaster and
‘speaking truth to power’
• Critique of critical criminology and
zemiology
Key concepts: legal definition of crime,
crimes of the powerful, state crime,
state-corporate crime, social harms,
state failure
,• Emerged during 1960-70s contemporaneously with critical criminologies
• Attached to the political and social context of the 1960s and 1970s:
Wider realisation of the oppressive power of the state and discrimination ⇒ Class, age, gender and
ethnicity
Questioning of the Establishment and accepted opinions and values
CJS = selective and flawed system
• Key feature: Rejection of the theoretical underpinnings of positivist criminology and victimology
• Earlier work of Edwin Sutherland in opening up the criminological-victimological research agenda:
Career criminals who victimise for a living
‘White collar’ criminals and their invisibility within the CJS
, Origins of Critical Victimology (II)
What is critical criminology:
• Being critical ⇒ Representing the side of the
economically and socially marginalised (Becker,
1963)
• Crime ⇒ The result of (I) the unequal distribution of
power and wealth in society and (II) the resultant
class, ethnic and gender discrimination
• Official understandings of crime ⇒ Constructed
through contexts of racism, sexism, classism and
heterosexism
• Views critically law, police, courts and prison and the
ways they operate ⇒
Seeking other ways to do justice
Viewing offenders as victims of the CJS
• Promotes social inclusion, equality and human rights
• De-criminalisation of victimless crimes
, Why Critical Criminologies?
Routledge Handbook
of Critical Criminology
(2018)
Edited by
Walter S. DeKeseredy
and
Molly Dragiewicz
, Origins of Critical Victimology (III)
Richard Quinney (1972):
• ‘Who is the victim’ is a not an innocent question
• The ‘victim’ is always a social construction
• Moral judgements are embedded in our notions of who we reco
or fail to recognise as a victim
• Only certain ‘social harms’ are subject to criminalisation
• Certain crimes are not reported or under reported
• Traditional (positivist) victimologists concentrate on a limited
of reported and recorded victimisation
Critical Victimology part I
Week 4
SGM2058: Victimology
2023/24
Dr Riikka Kotanen
, Outline of the
Lecture
• Origins of critical victimology
• What is critical victimology?
• From critical victimology to
zemiology
• Case study: Grenfell Tower fire and
victims of state-corporate crime
• Case study: Hillsborough disaster and
‘speaking truth to power’
• Critique of critical criminology and
zemiology
Key concepts: legal definition of crime,
crimes of the powerful, state crime,
state-corporate crime, social harms,
state failure
,• Emerged during 1960-70s contemporaneously with critical criminologies
• Attached to the political and social context of the 1960s and 1970s:
Wider realisation of the oppressive power of the state and discrimination ⇒ Class, age, gender and
ethnicity
Questioning of the Establishment and accepted opinions and values
CJS = selective and flawed system
• Key feature: Rejection of the theoretical underpinnings of positivist criminology and victimology
• Earlier work of Edwin Sutherland in opening up the criminological-victimological research agenda:
Career criminals who victimise for a living
‘White collar’ criminals and their invisibility within the CJS
, Origins of Critical Victimology (II)
What is critical criminology:
• Being critical ⇒ Representing the side of the
economically and socially marginalised (Becker,
1963)
• Crime ⇒ The result of (I) the unequal distribution of
power and wealth in society and (II) the resultant
class, ethnic and gender discrimination
• Official understandings of crime ⇒ Constructed
through contexts of racism, sexism, classism and
heterosexism
• Views critically law, police, courts and prison and the
ways they operate ⇒
Seeking other ways to do justice
Viewing offenders as victims of the CJS
• Promotes social inclusion, equality and human rights
• De-criminalisation of victimless crimes
, Why Critical Criminologies?
Routledge Handbook
of Critical Criminology
(2018)
Edited by
Walter S. DeKeseredy
and
Molly Dragiewicz
, Origins of Critical Victimology (III)
Richard Quinney (1972):
• ‘Who is the victim’ is a not an innocent question
• The ‘victim’ is always a social construction
• Moral judgements are embedded in our notions of who we reco
or fail to recognise as a victim
• Only certain ‘social harms’ are subject to criminalisation
• Certain crimes are not reported or under reported
• Traditional (positivist) victimologists concentrate on a limited
of reported and recorded victimisation
