International Review of Victimology

This article engages with the mental and emotional transition of victims in the post-violation process in light of recent retributive theories. It argues that two separate yet related needs of victims must be addressed by legal intervention: normative vindication and therapeutic recovery. Retributive punishment can be said to right the wrong done to victims, expressing the message that they are violated and should be vindicated. It achieves this by reaffirming their normative status while also addressing and redressing their sense of injustice and moral vulnerability: normative restoration. However, the senses of injustice and moral vulnerability are different from those of injury, loss, and grief. Even if retributive punishment provides a means of communicating solidarity with victims in a normative sense, it is doubtful how it provides healing for the losses and injuries left unrepaired. Victims also require a therapeutic intervention, allowing them to come to terms with the sufferings of violation: ethical restoration. This article claims that recent victim-oriented retributivism highlights a dimension of punishment that has not been sufficiently explored in penal theory by providing normative restoration, but it is not clear whether it is structurally well positioned to address and heal the deeper wounds caused by criminal violation.

This study examined behavioral differences across groups of children and young people who have been victims of virtual item trade scams to explore the potential for grouping this type of victims into meaningful clusters. Using data from a representative survey among Danish children and young people (n = 1,026), three clusters of trade scam victims that showed significant internal homogeneity as well as cross-cluster differences were identified. Based on their modal behavior, these clusters were labeled Moderately Engaged Gamers, Diverse Active Gamers, and Highly Engaged Gamers. The typology represents a first step toward a better understanding of different types of virtual item trade scam victims and their behavioral patterns. Implications for policy and preventive measures on game design, personal, and parental levels are discussed.

Victims of crime have seen a significant shift in the criminal justice approaches towards them over time: from rather passive observers of the conflict between the state and the offender to more active agents whose thoughts, wishes and emotions are allowed to be voiced and whose participation is recognised as legitimate in its own right within the criminal process. The article analyses to what extent this empowerment shift is reflected in Slovenia, specifically how the criminal law acknowledges and defines the victim in the criminal justice setting. While the European Union (EU) legislation in this area, as a top-down factor in shaping the rights and status of the victim, has provided an important impetus for legislative changes, particularly in relation to certain aspects, rights and categories of crime victims, as well as the definition of the victim, the more conceptual recent transformations (e.g. an altered model of rape) arose out of changed societal sensitivities spurred by triggering events and a wider social and political context. Implications and outstanding challenges are discussed in the concluding section.

In 2021, an Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide launched what they described as a ‘practical and effective definition of the crime of ecocide’. The Panel expressed their hope that the ‘proposed definition might serve as the basis of consideration for an amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court’. The proposed crime differs from the majority of those currently codified in the Rome Statute in that it adopts an ‘ecocentric’ understanding of harm, meaning damage to the natural environment alone is sufficient as the basis for the crime. In this article, we extend this ecocentric perspective to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) victim participation and reparation regime. Drawing on emerging ecocentric legal movements, including the recognition of territories as victims of armed conflict, international rights of nature movements, environmental restorative justice, and existing juridical practice on repairing environmental harm, we consider the environmentally reparative possibilities of recognising the environment itself as a victim of a crime, with accompanying rights to participation, representation, and reparation. We argue that such recognition may enable more holistic repair in the aftermath of atrocity and could therefore be a valuable development both alongside and in the absence of a new crime of ecocide.

The reporting of crime to the police is crucial for an efficient functioning of the criminal justice system. It is widely argued that victims’ decision to contact the police is based on considerations of the anticipated costs and benefits of crime reporting. Scholars have previously suggested that victims’ attitudes towards the police may influence their perceptions of the costs and benefits associated with crime reporting. However, victims’ trust in the police as a multidimensional construct has not been empirically tested as a predictor of victims’ crime reporting to the police. This study uses Crime Survey for England and Wales data from 2017/2018 to 2019/2020 to explore the relationship between victims’ trust in police effectiveness and violent crime reporting behaviour. Furthermore, this study examines the influence of victim and situational characteristics on decisions to report victimisation to the police. Our analysis reveals that victims’ trust in police effectiveness does not predict their decision to disclose violent crime victimisation to the police. However, victims’ sex and age significantly influence reporting decisions. Moreover, our findings reveal that situational factors, specifically the presence of a weapon and injury to the victim, are important predictors of violent crime reporting.

Wrongful convictions, while recognized for their direct consequences on the convicted individuals, also inflict significant harm on their families. Through a systematic literature review, this article examines the psychological and emotional consequences for families, the social and financial burdens they endure, coping mechanisms, and the impact on specific family members, including children and spouses. It reveals a distressing landscape of shared trauma, strained relationships, and stigmatization, exacerbated by financial hardship and systemic failures in the judicial process. The article underscores the critical gaps in the literature, particularly the lack of focus on the parents of the wrongfully convicted and the need for comprehensive reforms to address the wide-reaching effects of wrongful convictions. It calls for future research to explore the long-term psychological impacts, the role of socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and family dynamics, aiming to inform policies and interventions that can mitigate these consequences.