ABSTRACT
Introduction In many liberal democracies, much recent criminal justice action and policy has developed to ‘give voice’ to victims of crime. From the growth of victim surveys to the introduction of victim impact statements or the consolidation of victimfocused non-governmental organizations that increasingly drive legal and policy responses, victims have been centralized as a key criminal justice concern (Garland, 2001; Pratt and Clark, 2005; Walklate, 2011). Victim policy has, however, been particularly led by emotional and political responses. That is, who is identified as a victim – and how those victims or their offenders are responded to – is largely dependent on who can speak the loudest or whether those harmed fit within statedefined categories of victimization (Walklate, 2005). That is, victims are more readily accepted as victims if their harms, motivations, interests and behaviours reflect state interests.1
