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Public Criminology, Victim Agency and Researching State Crime
Abstract
Using the example of Australia's immigration detention policies, this article engages with contemporary debates about public criminology to explore how, when researching state crime, criminologists should conceptualize victims. It is argued that what is missing from the debates about public criminology (and much state crime research) is a systematic discussion of victim agency. A number of questions will be addressed throughout the discussion: Can victims be the "object" of "neutral" research? Should detainees, for example, be seen primarily as passive victims of state abuse? What role is played by institutional ethics policies, especially those based on medical models? It will be argued that state crime research should acknowledge - if not emphasize - the potential subjective role played by victims; that there is a complex and dynamic inter-relationship between the researcher and the victim that confronts traditional perceptions of criminological research; and that victim resistance, combined with criminological research, can be crucial in designating particular state activities as criminal and constructing the social audience that rejects them.
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Notes
Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, Estimates Hearing, 26 May 2011, pp. 47-79. Marr (2011).
Migration Amendment (Strengthening the Character Test and Other Provisions) Bill 2011.
Grewcock (2009).
HREOC (2004) AHRC (2009).
Grewcock (2009), Pickering (2005) Weber (2002).
Clawson et al. (2007) Jeffries (2009).
For an account of the opposition in Australia, see O'Neill (2008).
Carrington and Hogg (2002) Anthony and Cunneen (2008).
ReportersWithout Borders, 28 October 2011: http://en.rsr.org/ australie-spurious-media-access-to-28-10-2011,41304.html
Agamben (2002). Shelley (1996).
Zdenkowski and Brown (1982).
Harrell-Bond (1986, 2002), Verdirame and Harrell-Bond (2005), Agier (2011).
Grewcock (2009).