Victims
Summary
Victims occupy a central yet often contested place within the study of crime, law and social policy. The term “victim” denotes any individual, group or community that has suffered harm, loss or disadvantage as the direct or indirect result of an act deemed criminal, wrongful or injurious. Historically, criminal justice systems treated victims primarily as witnesses serving the prosecution; over recent decades, however, research has documented a shift towards recognising victims as active stakeholders whose experiences drive legal reform, support services and alternative dispute mechanisms. Studies have mapped the trajectory from primary trauma—the immediate impact of the harmful event—through secondary victimisation arising from institutional responses, to long-term psychosocial effects. More recent work emphasises the social construction of victimhood, exploring how personal narratives, media representations and policy frameworks co-produce the legitimacy and remediation afforded to those who claim victim status. This broadened understanding underscores the global significance of victims research, which now informs trauma-informed care, restorative practices and victim-centred policy across diverse social, legal and cultural contexts.
Research from Nature Portfolio
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Victims publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in victims across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Victimisation: The process by which individuals or groups endure harm, loss or suffering as a result of criminal or harmful acts.
Narrative victimology: The study of how stories and discourses shape the recognition, experience and treatment of victims.
Liminal victim: An individual or family whose suffering does not neatly conform to established definitions of victimhood, revealing the limits of prevailing narratives.
Secondary victimisation: Harm experienced by victims as a result of their interactions with institutions or social networks following the initial offence.
References
- Child Criminal Exploitation and the Interactional Emergence of Victim Status. The British Journal of Criminology (2024).
- The value of liminal cases in developing a narrative victimology: The case of families of people serving an indeterminate sentence for public protection. Criminology & Criminal Justice (2023).
- Emerging Victims in Contemporary Drugs Policing. The British Journal of Criminology (2024).
About these summaries
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