Narrative Approaches in Victimology and Justice Systems

Narrative approaches in victimology and justice systems foreground the ways in which storytelling—whether by victims, professionals, media or courts—shapes recognition, response and redress. By examining how personal testimonies and collective narratives are constructed and received, researchers reveal the dynamic processes that confer or deny victim status, influence legal outcomes and inform policy design. Narrative frameworks emphasise the embodied and temporal dimensions of harm, capturing not only the event of victimisation but also its unfolding in memory, media representation and institutional practice. Such approaches draw on discourse analysis, qualitative interviews and ethnographic observation to map the shifting boundaries of legitimacy, voice and agency. They have been applied in contexts as diverse as restorative justice, wrongful-conviction remediation and child exploitation, demonstrating how reframing stories can transform power relations, challenge procedural orthodoxies and promote therapeutic or reparative justice. Global interest in narrative paradigms reflects their capacity to reconcile empirical rigour with empathetic engagement, ensuring that victims’ voices inform systemic reform.

Research from Nature Portfolio

No recent Nature Portfolio content available.

Narrative Approaches in Victimology and Justice Systems publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in narrative approaches in victimology and justice systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Victim narrative: The structured account through which individuals and institutions frame experiences of harm.

Narrative victimology: The study of narrative frameworks and storytelling practices that shape the identification and treatment of victims.

Liminality: The threshold state in which individuals occupy ambiguous positions between recognised categories of victim and non-victim.

Victim status: The formally or informally recognised identity assigned to someone perceived as having suffered harm in a legal or social context.

References

1. Child Criminal Exploitation and the Interactional Emergence of Victim Status. The British Journal of Criminology (2024).
2. 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).
3. Emerging Victims in Contemporary Drugs Policing. The British Journal of Criminology (2024).