INTERVICT

Research Talks

INTERVICT Research Talks are for academic researchers. Research pertaining to the general scope of the institute and the research programme is presented and discussed. Presentations are in English.

If you are interested in presenting an aspect of your own research at one of the forthcoming Research Talks, please contact Leontien van der Knaap.

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2012 upcoming presentations
1 March 2012
15.30 - 16.30 hrs
Room: M1003
Speaker: Antony pemberton
Subject: The different images of victims of crime and their connection to restorative justice
The position of victims of crime has shown marked improvement over the past 30 years. The rise of the victim has been associated with the growth of a unified ‘victim movement’; a social movement that strives to improve the position of victims of crime. However it is questionable whether the victim movement should be viewed as a unitary phenomenon. Instead of one movement, there appear to be a number of victim movements. There are differences between the victim advocates in the United States, Victim Support in Europe, the violence against women movement and proponents of restorative justice. In this paper the reasons for these differences are sought in victim-endogenous factors: differences in victims’ characteristics and the ideal types employed by the different movements are an important explanation for the divergent development in organisations representing victims interests, which in turn influences their policy preferences.
It is argued that advocates of restorative justice would benefit from understanding both the reality and the distortion involved in the ideal types, including their own. This would allow proponents of restorative justice to adapt their practices in a manner that is both suitable and convincing to the representative and target group of the different victim movements.

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2012 past presentations
26 January 2012
15.30 - 16.30 hrs
Room: M1003
Speaker: Gerwinde Vynckier
Subject: Experience, perception and coping of mid-adolescent victims of violence and property crime
Adolescent victims are not often subjects of criminological research. One can say that the primary interest in criminology has been concerned with adolescents as (potential) delinquents rather than as victims. Furthermore, apart from some exceptions, the research that does exist is foremost quantitative research directed at prevalence and explanatory factors or focused on victimization of (sexual) abuse and neglect. I tried to start to fill this gap with this PhD research concerning the experiences, perceptions and coping mechanisms of mid-adolescent victims (14-16 years old) of violence and property crime. With the results of previous research in mind I aimed to gain insight into the reactions of these victims: how do they perceive their victimization experience? Which (cognitive and behavioral) coping mechanisms do they use? As we depart from the theory of symbolic interactionism, we especially focus on the role of others: to what extent do these victims appeal to others (others from the own social network as for example parents and peers; as well as staff from formal agencies like the police and social services)? And what does the reaction of others mean to the victim? To get an answer to these questions, a multimethodological research design was set up, consisting of on the one hand an explorative school survey and on the other hand in-depth interviews and focus groups with both victims themselves and persons from the own informal network as well as from formal agencies.
Gerwinde Vynckier is currently working as a PhD student at Ghent University, Belgium. She will present some results of her research.

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