A Sophisticated Beast? On the Construction of an ‘Ideal’ Perpetrator in the Opening Statements of International Criminal Trials

Stolk, Sofia

doi:10.1093/ejil/chy041

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…If the ‘ideal victim’ was an old lady then the ‘ideal offender’ was the figure of ‘a dangerous man coming from far away’ (Christie, 1986: 28), thus couching the figure in notions of masculinity (Cohen, 2018:285). The ‘ideal offender’ is an ‘inhuman human’ (Stolk, 2018: 700) and a ‘monster’ (Rock, 1998) who targets the innocent, weak and vulnerable. There is, then, a mutual dependence between how the victim and their victimiser are discursively framed and interpreted (Holstein and Miller, 1990).…”

Section: Ideal Victims and Ideal Offendersmentioning

confidence: 99%

When ideal victims don’t make ideal offenders: The (re)framing of legacy case prosecutions against elderly perpetrators of state violence

Hearty

2023

Crime, Media, Culture

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This article undertakes a victimological critique of media coverage, social media commentary and parliamentary debate on the prosecution of former British soldier Dennis Hutchings for the death of an unarmed and vulnerable adult in Northern Ireland in 1974. It argues that a careful reframing of events and actors by the media, politicians and veterans’ movement has obfuscated perceptions of victimhood by creating a climate that favours the perpetrator rather than the victim. While this victimological reframing may reflect the natural sympathy felt towards aged and ailing defendants, it also speaks to the ability to manipulate coverage of the case so that it serves current interests: on the one hand it fits with the UK Government’s socio-political interests in how historic state violence in the North of Ireland should be ‘dealt with’, while on the other hand it also reflects longstanding cultural sensitivities that the British ‘imagined community’ has about its military veterans. This has seen Hutchings being framed less as an ‘ideal offender’ who targeted an unarmed and vulnerable person and more as an elderly victim of a politicised ‘witch hunt’ against military veterans.

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Section: Ideal Victims and Ideal Offendersmentioning

confidence: 99%

When ideal victims don’t make ideal offenders: The (re)framing of legacy case prosecutions against elderly perpetrators of state violence

Hearty

2023

Crime, Media, Culture

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“…We are taught to see perpetrators in the courtroom differently and to treat them as such. As Stolk (2018) argues, while international criminal law is based on the idea that defendants are part of the human community, speaking about mass atrocity involves a dimension of “inhumane evil that places the accused outside the realm of humanity” (p. 677). This paradoxical inhumanity has received ample theoretical attention in the international criminal justice literature (Arendt, 2006; Baumeister, 1997; Bikundo, 2014, p. 42; Mohamed, 2015a, p. 1628; 2015b, p. 1157).…”

Section: Esad Landžo: a Remorseful Perpetratormentioning

confidence: 99%

Traumatized War Criminal? Documenting the Case of Esad Landžo

Simić

2020

International Criminal Justice Review

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Perpetrators’ voices have been traditionally ignored in the transitional justice field and beyond. Esad Landžo was only 19 when he committed the crimes of willful killing, torturing, and causing serious injury to the detainees of notorious Čelebići camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2001, Landžo was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for the crimes he committed in 1992. After serving two thirds of his sentence in 2006 and settling in Finland, Landžo and the Danish filmmaker, Lars Feldballe Petersen, embarked on the project of making a documentary movie about Landžo’s traumatic memories, remorse, and regret. Landžo had a strong urge to extend his apology to each victim individually and in 2015 went to Čelebići to meet his former detainees. This article will build on a scarce conversation in scholarly, and legal discourse, as to why psychological trauma is considered to be an experience that belongs to victims. It will analyze difficult and untold perpetrators’ experiences of criminal acts and explore whether in these experiences there is potential for inner and group understanding. This article draws on the author’s interviews with Landžo, the main protagonist in the movie The Unforgiven: A War’s Criminal Remorse, a film that documents the extraordinary story of Landžo: from his denial to redemption.

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“…This balancing act between the human and inhuman is closely related to the paradox that Duff identified: describing the 'worst crimes' may warrant a radical evil, inhuman perpetrator, but staying true to the principles of criminal law requires a human being that can be held to account. 40 The absence of the 'enemy of all humanity' concept in trial discourse is not coincidental, but a consequence of these two conflicting aims. The paradox that Duff introduces not only reveals the danger of the label, but also the limits of its use.…”

Section: By Way Of Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%