Sexual Violence, Victim Advocacy, and Republican Criminology: Washington State's Community Protection Act

Abstract

This article focuses on the Community Protection Act (CPA), the State of Washington's legislative effort to control sexual violence, and on the victim advocacy groups that played a prominent role in this effort. It is argued by some, most recently by republican criminologists, that victim advocates serve democratic ideals and introduce into criminal process important values and interests that are neglected by professionals. Others argue that victim advocacy tends to promote punitive policies that empower the state, jeopardize constitutional rights, and divert attention from causes to symptoms. The evidence gathered in this research lends credence to the critics of republican criminology. Victim advocates were not reliable carriers of republican values in their strenuous support of the CPA, the central provisions of which reduce civil liberties and promote exclusion rather than reintegration.

The Politics of Pain: A Political Institutionalist Analysis of Crime Victims' Moral Protests

“…Despite some elite support, Proposition 8, the Victims' Bill of Rights, was a citizen initiative, and as such, it depended upon grassroots mobilization and public responsiveness to become law. Similarly, the CPA was initiated only after grassroots activists marched on the state capital demanding new legislation, and it subsequently included much of their input (also see Scheingold et al 1994). Given the success of these organized social movements, I suggest that crime victim groups were not simply cultural dupes, easily manipulated by elites, but rather were important players in the reconfiguration of justice in late-twentieth-century America, tapping into resonant themes about human worth and rights.…”

“…Crime victims have been characterized as antimodern in the sense that they seek revenge and are often motivated by a desire to humiliate others, debased features of justice thought to be long buried by a technocratic and highly rational modern criminal justice system (Pratt 2000;Lynch 2002). Alternatively, crime victims have been portrayed as carriers of ''republican values'' in the sense that they try to maximize community participation in the restoration of victims' well-being and offenders' re-integration by minimizing the coercive role of the state and penal sanctions (Braithwaite & Pettit 1990;Strang 2002;Scheingold et al 1994). This article complicates these prevailing characterizations of crime victim advocacy and their related penal outcomes.…”

The New Trial by Ordeal: Rape Kits, Police Practices, and the Unintended Effects of Policy Innovation

“…In the early days of the anti-rape movement, feminist groups often identified law enforcement as part of a patriarchal “establishment” that they criticized and sought to reform (Connell and Wilson 1974; Brownmiller 1975; BenDor 1976; Haag 1996). Conversely, rape care advocates might be so eager to advance a crime control agenda about sexual assault that they unhesitatingly endorse law enforcement responses to rape (Scheingold, Olson, and Pershing 1994; Gruber 2009). Also, rape care advocates may have limited contact with police, leading them to unrepresentative conclusions about the practices of those agencies.…”

Beyond retribution, restoration and procedural justice: the Big Two of communion and agency in victims’ perspectives on justice

“…The focal point for agentic needs can also be societal and political change, as is evidenced by the literature on social movements and political protest (Polletta, 2006;Polletta & Jasper, 2001), in which victims and their experiences often play a central role (e.g. Scheingold, Olson, & Pershing, 1994;Walgrave & Verhulst, 2006). Indeed a sense of victimization by injustice is one of the most powerful frames available to provide cohesion and purpose to social movements (Gamson, 1992).…”