Book review: Administrating Victimization: The politics of anti-social behaviour and hate crime policy
| Author | Matthew Hall |
| DOI | 10.1177/0269758015610857 |
| Date | 01 January 2016 |
| Published date | 01 January 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Book reviews
Marian Duggan and Vicky Heap, with Foreword by Pamela Davies
Administrating Victimization: The politics of anti-social behaviour and hate crime policy
Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2014; 146 pp.: EPUB, ISBN 9781137409287.
Reviewed by: Matthew Hall, University of Lincoln, UK
DOI: 10.1177/0269758015610857
In this timely and thought-provoking work, Duggan and Heap evaluate the present state of ‘victim
policy’ in England and Wales through a critical lens. Their argument is that such policy has
become geared towards ‘administrating’ victimhood; whereby the victim’s experience in the crim-
inal justice system is managed in line with a dominant, neo-liberal political ideology. The book is
reminiscent of previous expositions of victims as political tools by Robert Elias (1986) and Paul
Rock (2004) and although (unlike Rock’s works) this book is not based on empirical research
or direct access to policy makers, it does offer significant insight into the contemporary victim
agenda. We learn throughout the volume that this agenda has been sculpted over recent years
by the unprecedented political context of a coalition government coupled with the impact of social
media and a constantly evolving landscape of what society deems ‘tolerable’ and ‘intolerable’
behaviours.
The main text of the volume is split into four chapters, with the first essentially comprising a
critical reflection of the development of theory and the social/political conceptualisation of ‘vic-
tims’. The centrality of victim hierarchies is emphasised, as is the growing importance of victims
as a means of governance and a furthering of social control. In making this argument the authors
develop a persuasive theoretical framework building on the work of Foucault and Garland. The
chapter also maps out more recent shifts in the nature of victim policy, since the advent of the New
Labour government in 1997, from one based purely on hierarchies of victimhood to one grounded
in complex policy networks. The chapter reads very well and although many of the arguments will
be familiar territory for critical scholars in the field, the presentation of this theoretical landscape is
convincing and absolutely necessary to set the book up for the contributions to come.
From the second chapter (‘Victims as Vote Winners’) onwards the authors set out their case in
earnest with an evaluation of victim policies following the 2010 general election and the subse-
quent coalition government. The underlying argument throughout is that such policies have
strongly reflected the coalition’s commitment to neo-liberal principles of individual autonomy, the
marketisation of services and individual responsibilization. Essentially, they argue, these policies
are heavily influenced (and driven) by economic imperatives (Chapter 2) and a right-realist
approach to expanding criminalization and control (Chapter 3). In addition, Chapter 2 discusses
how austerity measures and the increased pertinence of social media have both served to catapult
the victim still further into political consciousness. Indeed, for me, the discussion of these last two
International Review of Victimology
2016, Vol. 22(1) 75–76
ªThe Author(s) 2015
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
irv.sagepub.com
To continue reading
Request your trial