Public–private tragedy
| Author | Nicola O’Leary |
| Published date | 01 May 2018 |
| Date | 01 May 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0269758018757308 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Public–private tragedy:
Stigma, victimization and
community identity
Nicola O’Leary
University of Hull, UK
Abstract
On 13 March 1996, Thomas Hamilton shot and killed 16 children and 1 teacher at Dunblane
Primary School, Scotland. In the weeks and months that followed, intense and extensive media
coverage focused on the victims, the community, the aftermath and the subsequent intense and
emotional outpouring of grief for Dunblane that seemed to come from around the world. The
impact of crime on indirect victims has generated a wealth of research; however, surprisingly little
is known regarding the impact of ‘high-profile’ crime on a community living in a location that has
become synonymous with the crime that took place there. Drawing on a unique set of interviews
with members of the Dunblane community, this article explores the victimizing experiences and
processes by which some build their sense of identity in the wake of such a high-profile crime.
Empirical findings highlight the ways in which private tragedy becomes public property and how
some community members are stigmatized by, manage (and are sometimes resilient to) the impact
of wider societal reaction. The aftermath of events at Dunblane encouraged some to identify as
victims, whilst others were more resilient to the stigmatizing effects of the crime that labelled them
and their community with a ‘spoiled victim identity’.
Keywords
Victims, community, identity, stigma, Dunblane
Introduction
Although historically ignored, crime victims are now firmly on the map. For politicians, the media
and the public at large, criminal injury and loss are sources of constant concern and anxiety. Within
criminal justice and public policy there has been a discernible shift from the individual, through
claims of victim status based on experiences of collective identity, to a cultural context of the
Corresponding author:
Nicola O’Leary, School of Education and Social Sciences, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK.
Email: n.oleary@hull.ac.uk
International Review of Victimology
2018, Vol. 24(2) 165–181
ªThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0269758018757308
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‘universal victim’, where we can ask ‘are we all victims now?’ (Mythen, 2007: 464). Both
criminological and victimological literature has addressed much of this concern in recent years
(Chermak, 1995; Furedi, 2006; Green, 2008; Schlesinger et al., 1991). Yet, Spalek (2006: 88) has
argued that a deeper consideration around the diversity of the crime experience may result in a
more nuanced understanding of indirect victimization: the impact on a wider audience as a result of
their shared ‘subject position’. With this in mind, this article examines what has not yet been
investigated, how communities experience high-profile crimes and the effects of the media atten-
tion that inevitably follows.
Utilizing events that took place at Dunblane Primary School, Scotland on 13 March 1996 as a
case study of a serious, high-profile and highly mediated crime event, this article uniquely explores
the construction and representation of a collective sense of identity, notions of victimhood and the
processes by which some in the community come to acquire a collective stigma and sense of
spoiled identity. Drawing on 18 qualitative interviews with members of the wider community of
Dunblane, we explore identity and victimhood in the wake of a serious and high-profile crime. In
doing so, this article offers a novel sociological account of how the media represent people and
places and what it means to accept or resist a ‘spoiled identity’. It considers the processes of
achieving or acquiring victim identity or status, the management or otherwise of stigma and the
consequences of the media’s role in constructing a private tragedy for public consumption.
This article is situated within a victimological position that embraces the turn to the ‘cultural’
(Ferrell at al., 2008; McGarry and Walklate, 2015; Mythen, 2007; Valier, 2004). More explicitly, it
lies where cultural victimology foregrounds our exposure to suffering, how it is presented to us and
how we make sense of it (McGarry and Walklate, 2015). Specifically, we not only recognize the
public nature of emotional responses provoked by criminal victimization and harm, but also
acknowledge the wider dissemination of them, in this case via the media. We know the broader
ramifications, the legacy and other embedded experiences of high-profile traumatic events can
extend way beyond those most directly involved and their families; such events can also ‘haunt
witnesses who are less frequently heard’ (Walklate et al., 2014: 267). Through original empirical
research this article gives voice to the lived realities of such individuals and ‘collectivities’
(McGarry and Walklate, 2015) and in doing so contests the boundaries of victimhood in order
to understand the significance of victim identity and the impact that a high-profile crime and
subsequent societal reaction can have on wider members of a community.
As has been expressed recently by David Wilson and colleagues, very little is known acade-
mically about the serious crime event in Dunblane. Such a lack of knowledge amounts to what can
be described as a ‘criminological silence’ (Wilson et al., 2016: 2). Some academic literature has
been published regarding Dunblane and gun control (Squires, 2000) and more exists with regard to
how the murders were covered in the print and broadcast media (see Jemphrey and Berrington,
2000; Smith and Higgins, 2012). Also available are more intimate accounts of the events, such as
Dunblane: Never Forget (North, 2000), an emotional and moving account written by Mick North,
father of one of the primary school victims, Sophie Lockwood North. However, even less attention
has been paid to the significance of these events on those ‘other’, indirect witnesses in the wider
community of Dunblane.
From a cultural victimological perspective and utilizing the sociological framework of Goff-
man, this article addresses this gap by exploring how some in the community of Dunblane lived
through the tragic events at the time and how they coped with the attention of the world’s media
afterwards. After first giving a vignette of the events that took place in Dunblane on 13 March
1996, this article will then set out the theoretical framework and analytic approach that informs it.
166 International Review of Victimology 24(2)
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