The significance of context and victim–offender relationship for Swedish social workers’ understandings of young men’s violent victimization
| Author | Mikael Skillmark,Christian Kullberg |
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0269758019895345 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
The significance of context
and victim–offender relationship
for Swedish social workers’
understandings of young men’s
violent victimization
Mikael Skillmark
Jonkoping University, Sweden
Christian Kullberg
Malardalen University, Sweden
Abstract
This article investigates how social workers’ interpretations of contextual factors and the rela-
tionship between victim and offender affect their understanding and assessment of male violent
victimization. The study was designed as a multiple case study with a qualitative comparative
approach. Focus group interviews supported by vignettes were used to collect data. Interviews
were carried out with professional Swedish social workers working with victimized men and
women at support units for young crime victims in Sweden. The results show that the social
workers consider the violence that the young men are subjected to in cases of street violence and
interpersonal violence to be unavoidable or even ‘natural’. The violence was in some cases con-
sidered to be dependent on the men’s own agency and in others on their lack of agency, when
displaying traits of both more traditional and less traditional forms of masculinity respectively. The
social workers’ talk about young male crime victims is interpreted as contributing to making the
men appear as less legitimate victims. Even though the social workers argued that the victims’ own
behaviour should not lead to any special considerations concerning help efforts, the possibility of
upholding such a demarcation between explanations ascribed to the violent incident and help
measures offered is problematized in the article.
Keywords
Violence, victimization, men, masculinity, social work
Corresponding author:
Mikael Skillmark, School of Health and Welfare, Jonkoping University, BOX 1026, SE-551 11, Jonkoping, Sweden.
Email: mikael.skillmark@ju.se
International Review of Victimology
2020, Vol. 26(3) 295–313
ªThe Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0269758019895345
journals.sagepub.com/home/irv
Introduction
Gender can be viewed as a product of multiple ongoing interactions in different social contexts and
on different levels (Kessler and McKenna, 1978; West and Zimmerman, 1987). This implies that
our understandings of women and men in different situati ons, for instance as perpetr ators or
victims of violence, are gendered (see, e.g. Haines et al., 2016; Walklate, 1997). One consequence
of such ongoing negotiations of identities and gender is that the understandings and explanations of
the causes of violence are attributed differently for male and female victims. Such attributions are
often based on preconceived notions about ‘common knowledge’ or memories from one’s own
experience or other sources such as media (see, e.g. Greer, 2007; Flood and Pease, 2009). Research
shows that such attributions are also present in professional helpers’ (e.g. social workers’, psy-
chologists’ and physicians’) understandings and explanations of social problems, including victi-
mization related to street violence (SV) and interpersonal violence (IPV) (see, e.g. Ja¨gervi and
Svensson, 2015; Kullberg and Skillmark, 2017a; Mendelsohn and Sewell, 2004).
For victimized men, and young men in particular, certain specific circumstances have been
shown to be significant to how the victimization is interpreted. Research shows that professionals’
interpretations of circumstances having something to do with contextual factors are made relevant
when they try to understand the victimization. Such contextual factors may include where the
incident occurred (in public/on the street, or in private/at home), whether the victim had been using
alcohol, and whether the victim acted in a challenging or provocative way that could be understood
as having triggered the violence.
Concerning the location of the incident, some research done in Sweden shows that when men
have been recognized as legitimate victims, and are being treated at victim support units, profes-
sional social workers interpret the severit y of the incident quite differently depending on the
context where the incident took place. It has been found that being exposed to intimate partner
violence (IPV) is assessed by social workers as a greater threat to the victim’s self-image and self-
worth than being exposed to SV (Street Violence) (Ja¨gervi and Svensson, 2015; Kullberg and
Skillmark, 2017a). At the same time, however, victimization of a man is not interpreted as being as
serious, in absolute terms, as victimization of a woman. SV is a more common context of male
exposure to violence than IPV. Studies of SV show that men are not interpreted as being victimized
to the same extent as women, but are more likely to be viewed as young guys who go out and ‘get
beaten up’ one night, and beat others up the next (Ja¨gervi and Svensson, 2015; Kullberg and
Skillmark, 2017b). It is highly likely that such preconcept ions about young men subjected to
SV are a result of the victim–offender overlap that has been proven to exist (see, e.g. Shaffer,
2003). Such research shows a frequent overlap between offenders and victims of violence involv-
ing socio-demographic as well as lifestyle factors (being young, male, single, from a working-class
background, having an active nightlife, and so on). Research has also shown that this victim–
offender overlap makes some groups of men especially pro ne to being both perpetrators and
victims of violence (see, e.g. Schreck et al., 2017; Shaffer, 2003).
Another contextual factor that is made relevant when interpreting victimization is the victim’s
alcohol use. Research shows that intoxicated male and female victims of various kinds of abuse are
attributed more blame for their situation than victims who have not used alcohol (Aramburu and
Leigh, 1991; Leigh and Aramburu, 1994; Richardson and Campbell, 1980; Stormo et al., 1997).
There are also, however, results contradicting this finding. While Tryggvesson (2004) shows that
young adults tend to interpret the actions of a victim of violence as more provocative when
intoxicated by alcohol than when not intoxicated, in another study, with the same design,
296 International Review of Victimology 26(3)
To continue reading
Request your trial