This research focused on the personal experiences of both male and female victims of violent crimes. The aim of this research was to explore how indigenous Black South Africans understand and deal with victimisation. An African epistemology was used to help gain a deeper understanding of the experiences of the participants. Participants were recruited using purposive sampling strategy. Five participants were selected for this study. Data was collected using individual face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Based on the transcribed data, themes were extracted and analysed using content analysis. The results indicate that participants attributed varying meanings to their victimisation. / Psychology / M. A. (Clinical Psychology)

The indirect victim's experience of suicide and the victimisation resulting from the incident was studied. The Indirect Victim's Experience Model of a Suicide Incident (see Figure 2.1) was designed as a theoretical framework to direct the research findings and for the interpretation of data. A qualitative exploratory approach was used and a group of 20 respondents was selected by means of purposive and snowball sampling methods. All the respondents were interviewed personally. The interpretation and analysis of the data showed that the assumptions based on Janoff-Bulman and Frieze's theory and certain societal myths regarding suicide still exist. These assumptions and myths could subconsciously have an influence on the nature and extent of the victimisation experienced by the next of kin. The respondents themselves accepted these assumptions and myths. Research findings further showed that these assumptions are affected upon receiving the news of the suicide, while myths are destroyed. This could have an influence on the victim's experience of suicide. Every indirect victim functions before, during and after the suicide incident within a specific family and social system. The way in which the indirect victim experiences the support and integration from within the family and social system, determines the acceptance or non-acceptance of the death by suicide of a significant other. This will also have an influence on the indirect victim's reintegration into society in the short and long term. The need of the indirect victim to be involved within a family and society was clearly identified during the study. These findings made it possible to make practical recommendations with regard to the indirect victim's experience of suicide. Society should be informed about the realities and results of suicide. In addition, these findings highlighted further areas for research. / Thesis (MA (Criminology))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

This diploma thesis deals with the policy for the access to the victims of crime. It focuses on activity of interested state institutions that cooperate with victims of crime. In today's approach victims of crime represent a group of people which is seen as people who need assistance. In Czech Republic this approach is reflected in adoption a law on crime victims that comes into force in 2013. Subject of modification of this law directed to defining rights of crime victim as a subject of special care provided by the state, modification of provision of financial support for victims of crimes provided by the state and assessment of legal basis for cooperation between state and organization that provides assistance to crime victims. Diploma thesis deals with reasons for this major legislative change in policy for the access to the victims of crime. It examines the law-making process and the adoption of the law and focuses on implementation of law through the authorities that is active in criminal proceedings and Probation and Mediation Service. It seeks to answer the question to what extent this measure fulfills the objectives. The contribution of diploma thesis is providing a comprehensive view of issue related to the access to the victims of crime as a subject of special care provided by the state....

This explorative study investigated bullying in a sample of schools in Lesotho from the learner’s perspective. A review of the existing literature formed the basis for the offered description of the phenomenon. The work examined concise definitions of bullying, school violence, victim and bully. The research described various forms of bullying, reason for and possible intervention strategies. The quantitative research method was applied, which included an analysis of the data obtained from a questionnaire containing 33 close-ended questions divided into six sections: general information; observation of bullying; experience of bullying; impact of bullying; participation in bullying activities and reasons for bullying and measures against it. The questionnaires were distributed among 1 373 learners from Lesotho public schools which were used for the study. The research was brought to a conclusive end with a proposal for school bullying intervention strategies in Lesotho public schools. / Criminology / M.A. (Criminology)

Abstract This study aims to describe and analyse how victims and credibility are constructed in the government bill and verdicts concerning the new sexual offence law in Sweden that became effective 1 July 2018. A qualitative content analyse has been used to answer the purpose of the study and the result has been analysed using Christies theory of the ideal victim. The results show that the construction of the victim is not consistent with Christies theory of the ideal victim. If the victim has acted with resistance is no longer considered significant. The perpetrator is described to have responsibility to assure that the victim participated with free will. However, victim reactions after the assault are described as important for the victims credibility. The victim is constructed as more credible if acting with sadness, crying and being jumpy. Results also show that it is important for the credibility that the victim leaves a consistent, truthful story and make a clear distinction of what is a clear memory and what is unsure. The main finding is that there has been a change in how the victim is constructed and what is needed for the victim to seem as credible.

Studenters uppfattning om stalkning skiljer sig åt. Kvinnor anser att flerh ändelser är stalkning medan män tänker att händelserna inte klassificeras som stalkning. Män tänker även att det oftare är offrets egna fel att denne blir utsatt. Det finns ideala brottsoffer och icke-ideala brottsoffer, vilket har att göra med brottsoffrets karaktärstyp. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur studenter uppfattar brottsoffrets utsatthet, beroende på om brottsoffret är idealt eller icke-idealt. Studien har använt en mixed design vilket innebär att de finns både en kvantitativ och en kvalitativ analys. Undersökningen genomfördes på så sätt att respondenter fick läsa en av två berättelser och besvara en tillhörande enkät. Resultaten visar att det finns skillnader i män och kvinnors uppfattning. Kvinnor ansåg att brottsoffrens utsatthet var lika allvarligt oavsett karaktärstyp medan män ansåg att det ideala brottsoffrets utsatthet var allvarligare än det icke-ideala. Kvinnor uppfattar däremot att det icke-ideala brottsoffret hade utsatts för stalkning i högre utsträckning än det ideala, medan män bedömde motsatsen. Respondenterna ansåg att brottsoffren skulle hantera sin utsatta position genom att bland annat anmäla och kontakta sina närstående. Det övergripande resultatet i studien visar att majoriteten studenter uppfattar stalkning som allvarligt men skillnaden är hur allvarligt respondenterna anser att utsattheten är. / Students perception on stalking differ. Women consider that more casesare stalking while men consider that these cases do not classifies asstalking. Men is more often thinking that it is the victims own fault thathe or she is a victim of crime. There is ideal victims and non-idealvictims, which depending on the victims’ characteristics. The purposewith this study is to examine how students perceive the victims’vulnerability, depending on if the victim is an ideal victim or non-ideal.The study has used a mixed design which means that there will be bothquantitative results and qualitative results. The study was conductedthat the respondents read one out of two cases and then answered aquestionnaire. The results show that there are differences between menand women’s perceptions. Women consider the victims exposure to beequally severe while men consider the ideal victim’s exposure onstalking to be more severe than the non-ideal. Women however,perceive that the non-ideal victim had been exposed to stalking ingreater extent than the ideal victim while men consider the opposite.The respondents consider that the victims should handle theirvulnerable positions through reporting to the police and contact theirrelatives. The overall result of the study shows that the majority of thestudents perceive stalking as severe but the differences lays in howsevere the students perceive there is.

This thesis examines the use of restorative justice with cases of sexual assault in Canada through the perspective of practitioner experience. It concludes that restorative justice for sexual assault is an innovative and viable justice practice that should be offered to survivor-victims as an option for their justice-seeking process. A literature review was undertaken to create a summary of past and current academic perspectives on the topic and to provide context for the interviews. Interviews were conducted with 12 restorative justice practitioners in Canada who have experience facilitating or participating in restorative justice processes that dealt with sexual assault. The data from the interviews was analyzed using thematic coding to produce a set of themes based on practitioner experience. The data was also used to examine the ethical issues that are relevant in the current landscape. This thesis determines that practitioners are knowledgeable about the practices that can make the restorative justice process safer. It finds that practitioners report being able to meet the varying needs of survivor-victims through procedural flexibility. It observes that they struggle with the practical and ethical tensions that arise in their work, but these tensions are manageable, and they are committed to working with them. Restorative justice has the potential to address a sexual assault case successfully when survivor-victim needs are met, safer practices are used, and practitioners are informed about the complexities and varying experiences of sexual assault. / Graduate

This explorative study investigated bullying in a sample of schools in Lesotho from the learner’s perspective. A review of the existing literature formed the basis for the offered description of the phenomenon. The work examined concise definitions of bullying, school violence, victim and bully. The research described various forms of bullying, reason for and possible intervention strategies. The quantitative research method was applied, which included an analysis of the data obtained from a questionnaire containing 33 close-ended questions divided into six sections: general information; observation of bullying; experience of bullying; impact of bullying; participation in bullying activities and reasons for bullying and measures against it. The questionnaires were distributed among 1 373 learners from Lesotho public schools which were used for the study. The research was brought to a conclusive end with a proposal for school bullying intervention strategies in Lesotho public schools. / Criminology and Security Science / M.A. (Criminology)

The purpose of this study was to examine constructions within the Swedish legal system of the plaintiff and the defendant in court cases involving domestic violence. Nils Christies theory of the ideal victim in addition with Strobls criterions was used as theoretical framework. The methodological approach of this study belongs to the critical linguistics. The analysis contained both freeing sentences and convictions during 2016 in Gothenburg's District Court. The result revealed that different types of constructions were present in the material, both regarding the plaintiff and the defendant. It is our belief that in the convicted cases the woman is being described as more fearful and subdued. The cases where the defendant was found guilty contained more vivid descriptions of the violence and the women’s fear. We could see that the plaintiffs response to the violence seemed to be of great importance. The less resistance the better. The analysis also revealed signs of variation in the court´s ruling between similar cases. This with regard to what extent the woman cooperated during the legal process. / Den här studien hade som syfte att undersöka tingsrättens olika framställningar av målsägande och åtalade under rättsprocesser rörande grov kvinnofridskränkning. Som teoretisk ram användes Christies teori om det ideala offret, tillsammans med Strobls tilläggskriterier. Friande och fällande domar från Göteborgs tingsrätt från år 2016, rörande grov kvinnofridskränkning, analyserades med hjälp av kritisk lingvistik. Resultatet visade att det förekom olika konstruktioner av både målsägande och åtalad i materialet. I de fällande domarna framställdes målsäganden som betydligt mer rädd och kuvad i jämförelse med i de friande domarna. Rädslan hos målsäganden beskrevs överlag i ett mer målande språk i de fällande domarna. Målsägandens respons på våldet verkade också vara av vikt. Det framkom även stor variation i hur tingsrätten dömde i de fall där kvinnans medverkan under rättsprocessen inte var klanderfri. Med utgångspunkt i detta så kan rättssäkerheten ifrågasättas vid rättsfall rörande grov kvinnofridskränkning.

Uppsatsen undersöker hur våldtäktsoffer framställs i två olika tidningar (Dagens nyheter och Aftonbladet) och om det finns någon skillnad i framställningen beroende av offrets kön. Studien är gjord genom att tillämpa kritisk diskursanalys på de valda tidningsartiklarna för att se om det finns några skillnader. För att göra detta har vi utgått från genusteori samt Goffmans teori kring stigma. Studiens resultat medför att artiklarna har delats upp i tre kategorier: "ideala offer", "icke-idela offer" och "manliga offer". Utöver det genererades även kategorin för "diskussions- eller debattartiklar". Artiklar som kategoriseras som "ideala offer" innehåller färre detaljer kring brotten än artiklarna om de "icke-ideala offer". Kategorin "manliga offer" uppkom på grund av att artiklarna som tillhör den var gravt underrepresenterade, däremot kunde vi se att även dessa artiklar kan jämföras med de två första kategorierna. Artiklarna i den sista kategorin diskuterar mer allmänt kring problemen som våldtäkt för med sig mer allmänt. Majoriteten av dessa artiklar riktade sig till eller handlade om kvinnor. Den slutsats som kunde dras utifrån denna undersökning är att det rapporteras olika gällande olika kön hos våldtäktsoffer. Detta visar sig bland annat genom att det i artiklar som beskriver kvinnor ges mer detaljer som beskriver offret än om de som handlar om män; artiklar om män är generellt sett relativt detaljfattiga. Detta medför också att media styr den allmänna synen kring våldtäktsoffer och har därmed makt att förbättra situationen och göra bilden av manliga och kvinnliga offer mer jämställd då båda könen behöver lika mycket stöd från omgivningen. / This essay investigates how rape victims are shown in two different Swedish newspapers (Dagens nyheter and Aftonbladet) and if there are any differences depending on the victim’s sex. The study is using critical discourse analysis for the selected news articles to find out if the views differentiate. To be able to do this we have based our research in gender theory and the theory of stigma created by Goffman. The results if this study generates three categories: "ideal victims", "non-ideal victims" and "male victims". Apart from these, another category was detected: "discussion or debate articles". Articles that categorises as "ideal victims" contains fewer details of the crime than the articles about "non-ideal victims". The category "male victims" vas created because the articles from this category was seriously diminished, we could on the other hand also apply the two previously stated categories on this one. The articles from the discussion or debate category brings up the problems of rape in a more general matter. The majority of these are speaking to or about women. The conclusion of this study is that media is presenting male and female rape victims differently. This shows, among other conclusions, that articles about female victims contains more details about the victim than articles about men; articles about men do in general rapport lesser details. This contributes to media’s control over the general view on rape victims and have therefor the opportunity to make this situation better. Media can create a more equal image of male and female victims where both will be needing support from society.