revisting victimology
cw // death, gun violence
aha.,. first long-ish post on this site but it’s not going to be anything of great consequence so feel free to scroll on by! never thought I would ever post academic drabble, but I was reading Parkland Speaks during the past week and was struck by a sudden impulse to revisit topics I studied at school about victims and criminal justice. This is probably because I didn’t really get to say all I wanted with the one essay assignment I got for the Victimology module in university. I don’t envision for this post to be anything enlightening or fresh, but I just really wanted to explore my own understanding of the themes covered below.
At first read, the book really demonstrated the variations and angles of individual victim testimonies and how they could contribute to a more rounded image of the same incident. I believe this book highlights the importance of a biographical approach in criminology, which can act as a secondary source to reconstruct events and/or life stories. (Goodey, p. 477, 2000) For example, a reader from as far away in Asia as me would come out with a better sense of the type of community that Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School and its inhabitants were situated in at the time of the tragedy. In this way, the individual reflects the ‘social’, and can also act as evaluation for certain processes and stakeholders.
In some of the featured testimonies, the role of the media was outlined by the survivors of the attack. Some viewed it has a platform for their message to be heard, while others noted that the presence of the media affected their space for grieving. These varying stances outline the ever-present tension/conflict between the media, policy/politicians, victim needs and justice. And it was important to me, that the survivors/victims were not painted over with the same brush in the collection.
The last topic that I wanted to explore briefly was really the grouping of the students as survivors, rather than victims, in the wording of the publication. While I did not think this choice affected the selection of accounts included in the anthology, it might have built an overall mood and focus on resilience and other similar things.
Going to end this very rough piece off with one of my favorite lines from the book but have a good weekend everyone!
“I’m not big on exercise, but in that moment, everyone was on the track team.” - Jack MacLeod
