Victim-survivor views of the causes of crime, the aims of justice, and recovery

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Grant details

Leverhulme Trust; 拢94,000

Project start and end dates

October 2023 鈥 September 2026

Research team members

Background and aims of the project

People who have been victimised often ask 鈥渨hy?鈥: why the crime happened or why they were targeted. Yet we know little about people鈥檚 own answers to such questions, and about how these thought processes affect (or are affected by) their views of justice and their recovery.

This collaborative research project based in Indonesia and the UK explores the relationships between three aspects of victims鈥 experiences of crime: 1) their reasoning and beliefs about the causes of the crime they experienced; 2) their views of justice, how important it is to them, and how they think it should be achieved - including but not limited to the justice offered by the criminal justice system; and 3) their perceptions of their own mental and physical recovery process over time.

This project values the extensive time and energy that victim-survivors are known to expend on the question of why crimes happen, and it aims to find out how different ways of thinking about others鈥 bad behaviour can influence those affected by it. This knowledge in turn contributes to a broader understanding of how and why humans reason the way they do.

Methods

The project includes collection and analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data in Indonesia and the UK. We are conducting interviews with victim-survivors who tell us in their own words about why they think the crime happened. The purpose of this study is not to compare the samples from the two countries, but to understand how people with different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences describe the causes of their victimisation. The interviewees also tell us about how they see the offender, what justice means to them, and how their views have changed over time.

We are also analysing quantitative data to further explore the relationships identified through the interviews. While this project prioritises and highlights victim-survivors鈥 own reflections, it also recognises that sometimes humans are influenced by factors that we ourselves struggle to describe. Therefore, the quantitative study complements the findings from the interviews, to shed additional light on potentially subtle and nuanced relationships between victim-survivor beliefs about the cause of their victimisation, the meaning of justice, and their own recovery.