TY - JOUR

T1 - Recognizing the Paradigm of the Unknowing Victim and the Implications of Liminality

AU - Ost, Suzanne

AU - Gillespie, Alisdair

PY - 2023/12/16

Y1 - 2023/12/16

N2 - This article presents the novel conceptualisation of the unknowing victim (UV) and addresses the ethical ramifications of this status. Criminology and victimology have primarily focused on knowing victims, but certain crimes occur without the victim’s detection (eg sexual assault of an unconscious victim). There is a critical liminal dimension to UV’s status: they are on the threshold between unawareness and conscious awareness of their status as victims of crime and are thus situated on the brink of experiencing harm through their own discovery, or someone else’s disclosure, of the crime committed against them. We call for the recognition of UVs and the temporalities of their embodied experiences, and argue that there is an ethical imperative to prioritise their lived experience.

AB - This article presents the novel conceptualisation of the unknowing victim (UV) and addresses the ethical ramifications of this status. Criminology and victimology have primarily focused on knowing victims, but certain crimes occur without the victim’s detection (eg sexual assault of an unconscious victim). There is a critical liminal dimension to UV’s status: they are on the threshold between unawareness and conscious awareness of their status as victims of crime and are thus situated on the brink of experiencing harm through their own discovery, or someone else’s disclosure, of the crime committed against them. We call for the recognition of UVs and the temporalities of their embodied experiences, and argue that there is an ethical imperative to prioritise their lived experience.

KW - unknowing victims

KW - crime

KW - liminality

KW - ignorance

KW - disclosure

KW - harm

M3 - Journal article

JO - British Journal of Criminology

JF - British Journal of Criminology

SN - 0007-0955

ER -