The Victim as Policy Agent? Exploring a Single Case from Denmark
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The Victim as Policy Agent? Exploring a Single Case from Denmark Ida Helene Asmussen 1
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& Lin Adrian & Lars Holmberg & Louise Victoria Johansen
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# The Author(s) 2020
Abstract
Criminal policy processes often appear abstract and illusive, but sometimes a single criminal incident causes traceable policy impact. This article is about such an incident. A victim of a grave, violent assault published an opinion piece in a national newspaper, which sparked considerable public debate and policy actions. Some policy actions were new, and others had previously been proposed but repeatedly discarded. Based on an empirical study of the victim’s opinion piece, the ensuing media debate, and subsequent policy actions, we explore why and how certain victim’s stories capture their audience and strike a responsive chord in the public and in politicians. In the article, we analyze how the victim presents the incident as a narrative, and we identify the central features of the media debate and trace its visible impact on victim policies and legislation. We explore how some elements of the story are silenced in the political aftermath and how other elements serve as capital for politicians in pursuing their own agendas. A closer look at the policy changes in the wake of this opinion piece reveals that the story legitimizes certain political decisions and ignores victims’ desire for structural changes. Our study adds to research of “political agenda setting” by investigating the narrative power of an individual case on policy-making and by exhibiting the complex interplay between an individual story, media attention, and policy-making. Keywords Highprofileindividual victim . Political agenda setting . Victim policy . Media analysis . Narrative . Case study
* Ida Helene Asmussen [email protected]
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Faculty of Law, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Law (CIS), University of Copenhagen, Karen Blixens Plads 16 2300 S Copenhagen Denmark
I.H. Asmussen et al.
Introduction He mutilated my body and face with a heavy water pipe. Then he threw my unconscious body out of the window from the third floor. It happened three years ago. I was well engaged in a career in the fashion industry. I was active and happy about my life. That life only exists as loss and memories now. (Duus 2012)1 This is the introduction of an opinion piece2 that appeared in the national Danish newspaper, Politiken, in February 2012. The victim argued that the state prioritizes offenders over victims in helping offenders, rather than victims of crime. At the time of the opinion piece, her assailant was on parole and had been offered an internship with a celebrity chef as part of a rehabilitation program, while she as a victim felt she received very little and inadequate assistance. The author, Marlene Duus, became well-known, and her story and the matter she raised with her opinion piece were referred to as the “Marlene case” in the ensuing public and political debate. The piece was read by 80,000 readers within 24 h3 and triggered strong reactions from the po
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