Nils Christie Essay

The aim of this essay is trying to assess if ISIS might be regarded as the ‘little old lady’ of Christie’s theory; in order to do so it is fundamental going through each feature of the ideal victim’s theory to see whether those attributes are suitable to ISIS’ victims or not (van Wijk, 2013). Therefore, assuming that murder of civilians, hostage taking, torture or killing of detainees by ISIS constitute war crimes, can we apply the concept of attractive victim of international crimes in this context? One helpful starting point in exploring our knowledge about the identity and attributes of victims is Nils Christie’s (1986) stereotype of the ideal victim. Christie (1986) identified six attributes that are most likely to result in the conferring

The victim is doing his-her legitimate, ordinary everyday business;
3. The victim is absolutely blameless for what happened;
4. The offender is seen and described as big and bad;
5. The victim is not related to and does not know the offender that caused the physical and/or psychological harm;
6. The victim has the right combination of power, influence or sympathy to successfully elicit victim status without fearing any opposition from his-her offender.
It seems likely that, assumptions, based on this stereotypical image of the ideal victim, may help to generate criteria which facilitate the assessment of the ‘newsworthiness’ of specific crime stories by the media. (Dignan, 2004). Such images may also be invoked, consciously or unconsciously, by single issue campaigners and also politicians when seeking to promote the interests of victims, or to influence the way their offenders are dealt with (Dignan, 2004). The case of ISIS has received considerable world attention for its savage beheadings, executions of captured soldiers and men in conquered towns and villages, violence against Christians and Shiites, and the destruction of

This matches perfectly with Christie’s first feature, the ISIS victims are portrayed as weak and impotent in relation to their offenders. Furthermore, ISIS is just the latest of several armed extremist Sunni groups to have systematically killed and threatened Iraq’s Chaldo-Assyrian Christians, Shia Shabaks and Turkmen, and Yazidis. As matter of fact, they have been labeled as crusaders, heretics, and devil-worshipers, respectively (Amnesty International, 2014). Among the ethnic and religious minorities being targeted in northern Iraq, there are Assyrian Christians, Turkmen Shi’a, Shabak Shi’a, members of the Yezidi faith, Kakai and Sabean Mandaeans (Amnesty International, 2014). ISIS has also targeted Iraqi police and security forces, many of them Shia, ordering them to apologize at designated mosques in Mosul (Amnesty International, 2014). Many Arabs and Sunni Muslims known or believed to oppose ISIS have also been targeted in apparent reprisal attacks (Amnesty International, 2014). Those victims are absolutely blameless and powerless in front of what is happening, since they are persecuted and