By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

system, where the victim and the ‘law abiding’ community are at the centre, ratherthan the offender.However, as Garland (2001: 144, original emphasis) notes, it is as if the crime victimhas become a ‘representative character whose experience is assumed to be commonand collective, rather than individual and atypical’. In New Zealand, the SensibleSentencing Trust use the symbolic victim, in particular victims of high profilemurder cases, to refer to the ‘thousands of ordinary citizens who every day areinjured physically by street criminals’ (Cressey, 1992: 61, emphasis added). Yet, it isnot just the direct injury that is of particular importance, it is the fear of crime that isshown to be a form of victimisation. Groups who adopt this stance emphasise therisk that criminals pose to the rest of society. The Trust has chosen to adopt thisstrategy using ‘the voice of the ordinary Kiwi’ (McVicar, 2002b: Section 1) tosymbolise the image of the victim as the ‘blameless, pure stereotype, with whom allcan identify’ (Henderson, 1992: 106). For example, it notes that ‘[i]t takes just amoment for any one of us to become a victim of crime and have our lives changedforever’ (Pedler, 2006: Section 3). In this way, the Trust suggests that we are allpotential victims of crime (Henderson, 1992). This treatment of the victim grew outof the resentment of what was thought to be a tendency of criminal justice decisionmakersto protect criminals while ignoring the law­abiding citizen (Fattah, 1992b).General attributes of the organisationThe unique identity of the Trust, combined with the increasing visibility of crimeand victimisation in the media, has gained it a large following 23 . Using mediaattention from the law and order referendum to its advantage, the Trust hope to takethe power to make policy away from the liberal elites in New Zealand (McVicar,2005a). McVicar believes it is these individuals – the ‘well­meaning, short­sightedliberals’ – that are responsible for the crime problem in New Zealand (quoted inChamberlain, 2006: 74). It is the ‘liberals’ that allowed for the deterioration ofNew Zealand society, with McVicar stating that23The exact number of supporters has not been disclosed by the Sensible Sentencing Trust and the listis kept confidential as it contains victims’ details. However McVicar noted in 2006 that theorganisation aimed for 500,000 members by 2008, believing the Trust was halfway there(Chamberlain, 2006). The total population of New Zealand at this time was just over 4 million(Statistics New Zealand, 2006a).46