Emergence of an Opposition and Development of Resistance to Further Changes
The third stage in the rediscovery process is marked by the emergence of groups that oppose the goals sought by victims of rediscovered crimes. The victims had to overcome public apathy during Stage 1 and bureau- cratic inertia during Stage 2. During Stage 3, they encounter resistance from other quarters. A backlash arises against perceived excesses in their demands. The general argument of opponents is that the pendulum is swinging too far in the other direction; that people are uncritically embracing a point of view that is too extreme, unbalanced, and one-sided; and that special
interests are trying to advance an agenda that does not really benefit the law-abiding majority.
Spokespersons for a group of recently rediscov- ered victims might come under fire for a number of reasons. They might be criticized for overestimating the number of people harmed when the actual threat to the public, according to the opposition, is much smaller. Advocates might be condemned for portraying all those who were hurt as totally innocent of blame—and therefore deserving of unqualified support—when in reality some are partly at fault and shouldn’t get all the assistance that they demand. Activists might be castigated for making unreasonable demands that will cost the government (and taxpayers) too much money. They also might be denounced for insisting upon new policies that would undermine cherished con- stitutional rights, such as the presumption of inno- cence of persons accused of breaking the law. For example, allegations about child abuse or elder abuse can lead to investigations that permanently stigmatize the alleged wrongdoers even if the charges later turn out to be unfounded (see Crystal, 1988).
When the antirape movement claimed to have discovered an outbreak of date rapes against college students, skeptics asked why federally mandated sta- tistics about incidents reported to campus security forces showed no such upsurge. They contended that hard-to-classify liaisons were being redefined as full-fledged sexual assaults, thereby maligning some admittedly sexually aggressive and exploitative col- lege men as hard-core criminals (see Gilbert, 1991; Hellman, 1993; and MacDonald, 2008a). When the battered women’s movement organized a clemency drive to free certain imprisoned wives who had slain their abusive husbands (in self-defense, they contended, but prosecutors and jurors disagreed), critics charged that these abused women would be getting away with revenge killings. When adults who believed that they had endured incest insisted that new memory retrieval techniques were helping them recall repressed recollections of sexual moles- tations by parents, stepparents, and other guardians, some accused family members banded together and insisted they were being unfairly slandered because
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of a therapist-induced false memory syndrome (see Chapters 8, 9, and 10 for an in-depth analysis of these three controversies).
Even the many accomplishments of the entire victims’ movement can be questioned (see Weed, 1995). Under the banner of advancing victims’ rights, pressure groups might advocate policies that undermine whatever progress has been made toward securing humane treatment for offenders and reentry opportunities for ex-prisoners. Victim activism can unnecessarily heighten fear and anxiety levels about the dangers of violence and theft and divert funds toward repressive measures and away from social programs designed to tackle the root causes of street crime.
Groups that focus their energies on the plight of individuals injured by interpersonal violence also can distract attention from other socially harmful activities such as polluting the environment or mar- keting unsafe products, and their reforms can raise expectations about full recovery that just cannot be reasonably met (Fattah, 1986). It is even possible that what was formerly a grassroots movement run by volunteers who solicited donations has metamorphosed into a virtual “victim industry.” It engages in a type of mass production, churning out newly identified groups of victims by dwelling on kinds of suffering that can arise from noncriminal sources such as bullying, emotional abuse, sexual harassment, sexual addiction, eating disorders, and credit card dependency (see Best, 1997).