The lens of victim contests and youth crime stat wars

Abstract

In this article I examine Canadian youth crime debates as a way to explore the connection between "victim contests" and "stat wars." I address how constructing young offenders as either victims or victimizers generates "victim contests," which in turn serve as interpretive anchoring points shaping how youth crime statistics are interpreted. The numbers themselves do not matter, as underlying assumptions about young offender identity and culpability become a lens through which numbers are understood. In this sense, victim contests generate "stat wars," involving numbers that act to "make up people." I also explore some broader implications of these connections, especially given the increasingly actuarial responses to youth crime in late-modern Western society. © 2011 by the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. All rights reserved.