A Gender Perspective on State Support for Crime Victims in Switzerland

Since the mid-twentieth century, the effects of violence and crime on the victim have become an increasingly important topic. In Switzerland, men and boys are affected by criminal acts of violence recorded by the police to a similar extent as women and girls. The Victims of Crime Act (VCA; Opferhilfegesetz, OHG), in place since 1993, treats men and women equally. It guarantees free legal, medical, psychological and social counselling, as well as some financial compensation, for victims of violent crime. However, male victims of violence are clearly underrepresented in victim support. This article seeks explanations: it first looks at the extent of reported and not-reported criminal acts to explain the differences. The review of the literature suggests that "being victim"is linked to "femininity". This leads to the elaboration of a theoretical framework on the gender-regime in this field. The main argument is that institutions treat "being a victim"differently for men and women and that the consequences of being a victim are different for men and women. To analyse the argument, we carry out a discourse-analytical study on how the social negotiation processes of "becoming a victim"take place. We find that victimised men and women differ in the manner and extent to which they are construed as victims in these negotiation processes. This affects the way victim support is organized and entails manifest effects regarding use of victim support and the expected clientele counselling services.