Victim Not Suspect

Named Frames

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Named frames

The analytical concepts this site draws on, named and attributed. They are framings of evidence, not universal facts about the world. Where you see them used on VNS, this page is the citation.

Every monitoring project carries an analytical apparatus. Ours is taken from published scholarship and named in plain sight, so readers can interrogate the framing rather than absorb it. Disagree with a frame and the citation tells you where to take the argument.

  • DARVO

    Professor Jennifer Freyd, 1997 (Department of Psychology, University of Oregon)

    In one line
    Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. A documented response pattern in which a perpetrator denies the harm, attacks the credibility of the person reporting it, and reframes themself as the real victim.
    Where on the site
    Used to describe the structural pattern in cases where a victim reporting harm ends up processed as the suspect. Central to the Soteria & Stalking and Rape on Trial essays, and to the Pendleton (GMP) case in In Depth.
    Why we name it
    It is a research concept with a specific scope. Naming it - and citing Freyd - keeps it as a framing with evidence behind it, not as a rhetorical accusation.

  • Institutional betrayal

    Freyd & Smith, 2014; reviewed in Christl et al. (2024), Trauma, Violence & Abuse

    In one line
    The specific psychological harm caused when an institution a person depended on for protection itself becomes a source of harm - by failing to act, by disbelieving, or by actively prosecuting the wrong party.
    Where on the site
    Underpins the If This Is You PTSD section. Cited where the evidence shows a victim's hypervigilance, distrust or trauma response is a documented adaptation to institutional contact, not a personal pathology.
    Why we name it
    Because the alternative - implying these responses are individual fragility - is itself a form of victim-blaming. The scholarly framing places the harm where the evidence places it.

  • The ideal victim

    Nils Christie, 1986

    In one line
    The unwritten template - weak, blameless, unconnected to the offender, entirely passive - that juries, investigators and the public unconsciously use to assess credibility. Survivors who deviate find their accounts harder to have believed.
    Where on the site
    Cited in Rape on Trial to explain why credibility is unevenly distributed across complainants in sexual offence cases. Cross-referenced to Brenik et al. (2025) on perceived police-intervention need.
    Why we name it
    Because reading the data without it produces the wrong conclusion (that some complainants are inherently less credible). Reading it with the frame produces the right one (that the system is inherently less credulous of some complainants).

  • The second rape

    Used in the academic literature on sexual offence trials; documented extensively by Dame Vera Baird and the Centre for Women’s Justice

    In one line
    The cumulative harm complainants in rape trials experience through cross-examination, disclosure intrusion, and the way Section 41 protections are inconsistently applied.
    Where on the site
    Used in Rape on Trial to describe what the trial process is, in practice, for many complainants - not as metaphor, but as the literature’s own term.
    Why we name it
    Because softer phrasing would understate the documented harm. Because using the term the literature uses makes the citation traceable.

  • Attrition

    Standard term in criminal justice statistics (Home Office, ONS, CPS reporting)

    In one line
    The progressive fall-out of cases between reporting, recording, charge, and conviction. Used to track where in the system cases are lost.
    Where on the site
    Used in Soteria & Stalking and the National Picture panels. We extend it with a third category the data does not capture: cases that proceed in the wrong direction, where the offender succeeds in misidentifying the victim.
    Why we name it
    Because the term is the bridge between official statistics and lived experience. Naming the third category makes a methodological gap visible.

  • Legal systems abuse

    Documented by The Gemini Project (Verity and Lucy Nevitt) and recognised in domestic abuse and coercive control research

    In one line
    The tactical use of civil and criminal proceedings - repeat applications, false counter-allegations, weaponised disclosure - by an abuser to continue control after a relationship has ended.
    Where on the site
    Cross-referenced in Soteria & Stalking and signposted from Useful Links (The Gemini Project).
    Why we name it
    Because without the name, the pattern looks like ordinary litigation. The name makes the coercive structure legible.

See also: Facets Checker · How we write · Useful links · In Depth essays