MURDERERS, VICTIMS AND SURVIVORS - THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF DEVIANCE

Two visions of homicide, murderers and victims are contrasted. One, co nventional in criminology, has it that murders are the culmination of drawn-out, acrimonious transactions occurring within demographically h omogeneous sectors of the population. It leads to a blurring of moral identities and causal relations. The other is championed by homicide ' survivors' organizations, and it claims an existentially validated aut hority. Homicide is experienced by 'survivors' as a chaotic episode wh ich gives way to strong; antagonistic archetypes of victim and offende r. The two visions are examined, in part, to promote an appreciation o f the analytic complexities of the phenomenon of murder; in part, to p oint to the fraught politics that are beginning to emerge around resol ving the character of murder.