In this paper I am concerned to document the ways in which ordinary and mundane experiences of criminal victimisation, alongside the more widely publicised threats posed by terrorist activities, transgress our everyday sense of well-being and in the light of this to consider the range policy responses that have been put in place. Consequently the paper falls into three parts. In the first I shall endeavour to offer a critical evaluation of recent policy efforts that have been made to place the victim at the centre of criminal justice policy. In the second part I shall trace the return to the Gothic, the increasingly public pre-occupation with suffering, discernable within these policy processes. In the third and concluding section, I shall consider some aspects of the implications of these developments for questions of justice.