Victim’s Rights Policy
All the components of the criminal justice have the same goal in mind: preventing and fighting crime. Preventing and fighting crime also includes providing services for the victims of the crimes. Although the main focus on the criminal justice system is to arrest, prosecute and rehabilitate the criminal, many forget to focus on the victim. The National Organization for Victims Assistance was found in 1975 and is the oldest national group providing assistance to victims of crime and crisis. The Law enforcement community needs to ensure the safety of the victim before, during, and after a conviction. Many times the victims of crimes are forgotten or left out of the notification process when the criminal has been apprehended, prosecutes, sentenced, or released from the system. By examining the history and effectiveness of victim rights legislation and programs, the goals of victim’s rights will become clearer.
History of Victims Rights
The concept of victims’ rights is relatively new idea. Linda R S v. Richard D (1972) was the case that opened the door for victims’ rights. The Supreme Court ruled in Linda V. Richard that “a private citizen lacks a judicially cognizable interest in the prosecution or nonprosecution of another” (Lewis, 2010, para 5). From that case, the idea of victims’ rights would explode and the next 10 years would be one of immense expansion for victims.
Before the national government would recognize victims need for legal rights, small organizations would start to make minor changes in their respective areas. In 1972, Summit County in Ohio created the Victim Assistance Program. Seeing that the county offered 35 free services for the offenders and nothing for victims infuriated local...
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...tim Law Institute. Retrieved on November 6, 2010 from www.lclark.edu/law/centers/national_crime_victim_law_institute/about_ncli/history_of_victims_rights/
National Organization for Victim Assistance. Crime Victims and Witness Rights. Retrieved November 7, 2010, from www.trynova.org/Victims/cwrights.html.
Prison Fellowship International Centre for Justice and Reconciliation (n.d.) Restorative justice online: definitions of restorative justice by victims and their advocates, retrieved on November 5, 2010, from http://www.restorativejustice.org/victim-support/definitions-of-restorative-justice-by-victims-and-their-advocates
VALOR. (2005). History of VALOR. Retrieved on November 6, 2010 from www.valor_national.org/hisotory.html.
Victims Assistance Program. (2010). About us. Retrieved on November 6, 2010 from www.victimassistanceprogram.org/about_history.html.
How and Why the U.S. Supreme Court developed the law governing the use of “Victim Impact Statements” (VIS)?
Young, M. (1999) Restorative community justice in the United States: A new paradigm. International Review of Victimology, 6, p265-277.
Elias, R. (1986). Rising Stars: Victims and Victimology. The Politics of Victimization: Victims, Victimology and Human Rights. New York. Oxford University Press, 9-26.
As agents of justice and philanthropists of duty one must evaluate the criminal justice system and its approaches to the solution of crime to determine what is good, appropriate, and what will reduce recidivism. As a western society the United States has changed and adapted its judicial system in hopes of conforming to our changing society and the increase in criminal behavior. Through these adaptations emerged a system within criminal justice that changes the focus of rehabilitation of the offender to not only include imprisonment, but to include reconciliation with the victims and the community that the offender harmed. The restorative justice approach takes a look at the crime, the criminal, and the offended; with hopes for healing and justice
Since the beginning of our nation, victims have always existed, and the categories of victims and types of suffering have expanded greatly. At our creation, more obvious examples of victims stood out, such as the Native Americans who first inhabited this land. The colonists may even consider themselves victims to the Crown. As we move throughout our history we continue to see widely-known examples of people suffering, from the disgusting era of slavery to the horrific terrorist attacks on our country's soil at Pearl Harbor and on 9/11. However, it was the day-to-day victimization that had yet to be known or explored. This speaks to the crimes occurring every day in our nation that result in the short-term and long-term suffering of victims.
effective at holding perpetrators accountable. The nation, military, and criminal justice system has shifted from victim focus to offender focus. The historical development of the crime victims’ movement has altered perceptions of crime and the treatment of crime victims. Over the last three decades, the crime victims’ movement has emerged as a powerful source of social, legal, and political change. The women’s movement, as well as the law and order movement, led more directly to the emergence of a clearly defined crime victims’ movement. The history of this movement is divided into six stages, each denoting new developments in victim involvement and services, changes in service providers’ attitudes, new theoretical concepts, and ongoing legal
Over the years, the traditional criminal justice system has emphasized offenders’ accountability through punishment and stigmatization. The emphasis on the retributive philosophy made it challenging for the system to meaningfully assist and empower crime victims. In the criminal justice system, victims often face insensitive treatment with little or no opportunity for input into the perseverance of their case and report feeling voiceless in the process used (Choi, Gilbert, & Green, 2013:114). Crime victims, advocates, and practitioners have called for an expansion of victims’ rights and community-based alternatives, rather than punishment-oriented justice policies. What victims want from the criminal justice system is a less formal process, more information about case processing, respectful treatment, and emotional restoration.
Generally, the study of crime mainly focused on the offender until quite recently. In fact, Shapland et al (1985) described the victim as ‘the forgotten man’ of the criminal justice system and ‘the non-person in the eyes of the professional participants’. A new perspective was brought with victimology, an expanding sub-discipline of crimin...
This approach has introduced a criminal justice policy agenda. In the past, victims to criminal activities have been outsiders to the criminal conflict. In recent times, many efforts have been made to give the victims a more central role in the criminal justice system. Some of these efforts were introduced a few years back, though even at that time, these efforts were seen as long overdue. Some of these efforts include access to state compensation and forms of practical support. For advocates of restorative justice, crime is perceived primarily as a violation of people and relationships, and the aim is to make amends for all the harm suffered by victims, offenders and communities. The most commonly used forms of restorative justice include direct mediation, indirect mediation, restorative cautioning, sentencing panels or circles and conferencing. In recent...
When reviewing the differences between victim facilitation, victim precipitation, and victim provocation, it appears as though the victim is unjustly being described as a party to a crime. Ordinarily, the majority of people differentiate a victim and a perpetrator, regardless of the end result, but the classifications lump them both together, which is unjust to most.
In recent years the role of victims in the criminal justice system has risen into prominence, inspiring much research into victim experience and possible reform. There are a multitude of factors that influence policy makers in relation to reforming the criminal justice system, one of which is victims. However, victims while they can be catalysts for reforms such as the case of James Ramage among others, they still play a relatively minor role in influencing policy change.
When Mary Catherine Parris was told that I would be talking to her about restorative justice, her response was, “Is that a real thing?” (personal communication, September 23, 2015). Through this assignment I realized that restorative justice is not talked about within the criminal justice system. For both of the individuals I spoke with, the idea of restorative justice seemed like a joke. In trying to persuade them both that restorative justice is a real thing, I was met with very similar beliefs and comments from both individuals. They both believed that restorative justice would not work and believed that some aspects of the approach were completely useless (M. C. Parris, & R. Clemones, personal communication, September 23, 2015). The responses
There are many different types of victims we have discussed over the course of this class, but we’re only going to talk about two types in the following paper. These two types of victims are common just as any another victim across America. These include sex assault victims and child abuse victims, which are both primary victims in cases. The two share a tie together, both are a victim of abuse and can cause lifelong consequences, but they also pose many differences as well. Many questions arise when talking about victims, for example why is a child or adult being abused and what are the life altering affects to these actions. Throughout this paper we discuss both sexual assault victims and child abuse victims and compare and contrast between the two.
Johnstone, G. and Ness, D. (2007) Handbook of Restorative Justice. USA: Willan Publishing. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/the-big-question-what-are-the-alternatives-to-prison-and-do-they-work-419388.html [Accessed 01 January 2014].
Victimology is the scientific study of victimization and is an issue that affects millions of Americans each year. Anyone is at risk to be general target, but some people share similar traits and many criminologists seek to explain the facts that define the relationship between offender and the victim. This involves the study or investigation into the relationship type and level between the offenders and the victims of the crimes (Hagan, 2013). It works to create linkage between the criminal justice system and the victim to become a voice to advocate and secure justice for the victim. Most often violent crime is planned and executed by a person who is close to the victim. Victims are placed into four categories of victimization; The Victim