Sunday, November 1, 2009

Victims rights

“Evil requires the sanction of the victim.” Ayn Rand

A victim is defined as anyone who is harmed by another person. The victim is sometimes swindled or tricked, harmed or killed, deprived of their belongings, there are many ways a person can become a victim. Victims have historically played some type of role in the criminal justice system.
The Modern Crime Victims’ Rights Movement began more than 30 years ago and aspired to improve the treatment of crime victims in the criminal justice system. This Movement has since evolved into “one of the most successful civil liberties movements of recent times.” Since 1973 thirty-three states have amended their constitutions to include rights of crime victims. These rights include, the right to information, the right to be present at criminal justice proceedings, the right to dues process and the ability and right to be heard at criminal proceedings. Victims also have the right to be compensated monetarily for the loss that was a result of the crime that they were the victim of, the right to protection and privacy for the victim and their family. The Victims' Assistance Legal Organization (VALOR) became prominent as its founder, Frank Carrington, helped to develop and promote civil litigation on behalf of crime victims. (NCVLI, 2009)
The victim’s rights movements in the United States have brought about some important and significant changes worth mentioning. The development of a field called Victim logy was established by these movements and the introduction of state victim compensation programs. The rise of activism and the woman’s movement accompanied the victim’s movement. The interest in victim logy correlated with increasing concern about crime in America in the late 1960s. The crime wave of the time led to the formation of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice in 1966, which conducted the first national victimization surveys that, in turn, showed that victimization rates were far higher than shown in law enforcement figures – and that many non-reporting victims acted out of distrust of the justice system. (Young , & Stein , 2004)
The idea that the state should provide financial reimbursement to victims of crime for their losses was initially propounded by English penal reformer Margery Fry in the 1950s. It was first implemented in New Zealand in 1963 and Great Britain passed a similar law shortly thereafter. Victim compensation and reimbursement is a part of restorative justice in some ways to attempt to set right the victim that has been wronged and monetarily pay them back. Restorative justices generally comes directly from the criminal not through the state.
Parents of Murdered Children were founded by Charlotte and Robert Hullinger in 1978 in the aftermath of the murder of their daughter by her ex-boyfriend. Mothers Against Drunk Driving was co-founded in 1980 by Candy Lightner when her daughter was killed by a repeat offender drunk driver, and by Cindi Lamb, whose infant daughter was rendered a quadriplegic by a repeat offender drunk driver. According to Cindi Lamb, “Probably one of the foremost strategies is giving the victim a face, and the face of the victim was [in her case, her quadriplegic infant daughter] Laura Lamb. She was the poster child for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, because even though she couldn't move, she moved so many people.” The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was established in 1984 to help find missing children and provide support to their families. (Young , & Stein , 2004)
Restorative justice is intended to be a process that heals the victim and is personal because it comes from the offender, the person who committed the wrongdoing against the victim to begin with. In 1974, LEAA grants to the Ft. Lauderdale Police Department and then the Indianapolis Police Department helped open this new sector of the movement. Others followed suit. Many of the police-based programs were inspired by the work of two men. Victim’s advocates are a fixture at almost all agencies now. The victim’s advocates are trained individuals that usually have a heart for assisting victims that have been traumatized by the offender.
The victims of crimes now have a voice and an advocate; there are many ways to deal with the aftermath of being a crime victim. There are agents and caring individuals willing to help victims and there are also the civil courts that will assist in seeking monetary awards for the victims of a crime. The criminal justice system has embraced the opportunity to help make the victim whole again in my opinion.

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