An Empirical and Theoretical Analysis of Victim Support - Case Study Example

Supporting Victims: An Empirical and Theoretical Analysis of Victim Support A Critical Report Submission Introduction Victim Support is the nationwide institution for victims and witnesses of crime, as well as their families and peers. An array of services or assistance is provided by Victim Support, regardless if a crime has been testified or not. Victim Support raises awareness by providing information, emotional assistance and useful service to individuals who have been victimized by an offence, and to their families and peers. After an offence has been perpetrated, a Victim Support helper can make a social call or visit to the victim’s home to provide all forms of assistance s/he needs (McCarthy, 2012). Every criminal court in England and Wales currently has a Witness Service, which is overseen by Victim Support. Qualified staff assist victims, witnesses, and their significant others at court by familiarizing them with the court’s setting prior to the hearing, assisting them on a regular basis, providing information about court processes, and offering additional assistance after legal proceedings (Cavadino et al., 2013). Where an arbitrator can help the Witness Service keeps in touch or maintain communication with the witness (Walklate, 2013). Critical Analysis of Victim Support Although criminal reparation emerged from the efforts of Margery Fry between the 1950s and the 1960s, victim support programmes were of later beginnings. They developed from the Bristol Victims—Offenders Group, established in the 1970s in collaboration with the national agency NACRO and local department, the National Victims’ Association, again located in Bristol and formed in 1973 (Mawby & Walklate, 1994, p. 111). A programme derived from self-referral was formed in the vicinity, and even though inadequately advertised and unevenly used this created the foundation for eventual progress. The earliest victim support system was introduced in Bristol in the 1970s as an autonomous organisation depending on the collaboration of legal departments like the magistracy, probation service, and police. In spite of the fact that a larger number of victims were recommended for the system than had been expected, the system wavered, and was momentarily postponed while the directors looked for broader assistance and financial support (Mawby & Walklate, 1994). It was revived in 1975 and, after national administrative assistance from NACRO and countrywide television exposure new systems were introduced in other vicinities (Cavadino et al., 2013). To the point it is probable to refer to victims’ rights, they can be labelled into two categories (Walklate, 2013): (1) service rights denote facilities or provisions which do not have an effect on procedure, like data given about the advancement of a case; (2) procedural rights, like the delivery of rights of victims, provide victims an opportunity to influence the criminal procedure and could be unfavourable to the perpetrator. Even though such difference is systematically valuable, it dismantles with regard to those service rights that are embodied by procedural repercussions; the screening of at-risk victims, for instance, could have a negative effect on the rights of defendants to a fair, equitable trial (McEvoy & McConnachie, 2013). The Home Office has initiated reformist efforts to enhance the process by which victims are informed or updated by prosecutors and police agencies. Two publicised Victims’ Charters established norms of service in the 1990s to guarantee that victims obtained more accurate, updated information regarding case progress, that their opinions were acquired and taken into consideration, and that they are given appropriate help and services in court (Simmonds, 2009). The Witness Service, supervised by Victim Support, and encompassing every criminal court all over England and Wales, gives information, counsel, and assistance to help witnesses through the pressures of court procedures, such as pre-trial calls and assisting witnessing in understanding the court procedure. The No Witness No Justice programme, from 2004, formed partnership with CPS/Police Witness Care Units all over England and Wales (Simmonds, 2009). The only means of communication are the Witness Care Officers, giving information and updates about progress of a case, and organising other support organisations. Yet, in 2010, Victim Support states that victims are usually allowed to go with no complete knowledge of the sentence imposed to the defendants (Button et al., 2013). Although Witness Care Units have an obligation to clarify sentences to complainants, they are not mandated to give the form of thorough clarification given to defendants. Prosecutors or, in case prosecutors are not available, other CPS representatives, are expected to take part in court procedures and eventually clarify the sentence, but merely in case the victim is passed on to the CPS for a clarification by the cooperative police/CPS Witness Care Units (Simmonds, 2013). Consideration of the secondary victimisation encountered by at-risk witnesses like victims of sexual violence, who can be exposed to rigorous and humiliating interrogation, has resulted in numerous procedural reforms and developments in the rules of evidence. Although updates on these changes indicate that process has been better to some extent, they also emphasise geographic differences and persistent roots of distress (Mastrocinque, 2014). Numerous of the proposals given in studies and by former investigations and assessments have not been enforced unfailingly. Assessment of services for at risk and threatened witnesses indicates that the legislative and administrative policies established are not completely put into effect and do not fulfil important demands and needs. Studies report that the practice of court familiarisation and clarifications regarding how the particular policies help at-risk witnesses, as well as the hiring of arbitrators, seem to lessen fear and worries and enhance the value or accuracy of the evidence provided. Prompt recognition of at risk and threatened witnesses by the CPS and police agencies is imperative if such policies are to be implemented properly, yet some scholars discovered that such organisations, such as Victim Support, keep on experiencing problems recognising those vulnerable (Mastrocinque, 2014). Lately, the Home Office formed several pilot mechanisms of support services for juvenile crime victims which, as one of the goals, promote a drive to update them of the specific policies at court to motivate them to present themselves as witnesses ( National guiding principles for the formation of systems had been planned and a regional institution formed by 1977, and the National Association of Victim Support Schemes (NAVSS) was established in 1979. There were 256 programmes by 1980 and a yearly number of referral of roughly 120,000 people (Robinson & Hudson, 2011, p. 523). Not unexpectedly, such remarkable level of growth could not be sustained, and the increase in the number of programmes decreased. In 1990-91 roughly 600,000 incidents were recommended for Victim Support. The National Association of Victim Support Schemes works as an authorising and managing agency. During the 1970s and 1980s it built a direct connection with the Home Office. It hires at least 20 personnel, located in its London headquarters (Mawby & Walklate, 1994, p. 113). At the opposite side are individual programmes, which are connected to the core through a country institution and several national agencies, such as the Funding Panel, the Executive Committee, and the National Council (McCarthy, 2012). There is a Code of Practice, which comprises conditions pertaining management system, training, service delivery, and individual programmes that do not abide by the code will be omitted from the system, and, in effect, from obtaining police assistance. The national agency is also tasked to distribute central government resources to individual programmes, which grants it a greater degree of control (McEvoy & McConnachie, 2013). Locally, every programme has a management team, an organiser, and several visitors who keep in touch or communicate victims of crime. All over the UK, victim support programmes are unpaid groups and official charities. Financing was initially obtained from the government and several private guarantors; at the local level, from local officials, in part making use of different national-local partnership resources; at the national level, from the Department of Health and Social Security and the Home Office (Robinson & Hudson, 2011). The most important event arose in 1986 when the government proclaimed a massive financial contribution to Victim Support during the latter part of the 1980s until the early 1990s. These occurrences paved the way to a vital change in government dedication to Victim Support and an important transformation in the organisation’s attribute. However, most of the work or operations of individual programmes relies on volunteers (Simmonds, 2013). Two of the major attributes of Victim Support, apparent from the first Bristol programme, were the combination of co-operation and autonomy. Although several programmes, particularly in the initial period, were situated in probation agencies, programmes were autonomous of both probation and police (Simmonds, 2009). Simultaneously, they developed strong relations with these and other departments in the criminal justice system, and direct collaboration between Victim Support and the police has been a prominent aspect, facilitating the positive formation of the institution. The Code of Practice indicates that the police and social services or probation must be embodied on programmes’ management teams (Roose et al., 2012). The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee emphasised that “the organisation with which a victim support scheme maintains the closest relationship is the police” (Mawby & Walklate, 1994, p. 114) yet was also “aware that a close working relationship often exists between victim support scheme co-ordinators and the probation service” (Mawby & Walklate, 1994, p. 114). On the contrary, the connections between courts and Victim Support have been much more withdrawn. The value of the police bureau to Victim Support is focused on the part of the police as referral workers. Not like numerous other European nations, nearly every victim helped by Victim Support is referred to programmes by the police. Initially the police were hesitant to surrender authority over referrals, and transferred to programmes victims whom authorities thought to be requiring assistance, a process that led to an uneven number of aging people, and helpless, victims being supervised and cared for by Victim Support (Walklate, 2013). In Scotland there remains unwillingness to recommend victims with no clear consent. Nevertheless, in other parts of the UK it is currently widespread practice for programme organisers to communicate directly with police bureaus and document all identified victims of prearranged crime-forms as referrals, a mechanism called ‘direct referral system’ (Walklate, 2013, p. 143). Programmes will afterward make a decision for themselves which victims will be visited or kept in touch with or, more usually, what kind of communication will be conducted. Although obviously favourable to the previous process, this does pose several dilemmas. First, because referrals have grown at a quicker pace than volunteers, programmes are ever more obliged to choose about who will be contacted, or what form of communication is desirable (Roose et al., 2012). Then, although the police do not work anymore as gatekeepers, organisers in the programmes are themselves more and more choosing, based on inadequate information, which victims require individual visit or communication immediately after the crime has been reported. In spite of these dilemmas, though, it is questionable that the British system has attained stability and stays a uniquely independent agency while obtaining complete co-operation, through referrals, from police agencies (McEvoy & McConnachie, 2013). On the contrary, connections with other bureaus helping victims, mostly from the voluntary segment, are inconsistent, in part because bureaus could be vying for similar clients, and accordingly for what inadequate financial resources is accessible, in part due to noticeable differences in the ideologies of the various institutions. Hence although victim support has participated in talks with an array of other institutions, and attracted representatives of these institutions into its official system by means of yearly discussions, expert working teams, etc., relations with the Refuge Movement and Rape Crisis particularly are weak and most flimsy where Victim Support has converged or transferred to accommodate crime victims referred by the police (Simmonds, 2009). With regard to the characteristic of the services offered or delivered, Victim Support in the UK is different from its North American counterpart in stressing the service aspect of its operations, instead of political or educational objectives. This does not imply that Victim Support is politically uninterested. In contrast, it has silently and passively made itself an imposing power foundation inside the political sector (Button et al., 2013). It is referred to by the Home Office about planned modifications to the law, and has on different instances openly asked for support or prompted working teams to campaign for reforms that would enhance the condition of victims of crime. However, this kind of political position is firmly restricted. The nationwide Code of Practice prohibits members from articulating or pushing for party political opinions when standing for Victim Support and from making comments about sentencing rules, excluding where it is of actual value to crime victims (McCarthy, 2012). Therefore, for Victim Support, the main emphasis is on the service given by unpaid workers for victims. Directors obtain victims’ information from police agencies, or straight from police documents, immediately after the reporting of a crime, and make a decision how communication is to be done. If a victim is evaluated to be requiring a visit, the director prepares a volunteer for a visit to the victim, which will usually happen in the next day (Robinson & Hudson, 2011). Only in special cases will a victim be communicated with or visited when the criminal act is still happening. Where a visit is conducted, majority of the victims will be contacted one time only, even though in vicinities with a smaller number of criminal cases, several visits are more often, and more severe offences, where victims are more seriously injured or affected, are given significantly greater emphasis. Those in city centres, where victimisation is simply one of several of issues confronted, could be contacted or visited more often (Cavadino et al., 2013). Nevertheless, with nationwide policies stressing the reality that it is not only the elderly and women who are severely affected by a criminal act, and with an effort to involve interpersonal offences where the victim is not all the time innocent, Victim Support is ever more approaching closer to delivering a wide-ranging service for every victim of crime (Roose et al., 2012). Victim Support was determined ever since to refrain from commenting on sentencing policies, yet it has lately adopted a view on the importance of Victim Personal Statements (VPSs), showing guilt that they “are used far too rarely and victims feel their views are not taken into account as intended even when they are used” (Morgan et al., 2012, p. 405). In addition, it proposed that “every victim should be helped and encouraged to make a VPS so that all victims have an equal opportunity to formally state the impact of crime upon them” (Morgan et al., 2012, p. 405). Victim Support more currently demanded extensive accessibility of VPS so as “magistrate and judges [can] determine the most effective and appropriate sentence and appropriate levels of compensation” (Morgan et al., 2012, p. 405). The organisation is presently experimenting means of motivating more victims to keep in touch with them or report crimes, and aiming at helpless and frequent victims. Over the recent years the organisation has formed expert services for major crime victims, such as homicide and domestic violence, yet keeps on providing assistance to victims of theft, robbery, and burglary. Such enlargement of its job has resulted, maybe unavoidably—in a division from its Support after Murder and Manslaughter (SAMM) and previous ‘child’ service. The victim has been raised as a powerful rhetorical ploy, which is referred to by Ashworth as ‘victims in the service of severity’ and viewed by Garland as ‘the projected, politicised image of ‘the victim’… as an all-purpose justification for measures of penal oppression’ (Cavadino et al., 2013, p. 122). Likewise, the labelling of punitive policies and criminal statutes based on crime victims take advantage of the victim’s dilemma to authorise more all-encompassing regulations and new penal policies. Under the Labour government, a broader political effort to ‘rebalance’ the criminal justice system supportive of victims and to push ‘victims’ justice’ was a core basis of government policymaking (Cavadino et al., 2013). Theoretical Approach to Victim Support To make sure that the needs of victims are correctly dealt with, reparative justice theory claims that a criminal act must not be viewed only as an offence against an intangible or nonconcrete community needing societal approval but that it must also be handled as a conflict between victims and perpetrators as component of a process wherein the relations between victims, perpetrators, and the larger community are re-established by means of the criminal justice procedure, thus patching up the social foundation that has been damaged by the criminal act (Downes & Rock, 2011). Restoration does not have to be accomplished through reparation means. In view of this, restorative justice is a theoretical approach of objectives rather than processes or techniques. In fact, a criminal justice system wherein reparation is given is not essentially restorative in nature. It can merely correctly be interpreted in restorative ways if it aims to, and is able to, change relations among victims, perpetrators, and society according to the principles of reparative justice theory by whatsoever ways it uses to accomplish such (Downes & Rock, 2011). Within the framework of social policy, ‘need’ has traditionally been the issue of disagreement, an essential issue being whether the ‘need’ is a comparative or an impartial phenomenon. Those who see the concept of ‘need’ as an impartial phenomenon believe that it is all-encompassing and stationary, in short need could be identified as a measure which can be attributed to the population in general (Simmonds, 2009). In fact this was the principle applied by Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree in formulating the concept of a core subsistence level. Those approving a comparative approach though would evaluate the need of an individual against the need of the reference group to which s/he is a part of. These needs would not hence be stationary but active, and not generally recognisable (Simmonds, 2009). Although one could claim that an impartial standard of need could be valuably used when talking about the calorific prerequisites for subsistence amongst the elderly or jobless groups; employing such standard to other social provisions or facilities could be more difficult. If an impartial standard is employed, this suggests that ‘expert’ know-how has been used (Walklate, 2013). Hence in the post-war period the extent at which the unproductive poor may manage to survive was enforced by experts, instead of a consultative procedure being used. The level of subsistence was thus seen as fulfilling need, which is making sure that nobody lives below the poverty threshold. Similarly, if Victim Support makes use of an impartial measure of need then its task will be to shrink the divide between the non-victim and victim groups by delivering a service to bring back victims to an observed balance. Hence Victim Support will claim to be ‘aware’ beforehand what victims need in order to accomplish such (Simmonds, 2009). If though a comparative model is employed, Victim Support will claim no past awareness of ‘need’, and should thus be ready for victims of specific crimes to differ in their demands and requirements for facilities and services. In employing such model Victim Support should customise its strategies to individuals, instead of claiming past knowledge and implementing a single model (Walklate, 2013). The concept of need is additional confounded by the notion of ‘want’. As argued by scholars, people have fundamental needs, like food and shelter, in the absence of such life is unsustainable. This visibly shows the concept of impartial need in its most basic sense. In contrast individuals have ambitions or wants. Certain wants may comprise impartial needs like food; others though while being viewed as ‘need’ could merely be objects preferred or sought after, or to be ‘short-term’ or ‘demanding’ needs (Downes & Rock, 2011). Customarily the welfare state has distributed resources or funding based on need; the requirement being that so as a thing to become a ‘need’ instead of simply a ‘want’, it must be morally reasonable. Moreover, if an individual is classified to be ‘in need’ s/he will be adversely affected if that need is left unfulfilled. With crime victims in consideration it is difficult to imagine them as merely wanting or preferring a service ‘from nowhere’ (Simmonds, 2009). In popular dialogue, victims have not ‘decided’ to be victimised by crimes, and could be seen as being adversely affected if they do not obtain aid. In fact the assistance by the government of Victim Support provisions can be seen generously as one way through which victims could be seen as having requirements which must be fulfilled so as to bring back their balance. This is specifically the case if one considers the growth of crime victim reparation. The pioneer of this process, Marjory Fry, viewed such reparation or compensation as a means of tackling the disorder caused by capitalism (Simmonds, 2013). Furthermore, penal theory or criminal justice has not transformed adequately to make room for such rights or changes to the process. Sentencing ideologies remain concentrated on offenders—courts penalise with the intention to rehabilitate, incapacitate, deter, or make retribution, not to benefit the victim or to create closure. Supporters of retribution have collaborated with supporters of restorative justice, yet neither has sufficiently offered a theoretical model to explain such changes (Morgan et al., 2012). Gruber explores the theoretical explanations for victim-oriented changes that try to equalise the sentencing of offenders with the remedy of victims, considering the adverse outcomes to the victim, or, more probably, expressed by them. She gives a persuasive illustration for taking into consideration modifications to the part of crime victims in the criminal justice system as ‘distributive’. She argued (Morgan et al., 2012, p. 414): “In popular politics as well as case doctrine, victims’ interests now stand alongside and even trump concerns over retributive fault and social utility.” Conclusion This essay has analysed how Victim Support deals with the needs and demands of victims; specifically, whether the organisation uses an impartial or comparative standard, or whether the delivery of services depends on a mixture of the two. There is no definite progressive measure for Victim Support in a promotion, other than increasing understanding of how models of need can indeed lead to service exclusions for certain people. It could be that one of the issues is that Victim Support is one way or another attempting to be ‘everything to everybody’, and such may not essentially be the most effective technique. It could be that the allotment or sharing of provisions that unavoidably continue should, to a certain level, compel Victim Support to assume a more impartial approach in its provision. References Button, M et al (2013) “The ‘fraud justice network’ and the infra-structure of support for individual fraud victims in England and Wales,” Criminology and Criminal Justice, 13(1), 37-61. Cavadino, M et al (2013) The Penal System: An Introduction. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Downes, D & Rock, P (2011) Understanding Deviance: A Guide to the Sociology of Crime and Rule-breaking. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Mastrocinque, J (2014) “Victim Personal Statements: An Analysis of Notification and Utilisation,” Criminology and Criminal Justice, 14(2), 216-234. Mawby, R & Walklate, S (1994) Critical Victimology: International Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. McCarthy, C (2012) Reparations and Victim Support in the International Criminal Court. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 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