The Role Played by Victim Support in Assisting Victims of Crime - Essay Example

Critically evaluate the role played by Victim Support in assisting victims of crime and advocating for reforms on their behalf. Victim support groups for decades have been conducting campaigns for implementing standards across Europe in order to regulate troubled European-wide system to track serious offences like murder and sex offenders. Even significant offences are left without reforms like 'Identity theft' in which European Government's inability to tackle identity theft can be seen from the notion that the Government is aimed to change the consumer behaviour rather than to pass reforms against the offenders. (Anonymous, NCC) Despite several victim support organisations and NGOs, it is frustrating when we analyse that our lawyers and victim support teams are unable even to advocate for the reforms. This not only depicts the weakness of the European reform but also presents a failure to produce desired changes. Although the courts serve as decentralised, semi-autonomous groupings of legal professionals, but that does not mean that victim support groups give up in confronting difficulties in predicting how they will follow a new law (Candace, 1993, p. 2). Victim support is criticised for it wishes to monopolise its' services provided to the nation. It is also said that this department is unable to tackle the problems of all of its victims (Duckett, 2003, p. 248). No doubt victim's expectations from the support departments and trial proceedings is to acquire justice while prosecuting and punishing offenders, but that does not mean that victim's sufferings should not be analysed in material form. Victims support organisations (VSO), groups and legal proceedings instead of claiming complete restitution for victim often seek justice alone. VSO does not consider reconciliation and mediation programs as alternatives to criminal punishment; therefore offenders' financial accounts are left untouched. VSOs does not support victim compensation programs, therefore victims who are ineligible for restitution through no fault of their own could be reimbursed at the same level, with their reimbursements paid from a pool of frees or restitution overages. VSOs go through the following processes while fighting for its' victim's justice. Methodological Issues: VSOs seeks evidence, including that from recorded crime, crime surveys, records of convicted offenders, accounts of emotional responses to crime, etc., on a socially constructed basis. Therefore what VSOs concentrate is the data on crime that reflects the way crime has been assembled and taken place. There is no concern about the improperly collected information that reveals the crime scene. However, the VSO team is criticized for working in the following way: Crime Scene Investigation: The VSO is quite popular in taking decisions whether or not to investigate the location of the criminal offense. In some 'incidents' VSOs are right in predicting that a crime has indeed been committed and it is a 'crime scene'. However, in many situations it is observed that VSOs fail to predict the seriousness of the crime and does not consider that one of the initial and primary tasks of the crime scene investigator is to determine whether or not a crime has been committed. In this context the blame must not be put on to VSOs alone as in many European countries including UK, National training centers only conduct short courses for creating Victim support officers and team. Resources, instead of basing on the complexity and seriousness of the alleged incident are dependant on their officers' decision. Crime scene is not analysed on the basis of its full potential. This is true as in many cases it is seen that the police, the field scientist, the laboratory scientist and the prosecutor instead of joining together to produce a set of facts that make it unreasonable to believe any conclusion other than the one the facts support, are giving individual facts. Therefore, the facts taken individually are not exposed to reasonable doubts, helpful in solving the crime. VSOs are not concerned about the quality and nature of witnesses and evidences that must be attained. Instead they rely on quantities of evidences. Majority of cases are dependant upon those police officers who not only protect the offenders by creating complexities for the crime scene investigators but also play a critical role in determining whether the expertise of the forensic science laboratory will be tasked in a particular case. Poor Assessment: Victim Support team, prior to attending the crime scene is supposed to obtain the best possible assessment of the circumstances relating to the crime. It is often observed that instead of receiving a briefing from the senior investigating officer who has been appointed to conduct the investigation, the support team itself conducts investigation involved in the forensic crime scene. Often the blame is placed on the shoulders of police who will be responsible for the coordination of all the aspects of the forensic investigation. The 'when' factor is often neglected by the VSO team Court Proceedings: However, not all crimes are handled in negligence by VSOs as many lend themselves to these types of lawsuits, and victims' needs which have no relation to the potential for civil payments. VSOs instead of shortening the time frame in favour of victims prolong offenses' proceedings which take years to litigate and take severe emotional tolls on victims (Barbieri, 1989). Most important, these cases require 'deep pockets' if one has to settle the case in no time. This usually limits civil litigation to lawsuits against people and organizations that are rich or well-insured (Cleary, 1989).Despite a criminal proceeding in which a victim is allowed to sue the offender, rules limit insurance payments to negligent acts frequently close off insurance to victims who are intentionally harmed by their attackers (Stark and Goldstein, 1985). Victim's Compensation: The most significant loophole in the victim support program is the delay in providing compensations. Applications are submitted by the applicant in person. There is no legal instruction that VSO may submit it on behalf of the victim. More commonly, however, they are submitted on a form supplied by the board. Although application forms are available only from the Board, police stations and other agencies have copies of the program and procedural guides (Horswell, 2004, p. 12). Restitution orders are limited by the fact that they are as effective as their collection mechanisms, and cannot exceed offenders' ability to pay them. As a result many victims who are supposed to receive some sort of compensation not only fail to receive restitution, even if it has been ordered, but also many victims who somehow receive restitution still require other funds to meet all of the needs caused by the crimes against them. In this case it is observed that VSOs do nothing to help out their victims in receiving compensation. One of the victim support teams VALOR (1996) identified lack of coordination among the numerous agencies that handle aspects of the restitution process. Departments which were identified were probation, district attorneys' offices, victim witness programs, defense attorneys, and court clerks. Restitution has also been undermined and neglected by victim support teams for they say that it is due to increased imprisonment and mandatory sentences (Elias, 1993). Victim compensation programs do not include payments of lost work time for court appearances, because victims are supposed to receive them from district attorneys' offices. However since victims never receive these fees, the funds to cover them might be transferred from district attorneys' budgets to compensation programs, and the latter empowered to pay them. Victim support teams never strive for such compensation programs in favor of their victims particularly when their victims are at stake. In many cases they never contact the victims to be compensated for their costs and increasing the number of victims whose costs can be fully met. Critical evaluation of the contribution of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights to the development of rights for victims of crime The contribution of the European Union and the European Court of Justice plays a marginal role in the development of human rights for victims. This is evident from the notion that the regional human rights protection system in Europe is based on another organization: the Council of Europe. Crime victims are so much concerned by the Council of Europe that it has adopted the policies for securing crime and criminal by adopting and implementing the policies that prevent torture and degrading treatment or punishment. Other standard-setting documents promulgated by the UN presuppose the prohibition of torture. According to the European Council a victim is free to participate for seeking justice in the criminal justice system and obtain benefits from a fund established by the state to compensate crime victims. However, the rise of a permanent public police force and public prosecutors remained unable to create a significant role of the victim in the arrest, trial, and prosecution of criminals. Although the victim in many cases still signed the complaint that technically commenced a criminal proceeding and in most cases appeared as a witness at the trial of the accused, victims were eventually viewed as 'pieces of walking evidence'. Critics called the victim the forgotten man of the criminal justice system and spoke of victims as being 'twice victimized' once by the criminal and once by the criminal justice system itself (Stark & Goldstein, 1985, p. 14) European convention has made it possible for the court and the commission to make additional modifications to better coordinate and streamline the processing of individual petitions. However these changes could be made without a complete revision of the European Convention. Though European Council has made efforts to unite the Commission and the Court, who independently modify their Rules of Procedure and could work together to avoid conflicting provision, but still there are barriers. The Court could also allow all parties the victim, State and Commission to stipulate to a waiver of Commission proceedings. No doubt limited protocols were implemented initially in the European Convention. An example is that of the Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention, that allow legal persons, such as corporations, to resort directly to the Commission and the Court when their property has been illegally confiscated by the State (Pasqualucci, 2003, p. 21). EU despite several international conventions on human rights is still unable to draw a line between migration and crime. It is easy to understand why. New international frontiers have been created (e.g. the Baltic states, ex-Yugoslavia; the 'velvet divorce' of Czechoslovakia or Moldova), some by democratic agreement, others as a consequence of war. The rhetoric about a borderless Europe within the European Union has been, at least partially, translated into reality. Despite the Schengen convention, the vision of open borders has not been seen and welcomed open heartedly by many country citizens. The reason is the insecurity European Council has given to many country's citizens for they fear that their positions would be snatched by other migrants (Zielonka, 2002, p. 191). Therefore EU is doing nothing in order to console the poor citizens who are threatened by the issues like immigration and crime. Organized crime, involving the smuggling of both illegal goods and illegal persons, is perceived as a threat to Western societies and their standard of life. Moreover, economic divides are making cooperation difficult between law enforcement authorities across the frontier, particularly where corruption blurs the boundaries between the so-called 'forces of law and order' and the lawbreakers. Cross-border police co-operation in the EU is hampered by the diversity of national rules concerning police powers, substantive criminal offences and criminal procedures. European Community law has, to date, shown very little interest in police powers, except in the context of legal proceedings before the ECJ concerning the legitimacy of controls on personal identity carried out at the border. All EU members recognize that the rule of law in democratic societies demands that police forces must be subject to effective legal controls sufficient to prevent abuse of powers. Although the balance between the state's interest in the prosecution and detection of crime, on the one hand, and the protection of civil liberties, on the other hand, is not struck in identical ways throughout the EU (Anderson et al, 1995, p. 182). Many critics think that European Community lacks the legal competence to prescribe criminal offences or sanctions or to impose or enforce such criminal sanctions in favour of the victim (Tiedemann 1993). This is so because of a reserved view on the question of a Community competence in the criminal or penal domain. In a number of cases brought before it, the EU Court has, confirmed that national criminal law cannot be applied in isolation from its possible effects upon Community law. Therefore EU members States have implemented and enforced the performance of Community obligations by use of their own systems of criminal law, because of the so-called 'assimilation principle'. That principle, developed by the Court, has now occupied a prestigious position in Article 209a of the EC Treaty. Human rights have only been exploited by categorising 'Policing' by network and by remote control, otherwise in European societies human rights require a lot more than just making changes: in targets, technology, control points and conceptions of security. Drug trafficking, cross-border crimes, the globalisation of terrorism and mafia activities are always quoted to explain the failure of the trans-nationalisation of the police and the development of police networks at the European level. Critics say that EU police forces seek to adapt constantly to what they perceive, or what is presented to them, as an objective threat (terrorism, mafia, organized crime) (Zielonka, 2002, p. 214). It is often very technically criticised that the rule of law in policing or democratic and community-based policing is that each European police agency (the different national police forces, customs officers, immigration services, the diplomatic service and even the armed forces) presents its own solutions and considers itself as the more competent. This is the major obstruction in understanding human rights' problems as European security departments and Victim Support teams also confronts to the same problem, where we see each department working independently of other. The way Europol deals with terrorism and human rights issues is just awkward to a common citizen. The department of Justice want criminal police to accept information from the intelligence community without questioning the origin of the sources. The framework for cooperation within police networks which was based on mutual trust and which prevented the participation of intelligence services is now unreliable for a common man or a victim seeking justice. The pressure on NATO to take over responsibility for the struggle against terrorism reinforces the positions of the second-pillar groups. Of course, if Europol were to follow this line, its relationship with, first, Eurojust and, second, the European Court of Human Rights would also change. The judiciary would not agree to 'intelligence sharing' that could put people under surveillance without any evidence at the prosecution level. In several European countries, all kinds of penal and social policies that had previously been implemented with respect to victims seeking justice have been subject to questioning and modification (Bailleau, 1996). The tension between the feeling of insecurity on behalf of the victim and the responses by the state apparatus is only one side of a more general questioning. The other side depicts the dominant role of the state which is currently at stake within European societies (Ehrenberg, 1995). Penal policies, the articles and protocols on Human Rights Convention are unable to equip the victim with the 'right to fight' attitude unless and until they are properly implemented. References Anderson Malcolm, Boer den Monics, Cullen Peter, Gilmore William, Raab Charles & Walker Neil, (1995) Policing the European Union: Clarendon Press: Oxford. Anonymous, National Consumer council Accessed from < http://www.ncc.org.uk/nccpdf/poldocs/NCC128a_br_ID_theft.pdf> Bailleau, F. (1996), Les jeunes face la justice pnale. Analyse critique de l'application de l'ordonnance de 1945, Paris: Syros. Barbieri, M. "Civil Suits for Sexual Assault Victims: The Downside." 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Sarnoff Susan Kiss, (1996) Paying for Crime: The Policies and Possibilities of Crime Victim Reimbursement: Praeger Publishers: Westport, CT. Stark, J., and H. Goldstein. (1985) The Rights of Crime Victims. New York: Bantam Books for the American Civil Liberties Union. Stark H. James & Goldstein W. Howard, (1985) The Rights of Crime Victims: Bantam Books: Toronto. Tiedemann K. (1993). "Europisches Gemeinschaftsrecht und Strafrecht" In: Neue Juristische Wochenschrift, 23-31. Read More