18 - General

Question 1

Is the victim just a consumer of services?

Answer 1

The development of victims’ services and governmental policy has primarily focussed on the idea of the victim as an individual consumer of services, rather than someone with broader political, social and economic rights

(Spalek 2006).

The identification of victim services is subjective and remains closely linked to a notion of the deserving victim. It is also bound by definitions of “what is criminal”. The impact of financial crimes, white collar crimes and internet crimes for example are frequently misunderstood and any move towards a better understanding of the incredible diversity of victim experiences and a more detailed appreciation of victim behaviours remains in its infancy. This is not particular to the criminal justice system and many agencies outside of the criminal justice process, such as housing and health also continue to fail to meet many victims’ needs.

Question 2

Changes to Victim Status Goodey (2005 p13)

Answer 2

The recording of crime and an increase in official crime rates.

Revelations in the extensive nature of hidden crime as revealed by crime surveys (the British Crime Survey has been in existence since1981).

A heightened fear of crime amongst the public.

A public intolerance towards increasing crime and social disorder.

A stated failure of an offender treatment model and its replacement with more retributive justice linked to victims’ rights.

Media reports of crime against vulnerable victims and victims’ maltreatment by the Criminal Justice System.

A recognition and politicisation by feminists of the problem of violence against women/child abuse.

A recognition and politicisation by civil action groups of the problem of racist violence(and now issues of offences against other groups, such as those with disabilities, the elderly etc.).

A politicisation of rising crime rates by politicians focusing variously on ‘law and order’, ‘ crime reduction’ and victims as ‘ vote winners’

A movement towards citizen’s charters/patients’ rights that also encompasses victims.

Question 3

Who Defines?

Answer 3

The Result of Social Construction:- Quinney (1975)- We define an act as criminal because there is someone whom we can identify as a victim.

Culture Bound: The way in which society defines/perceives crime determines who is the victim. (Johnson and Wasielewski, 1982; Barbour, 1985; United Nations Secretariat, 1985).

Legislation generally defines the criminal activity not the victim status

Question 4

What is a Victim?

Answer 4

For the purposes of the Victims’ Code (2006), a ‘victim’ is:

a person who has suffered harm, including physical, mental or emotional harm or economic loss which was directly caused by criminal conduct;

a close relative of a person whose death was directly caused by criminal conduct.

Question 5

What is the Code of Practice for Victim’s of Crime?

Answer 5

The Code of Practice for Victims’ of Crime (the ‘Victims’ Code’) was first introduced on 3 April 2006 and sets out a minimum standard of service that victims can expect from those criminal justice agencies that are signatories to it.

The Victims’ Code aims to ensure that victims of criminal conduct are provided with timely, accurate information about their case, at all stages of the criminal justice process. The Victims’ Code has been revised as part of the Government’s wider strategy to reform victim and witness services and came in to force on 10 December.

Question 6

Section 16 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999…

Answer 6

A vulnerable victim is eligible for enhanced services under the Code:

If under the age of 17 at the time of the offence

If the service provider considers that the quality of evidence given by the victim is likely to be diminished by reason of

(a) suffering from mental disorder within the meaning of the Mental Health Act 1983
(b) having a significant impairment of intelligence and social functioning
(c) having a physical disability or suffering from a physical disorder

Question 7

Intimidated victims…

Answer 7

An intimidated victim has a wider definition than that used in the 1999 Act, although the starting point is the same.

4.6 For the purposes of the Code a victim of criminal conduct is eligible for an enhanced service under the Code if the service provider is satisfied that the quality of evidence given by the victim is likely to be diminished by reason of fear or distress on the part of the victim in connection with testifying in the proceedings

Question 8

Which agencies are bound by the victims code?

Answer 8

All police forces for police areas in England and Wales, the British Transport Police and the Ministry of Defence Police

Crown Prosecution Service

Her Majesty’s Court Service

Joint police/Crown Prosecution Service Witness Care Units

Parole Board

Prison Service

Local Probation Boards

Youth Offending Teams

Criminal Compensation Authority

Criminal Injuries

Compensation Appeals Panel

Criminal Cases Review Commission

Question 9

What Special Measures are available?

Answer 9

Giving evidence behind a screen positioned around the witness box;

Giving evidence by a live TV link from a room outside the courtroom;

Giving evidence in private by clearing the courtroom of members of the public (available for sexual offence cases and cases involving witness intimidation);

Removal of wigs and gowns by judges and lawyers;

Use of video-recorded interviews as evidence in chief;

Examination of the witness through a Registered Intermediary (available for vulnerable witnesses);

The provision of aids to communication such as through a computer or other device to communicate when giving evidence (available for vulnerable witnesses).

Video-recorded cross examination (‘section 28’)

Question 10

Special Measures research…

Answer 10

The research evidence shows a number of positive impacts for victims and witnesses since the introduction of special measures: such as increased witness satisfaction; reduced anxiety associated with attending court and giving evidence (e.g. Hamlyn et al., 2004; McLeod et al., 2010a); and feeling that special measures helped them to give evidence (Franklyn, 2012)

Vulnerable or intimidated witnesses are not consulted on, or made aware of, the range of special measures options available to them (Hamlyn et al., 2004; Plotnikoff and Woolfson, 2009; Stern, 2010)

Where a vulnerable or intimidated witness has been identified, early special measures discussions between the police and the CPS are rare (Cooper and Roberts, 2005; McLeod et al., 2010b);

Vulnerable and intimidated witnesses are not always identified at the earliest opportunity (Payne, 2009) and those not identified by the police are not always picked up by the CPS or by the WCU (Burton et al., 2006; CPS, 2009a; HMCPSI, 2009; McLeod et al, 2010b);

Applications are often made late (Burton et al., 2006; HMCPSI, 2009; Plotnikoff and Woolfson, 2009; McLeod et al., 2010b; Payne, 2010)

Special measures meetings between the CPS and vulnerable or intimidated witnesses are infrequent (Cooper and Roberts, 2005; Burton et al 2006);

Some witnesses who are eligible for special measures are not identified as vulnerable or intimidated until they arrive in court on the day of trial (Burton et al., 2006; Payne, 2009);

Victim and witness needs are not always considered by the CPS at the charging stage (CPS 2009a; HMCPSI, 2009);

Question 11

The ‘ideal’ victim

Answer 11

The Victim is weak in relation to the offender- female, sick, very old or very young (or a combination)

The victim is, if not acting virtuously, then at least going about their legitimate, ordinary every day business

The victim is blameless for what happened

The victim is unrelated to and does not know the ‘stranger’ who committed the offence

The offender is unambiguously big and bad

Victim has the right combination of power, influence or sympathy to successfully elicit victim status without threatening (and thus risking opposition from) strong countervailing vested interests
Based on Christie, (1986) in Dignan,(2005)

This group includes those who are perceived as vulnerable, defenceless, innocent and worthy of sympathy and compassion.

Elderly women and young children, it is suggested, are typical ‘ideal victims’, whereas young men, the homeless, those with drug problems, and others existing on the margins of society may find it much more difficult to achieve legitimate victim status, still less secure a conviction in court (Carrabine et al., 2004).

Question 12

Status of Crime Victims in Media Representations

Answer 12

White Collar Crime

Property Crime

Violence & Sexual Offending

Question 13

The Victim in the ‘Process’

Answer 13

Crime Committed

Victim seeks help - 999

Emergency services attend

Police take statements
Victims Code becomes ‘Live’ for this Case
Referral to Victim Support, Updates to victim etc

Crime Investigated

Suspect Arrested

Crown Prosecution Service decides to charge
Discussion about possible Special Measures for Victim / Witness

Witness Care considers full assessment of needs if not guilty plea

Court Case
Post court notification by Probation Service etc when offender released from prison in serious cases

Restorative justice if appropriate

Whilst the victim sits bang in the middle of proceedures within the CJS its position doesnt unhappily appear to be respected as the principal catalyst for engagement of systems and services.

It has in fact historically been seen as the facilitator for evidence supporting the machine of justice rather than having a need to resolve personal hurt or harm as a result of victimisation

Question 14

What are the different types of victims?

Answer 14

Primary

Secondary

Tertiary

Question 15

Primary Victims

Answer 15

Primary Victims are considered to be those persons who are personally victimised

Or

A primary victim is someone who is involved as a participant in an incident or accident and directly affected by it.

Question 16

Secondary Victims

Answer 16

Secondary Victims are those who are financially or psychologically dependent on the primary victims (e.g. a child, spouse or parent)

Or

A secondary victim is someone who witnesses an incident or accident to another or comes upon the immediate aftermath of it.

Question 17

Tertiary Victims

Answer 17

Tertiary Victims have been described as those persons whose lifestyles have been greatly inconvenienced by excessive fear of crime, as well as taxpayers, rate-payers, insurers and consumers who have to bear the cost to society of crime

Question 18

What is Secondary Victimisation?

Answer 18

Secondary Victimisation:
refers to “the various additional adverse material and emotional consequences that a victim may experience at the hands of all those responsible for responding to an offence”

Question 19

Whitrod (1980) has

elaborated on this classification…

Answer 19

Whitrod (1980) has
elaborated on this classification by adding a category of those persons who are financially or psychologically dependent on the offender.

Question 20

How can Secondary Victimisation occur?

Answer 20

Secondary victimisation can occur at the hands of police officers, lawyers, judges and magistrates, insurance company staff, politicians, the media the criminal injuries compensation authority, probation officers and youth offending team officers, and many others.

It arises from suspicion, lack of awareness, stereotyping, institutional rules and culture, lack of leadership by senior agency staff, and a range of other reasons.

Sir William Macpherson wrote in the inquiry report on the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence and the subsequent treatment of his family and his friend Duwayne Brooks that the inquiry showed how investigations could be marred by

“a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers”

Question 21

History…

Answer 21

The Governments vision is of a criminal justice system in which the needs and concerns of victims and witnesses are central (Home Office 2005a:2)

Much early post-war criminology could be described without exaggeration as comprising a victim-free zone, though some feminist criminologists of the 1970s and early 1980s as formerly discussed helped to bucking the trend (Rock, 2002a: 3).

However, even this was prompted by the work of feminist political activists.

For other radical criminologists (for example, Lea and Young, 1984) it took the incontrovertible data provided by the first British Crime Survey (BCS) to drive home the message that much crime impacts most heavily on the poorest and least privileged urban sectors of the community.

Or, as Downes (1983) had rather more pithily put it, much crime operates as a ‘regressive tax on the poor’
Some police studies, for example, have engendered a much more realistic – and modest – appreciation of the extent to which the police
depend upon victims’ readiness to report crime and provide relevant information rather than their own unaided powers of detection (see Reiss, 1970;Shapland and Vagg, 1988).

Others (for example, Shapland and Vagg, 1988:136ff; Bucke, 1995; Sims and Myhill, 2000) have documented widespread dissatisfaction on the part of victims at the quality of service they receive from the police and other criminal justice agencies, which is further compounded by declining detection rates
At a more mundane but equally significant level– not least because its effects have had a more immediate personal impact –the period between the early 1950s and mid-1990s witnessed a dramatic escalation in the level of recorded crime in most modern industrial countries

Additional factors which contributed to the higher public profile now accorded to victims was a growing sensitization during the 1960s and 1970s towards the existence and needs of particular groups of ‘vulnerable’ victims: notably women who experienced domestic violence at the hands of abusive partners; women who had been sexually assaulted or raped; and children who were the victims of incest or other forms of abuse.

The women’s movement, comprising political and practical activists who were inspired and often radicalized by feminist ideals, played a major role in this process. Campaigning activists responded by not only setting up support networks such as the Women’s Refuge Movement and ‘Rape Crisis Centres’, but also by drawing attention to the manifest inadequacies of the criminal justice system in dealing with such offences.

Initiatives such as these helped to fuel broader concerns about the way victims in general are dealt with, and these now form part of the agenda of the so-called ‘victims’ movement’, though the aptness of this term is belied by its ideological diversity spate of well-publicized incidents both at home and abroad involving serious acts of politically inspired criminal violence.

They include acts of terrorism that were directed against innocent civilians, political assassinations, violent outbursts resulting from ethnic or inter communal tensions and even, on occasion, violent acts carried out by state agencies.