How effective and influential have the victo- ries of these campaigns really been?

Similarly, liberal activists in the civil rights movement focused their energies on opposing

entrenched racist beliefs and discriminatory prac- tices that encouraged members of the white major- ity to intimidate, harass, and attack people of color. Over the decades since the 1950s, this movement has brought together organizations representing the interests of a wide range of minority groups, in order to direct attention to the special threats posed by racist violence, from lynch mobs to Ku Klux Klan terrorism in the form of bombings and assassinations.

In recent years, one of the movement’s major concerns has been convincing the government to provide enhanced protection to individuals who are the targets of bias crimes, which are motivated by the perpetrators’ hatred of the “kind of person” the victim represents. Bias crimes can range from harassment and vandalism to arson, beatings, and slayings. Civil rights groups have been instrumental in lobbying state legislatures to impose stiffer penal- ties on attackers whose behavior is fueled by bigotry and in establishing specialized police squads to more effectively deter or solve these inflammatory viola- tions of the law. Otherwise, these divisive crimes could polarize communities along racial and ethnic lines and thereby undermine the ongoing American experiment of fostering multicultural tolerance and the celebration of diversity (see Levin and McDevitt, 2003).

Civil rights organizations also try to mobilize public support to demand evenhandedness in the administration of justice. A double standard, although more subtle today than in the past, may still infect the operations of the criminal justice sys- tem. Crimes by black perpetrators against white victims always have been taken very seriously— thoroughly investigated, quickly solved, vigorously prosecuted, and severely punished. However, crimes by white offenders against black victims, as well as by blacks against other blacks (see Ebony, 1979) have rarely evoked the same governmental response and public outrage. The more frequent imposition of the death penalty on murderers who kill whites, especially blacks who slay whites, is the clearest example of a discriminatory double standard (see Baldus, 2003). Civil rights activists also point out that members of minority groups

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continue to face graver risks of becoming victims of official misconduct in the form of racial profiling and police brutality—or even worse, the unjustified use of deadly force—as well as false accusations, frame-ups, wrongful convictions, and other miscar- riages of justice.

Additional Contributions by Other Social Movements Social movements that champion the causes of civil liberties, children’s rights, senior citizens’ rights, homosexual rights, and self-help also have made significant contributions to bettering the situation of victims.

The civil liberties movement’s primary focus is to preserve constitutional safeguards and due pro- cess guarantees that protect suspects, arrestees, defendants, and prisoners from abuses of govern- mental power by overzealous criminal justice offi- cials. However, civil liberties organizations have won court victories that have benefited victims of street crime in two ways: by furthering police pro- fessionalism and by extending the doctrine of “equal protection under the law.”

In professionalized police departments, officers must meet higher educational and training require- ments and must abide by more demanding stan- dards. As a result, victims are more likely to receive prompt responses, effective service, and sensitive treatment. If they don’t, channels exist through which they can redress their grievances. Guarantees of equal protection enable minority communities to gain access to the police and pros- ecutorial assistance to which they are entitled and to insist upon their right to improved, more profes- sionally trained law enforcement in contrast to the under-policing they endured until recently. This improves the prospects for careful and respon- sive handling for complainants whose calls for help were given short shrift in the past when offi- cials discriminated against them due to their race, ethnicity, sex, age, social class, disability, or some other disadvantage (Walker, 1982; and Stark and Goldstein, 1985).

Children’s rights groups campaign against sexual abuse, physical abuse, severe corporal punishment, gross neglect, and other forms of

maltreatment of youngsters. Their successes include stricter reporting requirements of cases of suspected abuse; improved procedures for arrest, prosecution, and conviction of offenders; greater sensitivity to the needs of victimized children as complaining witnesses; enhanced protection and prevention services; and more effective parenting instruction programs.

At the other end of the age spectrum, activists in senior citizens’ groups have pressured some police departments to establish special squads to protect older people from younger robbers and swindlers and have brought about greater awareness of the problem of elder abuse—financial, emo- tional, and physical mistreatment by family mem- bers or caretakers (see Smith and Freinkel, 1988).

The gay rights movement originally called attention to the vulnerability of male homosexuals and lesbians to blackmail, exploitation by organized crime syndicates that ran bars and clubs, and police harassment of those who deserved protection (see Maghan and Sagarin, 1983). The movement now focuses on preventing street assaults (“gay-bashing”) against suspected homosexuals and lesbians—hate crimes that are motivated by the offenders’ disdain for the victims’ presumed sexual orientation.

Groups that are part of the self-help move- ment have set up dependable support systems for injured parties by combining the participatory spirit of the grassroots protest movements of the 1960s with the self-improvement ideals of the human potential movement of the 1970s. The ideology of self-help is based upon a fundamental organizing principle: that people who have directly experi- enced the pain and suffering of being harmed and are still struggling to overcome these hardships themselves can foster a sense of solidarity and mutual support that is more comforting and effec- tive than the services offered by impersonal bureau- cracies and emotionally detached professional caregivers (Gartner and Riessman, 1980).

Even the prisoners’ rights movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s may have inspired victim activism. Inmates rebelled at a number of cor- rectional institutions, often in vicious and counter- productive ways. They protested overcrowded

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conditions; demanded decent living standards; insisted on greater ways of communicating with the outside world (via uncensored mail, access to the mass media, more family visits, and meetings with lawyers); asked for freedom of religion; called for more opportunities for rehabilitation, education, and job training; and complained about mistreat- ment and brutality by guards (see ACLU, 2008). Many people harmed by these incarcerated offen- ders surely wondered, “if convicts deserve better treatment from the authorities, don’t we, too?”

The task for victimologists is to assess the impact that all these other social movements have had on shaping the course of the victims’ move- ment over the decades, as well as on alleviating the suffering of persons harmed by criminals these days. How effective and influential have the victo- ries of these campaigns really been?