Evaluate the development of the victims’ rights movement, its effectiveness, and the ways it has helped victims seek justice.
This section provides additional details of the victims’ rights movement in light of how it has helped victims, especially with regard to seeking help. It is important to understand how victims seek help, whether through formal or informal methods, in order to measure the effectiveness of different programs for victims. If victims do not report their crimes through formal help-seeking channels, especially law enforcement, they forfeit many rights brought about by the victims’ rights movement. We know that for some crimes, like sexual assault, the reporting rates are very low, which leaves victims turning to informal supports like family and friends for their recovery.
The Victims’ Rights Movement
The module “Introduction to Victimology” introduced the reader briefly to the victims’ rights movement. This movement has occurred primarily through legal actions to get the courts and legislators to write laws to ensure the following:
• Victims’ rights are included in the legal process. • Victims have legal standing in cases. • Victims have the right to be informed about cases. • Victims have the right to privacy.
Achievements of the Victims’ Rights Movements
The victims’ rights movement has been an important tool for victims to redefine their roles and voice in the criminal justice system (CJS). According to Beloof (2005), the victims’ rights movement occurred in three waves. The first was focused on statutory rights of victims, while the second focused on procedural rights, including constitutional rights in 33 states (these were described in prior modules; key cases were discussed in the module “Victims and the Criminal Justice System”). Although first and second wave victims’ rights helped victims significantly, they did not ensure that victims had standing, rights, and review.
Standing is the ability of a party to demonstrate sufficient connection to, and harm from, a crime to support that party’s participation in the case. Standing can be demonstrated in two ways relative to our discussion:
1. Direct harm from the event, for example, you were the crime victim
2. Harm involved—has some reasonable relation to the victim’s situation and not participating will continue to cause harm to the victim, or to others who cannot advocate for themselves
Standing is important because it gives the victim a place in the court case, and it allows the victim to have a voice in the process. Yet, access to the courts was limited by the language of the laws, even constitutional changes, that permitted state governments to exercise discretion to infringe severely on, or completely eliminate, victims’ rights guaranteed by those laws (Beloof, 2005). Although the first and second waves were critical to victims’ rights, they fell short of giving victims a complete role in the CJS process.
Third-wave victims’ rights have focused the conversation around rights that victims do not have and expanded the discussion into new areas, like cyber victims (Giannini, 2015), the rights of sexual assault victims in the military, and restitution for victims of child pornography (Cassell, 2015). The increased focus on victims, not just in the United States but also globally, shows a shift from basic rights to empowering victims to have an active and vital role within the CJS. The movement has improved court precedent and legal statutes, like the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, that have expanded victims standing in the courts. The third wave has increased victims’ access to lawyers and compensation. It has also made it possible for victims to testify in court, both during the case and during sentencing, and to be notified of proceeding in the case, as well as actions that might happen with the offender, such as release. Discussions even consider criminal laws in terms that fully protect victims against all dimensions of victimization, which would not have been imaginable several decades ago (Cassell, 2015; Leary, 2015).
Increasingly, conversations comparing U.S. victims’ rights to other countries and international victims’ rights is growing. The purpose of these comparisons is to ensue victims rights globally. One areas that is being discussed is including the rights of genocide victims to be heard during Hague’s criminal court cases, which historically was not allowed. These changes have empowered victims and given victims an increasingly protected place within the CJS.
Victims’ rights have advanced significantly during the last 30 years. Victims are gaining greater integration into the CJS process and are becoming more protected within the system. Image: Love shouldn’t hurt. Author:
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Sydney Sims.