Essay on Care and Protection of Victims in other Countries !
The continental countries have recognised two types of rights for victims of crime as basic and indispensable. They are right of victim (s) to participate in criminal proceedings, which includes right to be impleaded, right to know and to be heard and help the court to find out the truth. The other right which every victim must avail is to seek and receive compensation for the harm or injuries suffered including right to appropriate interim reliefs during the court proceedings.
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ADVERTISEMENTS:
The French criminal justice system entitles all the parties who suffer injuries or damages as a result of crime, to be impleaded as parties right from the time of the investigation stage. They can move the court for appropriate action if they find that the investigation is being unnecessarily delayed or distorted. The participation of victim in the criminal proceedings is deemed necessary from the point of view of supplementing the evidence.
It may also help in eliminating the possibility of unjustified withdrawal or closure of the case on extraneous or flimsy grounds as the victim may resist the same or in case the victim has died, his legal representatives may move the court for the cause of justice to the deceased victim. Even the registered welfare organisations may get themselves impleaded in case of victims of rape or sexual offences or where the victim is a child.
The modern American criminal justice system seeks to be more focused on safeguarding the rights and interests of the victims of crime by affording there every possible opportunity to ventilate their just cause before the trial court and seek relief.
The victimological developments in USA during the past three decades have shown that understanding of victim facilitation helps considerably in increasing public awareness about the victim-offender relationship and at the same time it also helps in crime investigations.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Mauvice Godwin (1998) has suggested that victim’s social behaviour and personality are directly related to his involvement in crime and therefore, study of victims is necessarily multi disciplinary in nature. It not only involves scope for compensation to the victim as a means of Redressal but also approaches the problems of victims form the spidemiological point of view.
The National Crime Victimization Suvery is the primary source of information on statistics relating to victims of crime in United States. It represents victimization rate for different offences and various segments of the population such as women, elderly citizens, racial groups, urban groups, etc. The survey also contains data regarding the frequency and consequences of criminal victimization in the country which enables the criminal law agencies to formulate preventive strategies to minimise victimization.
The Supreme Court of the U.S. recognised the rights of crime victim for the first time in the case of Payne v. Tennessee at the sentencing stage of the trial. It marks the beginning of judicial recognition of the rights of victims and need for restorative justice for them. It has now been accepted as an indispensable aspect of the American criminal justice system.
A victim impact panel is formed in which the crime victim (relatives of deceased victim) meets with the offender after his conviction and tells him about the impact of crime and asks for restoration.