NCJ Number
160208
Date Published
1996
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This overview of the history and nature of the victims' movement in the United States includes an analysis of media coverage of crime victims, a discussion of businesses that sell products and services to victims, and a review of social movements that have taken up the victim's cause.
Abstract
An overview of the history of the focus on crime victims in American criminal justice notes that in colonial America, victims were the central figures in the criminal justice drama, as they conducted their own investigations, paid for warrants to have sheriffs make arrests, and hired private attorneys to indict and prosecute their alleged offenders; convicts were forced to repay victims up to three times as much as they damaged or stole. The fates of offenders were closely tied to the wishes of their victims. After the Revolutionary War, however, and the framing of the Constitution, distinctions arose between offenses against the social order (crimes) and harmful acts inflicted on one individual by another (torts or civil wrongs). It was not until the early 1960's that the plight of crime victims was rediscovered, largely under the influence of victim self-help groups, social scientists, the media, medical professionals, and some criminal justice professionals and legislators. Although the news media have helped focus the public on victims' plights, the coverage has not always been accurate nor ethical. The media has tended to focus on dramatic crimes, thus distorting the nature of crime patterns, and to sensationalize the impact of the crime on victims. Also, businesses have discovered in crime victims an untapped market for goods and services. Many victims become willing consumers who search for products that will protect them from any further harm. This trend has the potential for commercial exploitation of victims and the unequal distribution of security and crime prevention measures to those who can afford to pay for them. The emergence, growth, and development of the victims' rights movement has been fostered by campaigns conducted by members of other social movements whose aims coincided with the goals of particular groups of victims. The most important contributions to the progress of the victims' rights movement are being made by those in the law-and-order movement, the women's movement, and the civil rights and civil liberties movements. 50 references, questions for discussion, and suggested student applications of the chapter material