NCJ Number
223151
Date Published
2007
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This chapter examines the role of voluntary-sector agencies that deliver services to crime victims and campaign for their rights in the United Kingdom, the United States, and European countries.
Abstract
Voluntary-sector involvement in issues related to crime victims began in the United States. Early efforts (1960s and 1970s) of voluntary-sector victim’s rights and services groups focused on children as victims of physical abuse and women as rape victims and victims of domestic violence. Awareness of violence and other abuse of women and children were also increasing in other countries, helped by some of the research published in the United States. Europe's first women's refuge was established in London in 1972, and the first rape crisis center, also in London, was established in 1976. The voluntary sector in the United Kingdom did not follow the United States' example in founding shelters for children, because the statutory social services were more highly developed and prepared to assume responsibility for dealing with child abuse. There has been competition for resources among victim support agencies within the United Kingdom since the 1980s, which has made cooperation among them difficult at both the national and local levels. Voluntary organizations' dependence on government funding for their operation as well as their involvement in forging government policy regarding victim services has made it difficult for them to criticize existing policy. Victim services across Europe did not develop along the same lines as those in the United Kingdom. The development of the victim movement in Europe was reactive, encouraged by a number of international initiatives, such as a convention and two important recommendations by the Council of Europe in 1983, 1985, and 1987, which pertained to state compensation, the position of the victim in the criminal justice system, and assistance to victims. 7 notes and 40 references