Victims' Needs or Victims' Rights: Alternative Approaches to Policymaking (From Victims of Crime: A New Deal?, P 127-137, 1988, Mike Maguire and John Pointing, eds. -- See NCJ-113954)

• NCJ Number: 113966
• Author(s): R I Mawby
• Date Published: 1988
• Length: 11 pages
• Sale Source: Open University Press
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

A just society should recognize and meet crime victims' needs, set standards on the rights and entitlements of crime victims irrespective of needs, and balance these against the requirement of merit.

Abstract

Although the recent upsurge of interest in the plight of crime victims in the United Kingdom has purported to focus on victims' needs created by their victimization, the 'needs-based' government initiatives, e.g., the state victim compensation scheme, have met the needs of only a minority of victims. Some developments in the voluntary sector, too, are needs based. Other initiatives in the feminist tradition (rape crisis centers and battered women's shelters) and some American initiatives are rights-based and seem preferable in many respects, since rights-based initiatives impose a legal obligation rather than a voluntary option for meeting crime victim's needs. Crime victims often have needs for financial, psychological, or social support, and such needs are particularly salient when the victim is elderly, isolated, female, or in other respects vulnerable and deserving. A justice model, however, must go further than responding only to victims' needs. It must also include acceptance of victims' rights. 3 notes.