NCJ Number
208540
Journal
Criminal Justice Volume: 4 Issue: 4 Dated: November 2004 Pages: 331-354
Date Published
November 2004
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This article analyzes the development of the Director of Public Prosecutions in England and Wales in 1879 as a movement toward the exclusion of the victim in the criminal justice process.
Abstract
Historically, the victim as a protagonist in the criminal justice system has been nearly invisible, cloaked behind the offices of police and public prosecutors. While there is no formal history of the victim of crime, a history can be pieced together. The current article examines the 1879 development of the Director of Public Prosecutions in England and Wales as the beginning of a trajectory that has removed the crime victim from the formal criminal justice process, reducing the personal crime victim to a mere claimant. In the early 19th century, crimes were viewed as an attack on a person and the victim was an integral part of the process of punishing the offenders. The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions was developed in 1879 with reluctance and hesitancy concerning the form private prosecutions would take in England and Wales. The state was granted the power to prosecute because, it was reasoned, crime affects the collectivity and, as such, it is the duty of public officials to formally prosecute offenders in the name of the collectivity. Thus, the development of the Director of Public Prosecutions in England and Wales in 1879 set the course for an ever-narrowing role for personal crime victims within formal criminal justice processes. The state has not completely eclipsed the personal crime victim in the criminal justice process, however, and the tensions inherent between the state as prosecutor and individuals as crime victims is still apparent today. Notes, references