Crime victims 'are being let down by the justice system'

[alp227]

Thousands of victims of crime are being so let down by the justice system they are less likely to report incidents in the future, according to new research.

A report released on Sunday, based on official government data and survey findings by charity Victim Support, claims that guidelines on dealing with victims are routinely broken and that public confidence in the criminal justice system is being undermined.

Under the victim's Code of Practice, which sets out rules for dealing with the victims of crime, affected individuals must be updated at least once a month about the progress in their cases until the investigation is closed. Victims must also be informed about key events such as arrests, charges, bail, summons and remand.

However, the charity found that victims are kept informed about their case to a satisfactory level in only around half of all reported crimes. It said that in a third of cases victims heard nothing more from the authorities after reporting the crime.

full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/11/crime-victims-justice-system

I'm an American and have heard stories about injured robbers in Britain who successfully sued their targeted homeowners. And about the relapses of the two killers of James Bulger.

[non sociopath skin]

1. Your sources, please?

I'd be particularly interested in hearing about the "relapse" of Robert Thompson, of which nothing has been reported here.

The Skin

[alp227]

2. Jon Venables relapsed.

He was over child porn charges after serving prison time from 1993-2001. What they got that they could NOT get in the US is a new ID a la "witness protection" yet Bulger's parents couldn't persuade the European Court of Human Rights to let them have a say in sentencing. Since July 2010, Venables has served a 2-year sentence after pleading guilty. Meanwhile, Robert Thompson is nowhere to be found at this time.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. 2 good things there - parents didn't have a say in sentencing, and Thompson can't be found

because retribution is not desirable - either from a victim, or a victim's family, that wants it more than others; or from the many undoubted violent members of the public who would seriously injure or kill Thompson if they knew who he was.

If you think justice does involve making the criminals suffer, even when they were pre-teens at the time of committing the crime, then surely you can at least see that it should be left up to the professionals working in the state justice system to decide on the punishment, rather than grieving relatives who cannot judge rationally, or the worst of the public who want to take the law into their own hands.

[LeftishBrit]

4. In general, family members don't have a say in sentencing here...

and I think that is a very good thing, as it is likely to lead to considerable unfairness. I.e. people who murder or injure someone with attractive, articulate relatives will under such circumstances get a longer sentence than those who do the same to someone without a family that cares about them, or whose family members are unattractive, inarticulate, or perhaps have some sort of criminal record themselves.

Also, children in particular are much more likely to be abused or murdered *by* their family members than by strangers. The mother, who looked away while her boyfriend abused and eventually murdered her child, is less likely to present an emotionally convincing argument for increasing the killer's sentence, than the parents whose child was killed by a stranger - but the former is more typical, and the child's life no less valuable.

There is already a lot of inconsistency in sentencing, but allowing such factors to be taken into account can only increase it.

[non sociopath skin]

6. So if he can't be found, how do you know he's "relapsed"?

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

5. I think you're conflating two different issues here...

One is that victims, and often witnesses if it comes to that, are often messed around administratively, and sometimes treated almost as though they are culprits themselves - e.g. I know someone who did her duty as a good citizen of reporting an accident (not even a crime) that she'd witnessed, and was then treated by the police as almost a criminal herself, because she did not have all her documents ready to hand right at the time when she spoke to the police. Maybe after that she won't be as conscientious about reporting things next time!

And in the past, victims of rape or sexual abuse in particular were often treated by the authorities as though they must have done something to deserve it, and while this has been somewhat modified, it still can happen.

So I agree that victims are often badly treated.

However, there is also a tendency in the tabloid press in particular to imply that any 'innocent till proved guilty' attitude to suspects is equivalent to unfairness to victims, and in some cases to encourage what amounts to vigilante justice. For example, some years ago the Sun promoted a campaign of 'naming and shaming' supposed paedophiles, which in some cases led to threats and harrassment of innocent people who lived in homes *previously* occupied by people prosecuted for sex offences, and even on one occasion the vandalism of the home of a *paediatrician* whose job title was confused with the word 'paedophile'. This sort of campaign does not help victims, or anyone else.