Week 7: Victim Support

We've devoted quite a lot of attention to things that victims need (but aren't getting) and problems with the criminal justice system. This week, for a change, we looked at one of the positive features of the system and described how it actually does give victims something they need.

Victim Support is a charity, albeit one with a constant source of funding from the Home Office; it's probably best considered as a semi-detached part of the criminal justice system. It has a public face which campaigns for a better deal for victims, but it's not primarily a campaigning organisation: the bulk of what it does is simply to provide support to victims. Initially a purely voluntary organisation, Victim Support now has a substantial layer of permanent staff, but the people at the sharp end are still mainly volunteers: the organisation has something like a 1:4 staff:volunteer ratio. This means that Victim Support can offer a level of personal commitment and dedication which you don't always get from a government department: as a rule, people who work for Victim Support are doing it because they really want to. At the same time, Victim Support has 'core' Home Office funding, i.e. funding which isn't going to be turned off overnight; this supports its administrative superstructure and makes it possible to train and manage all those volunteers.

When Victim Support does campaign on behalf of victims, it does so in a very specific way. Unlike some groups which claim to speak on behalf of victims, Victim Support never claims that 'victims' in general want more of a particular kind of sentence (either harsher or more lenient). Victim Support's view, based on years of working with victims, is that 'victims' as a group don't have any particular view on how criminal cases should be resolved: some victims are very vindictive, some are forgiving, some don't care either way and just want to put the crime behind them. Instead of outcome-oriented reforms, Victim Support focuses on the process. Victims may not have any views in common, but what they do have in common is the experience of being a victim and being involved in the criminal justice system.

Rights for victims within the criminal justice process are Victim Support's key campaigning priority. Over the years, most of Victim Support's core demands have been met to a greater or lesser degree; the only one which has clearly not been met is the universal right to compensation. The key process-based rights of respect, protection and information (giving and receiving) are now very largely respected, along with the negative right of not having responsibility for the outcome of cases.

But is this enough? Should victims have more involvement with criminal cases - or even control over them? Is that what victims want? Is it even possible? More on these questions next week.