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Victims' Rights
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Do Victim’s Need More Rights? When I was a child my best friend, Rosie, and I would play at each other’s houses and we would walk each other half way home at the end of each day. Ashburn Village, the neighborhood we lived in, was an upper class development and it was considered safe. On October 14, 1991 the people of this neighborhood found that it was just the opposite. At four o’clock that afternoon Rosie and I were playing school in my basement when the phone rang. It was Rosie’s brother calling to tell her that her parents wanted her home. As usual we procrastinated, thinking of every possible reason to slow down the process of leaving my house. I think it took her ten minutes to put her shoes on and tie them. After twenty minutes of this procrastination the phone rang again. This time it was Rosie’s father trying to hurry her up. It was half past four when I began walking her halfway home. At the end of Alta Vista Drive, the street I lived on, we said goodbye. At the end of my street there was a lot of shrubbery. I had just gotten past it when I realized that I was still wearing one of her bracelets she had loaned me. I walked back up the street and by the shrubbery when I saw Rosie talking to two men in a big truck. It looked like she was answering a question they had asked her. Something kept me from continuing to walk toward the truck. I believe now that I had an angel with me that day, because the man on the passenger side of the truck grabbed Rosie and pulled her into the truck, Rosie was screaming, and they drove away. I ran home to tell my parents. I had lost my best friend that day. Daniel McGillis and Patricia Smith, authors of Compensating Victims of Crime: An Analysis of American Programs, reveal that as early as 1980 legislative goals of victims’ rights groups focused on improving civil rights and women’s rights in victimization. Victims’ rights groups demanded restitution and compensation for victims of crimes. These lobbyists argued primarily for African American’s rights and women’s rights in victimization. They believed that African Americans and women were not treated fairly within the justice system (3). Emilio Viano, author of Victims’ Rights and the Constitution, states that victims’ rights groups positioned themselves on the side of the issue that portrays a “revictimizing” justice system. Lobbyist groups believed that the system “revictimized” the original victim through mistreatment by the police, attorneys, and judges throughout judicial proceedings (438). Robert Elias, author of The Politics of Victimization, states that some groups felt that the reason for some victim’s poor treatment was due to the “classes” of the victims (4). Most early supporters of victims’ rights movements were women, minorities, or highly educated liberals, according to the American Bar Association Section of Criminal Justice. The 1980s brought about federal attention towards the victims’ rights groups and the creation of the President’s Task Force on victims of crime. The task force reported that more than sixty recommendations were made concerning the rights of victims after its creation (Presidents Task 3). The National Organization for Victims’ Assistance is a nonprofit organization of victim and witness assistance programs and practitioners, criminal justice agencies and professionals, mental health professionals, researchers, former victims and survivors, and others committed to the recognition and implementation of victim rights and services. It was founded in 1975 and is the oldest national group of its kind in the worldwide victims’ movement. According to National Organization for Victims Rights (NOVA), by 1980 there were only seven principle rights for victims of crime. Victims had the “right to protection from intimidation and harm, the right to be informed concerning the criminal justice process, the right to reparations, the right to preservation of property and employment, the right to due process in criminal court proceedings, the right to be treated with dignity and compassion, and the right to counsel” (2). These seven principles were not enough for the victims’ rights groups. They were determined to “translate these principles into policies and practice”(NOVA 3). The United States Department of Justice reports that by the mid to late 1980s, many changes occurred regarding victims’ rights.
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