Victim support is an independent charity for victims and witnesses in England and Wales. Victim support is a national charity that supports victims and witnesses of crime and it began in Bristol in 1972. They have been around for over 40 years and now have become the oldest and largest victims’ organisation in the world. The organisation was found by a group of people, including members of the National Associations for the care and resettlement of the offenders (also known as NACRO). There are numbers of services that are involved within the charity, which they refer their victims to if they cannot provide the right support and services the victim requires. Victim support stands to help individuals that are abused and violated.
Victim support
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Enhanced level entitlements are provided to “victims of serious crime”. This includes; victim’s aged under 18 (which was made changes to and now has increased from 17 to 18 for automatically considered vulnerable), victims of the most serious crimes and victims who are vulnerable, intimidated or persistently targeted. For instance, if a victim is called to give evidence at criminal proceedings they should expect to receive pre-trial court familiarisation visit before the court hearing. This will help the witness get more comfortable with the surroundings and acknowledge who seats where in the courtroom. The court will make special measure direction under section 19 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, where the victim will receive an enhancement level of support in respect of relevant criminal conduct. This is an advantage for those who are willing to give evidence against criminals, as they will have more confidence on the criminal justice will be able to rely on their support. Victim support provides support through all these steps of the court process and beyond if the victim is in need of it. However, such support will need to be timely and of sufficient quality to meet the individual needs of every victim, including victims who require specialist
Victimology draws together academics, activists, and policymakers from a variety of backgrounds and identifies three main victimological perspectives. Positivist victimology dates back to the emergence of victimology as a discipline in the 1940s. It looks to understand the process of victimisation and why people become victims of crime by examining the relationship between the victim and offender through an agency lens. Newburn (2013) identifies positivists such as Miers (1989) who see victimisation as being causal in nature and identify three key features:
Within our society there a many different groups of individuals, although everyone is at risk of abuse and maltreatment, some groups need more safeguarding than others. Vulnerable groups are at higher risk. A vulnerable adult is described as an individual who is aged 18 or over, who is in need of care and support form care services, who is experiencing, or is at risk of significant abuse or neglect and who is unable to protect themselves against harm or exploitation. There are a number of vulnerable groups within society which are: the frail and elderly, the less abled and individuals with mental health problems or learning difficulties, visual or hearing impairments or with some form of disease. It is important that the promotion of
Appropriate adult in legal term represents someone who takes a specific role when young people and vulnerable adults are in custody. A vulnerable adult is characterized as a person who is or may need group consideration administrations by reason of mental or other inability, age or disease and who is or may not be able to take care of him or herself, or not able to protect him or herself against huge damage or abuse in any consideration setting. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) and the accompanying Code of Practice guarantees that at whatever point a youngster who is 17 or less, or an adult who is more than 17 but may be rationally cluttered or rationally powerless is captured and kept in a police headquarters, she or he will be joined by an independent adult known as an Appropriate Adult.
Safeguarding was defined in the Children’s Act of 1989, and is most commonly applied to children and young people under the age of eighteen. Key aspects of legislation have recently been extended to include similar standards of protection to ‘vulnerable adults’. A vulnerable adult is defined as a person aged eighteen or over, who has either a dependency upon others in the performance of, or require assistance in the performance of basic functions:
The aim of this support group will be to allow the group members a space to be heard and to be supported by other people who are going through the same issues as them. The group will provide a confidential and supportive place for it’s members to talk about their experiences without fear of judgement or reprisal. The group members will help each other to regain their confidence and self worth, and hopefully help each other learn how to take the next steps to put an end to the violent situation that they find themselves in. Most of all the group will be there to help it’s members feel supported as to suffer abuse from a partner is to be completely devoid of support.
This assignment will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the positive approach to victimology. It will do this by looking at other victimology approaches such as; Radical, feminist, and critical victimology. Analysing the different theories within each approach, to highlight the negatives and positives within the positivist approach to victimology.
In March 2002, a 30-year-old woman with learning disabilities was admitted to Borders General Hospital in Scotland with multiple injuries as a result of sustained physical and sexual assaults. The abuse had been carried out at home and was perpetrated by three men, one of whom was her carer. ‘The case of the vulnerable adult’ is the term that the individual involved has asked to be used. Her identity is protected under rules giving anonymity to victims of rape.
In this paper I will be talking about a couple of different crimes against people. Also according to statistics where you are more lightly to be a victim of one of these crimes. These statistics also show if your nationality might have an impact on you becoming a victim. Crimes against people can come in different forms unfortunately and from different people. So you never know who might committee the crime or against whom unless they have a pattern in killing for instance serial killers usually have a pattern. Any direst harm or force against another person. For instance stalking is a crime against a person because it does not require a threat or physical force to be a crime. As you learn more about these crimes you will notice that for
Most cities and counties in Colorado as well as across the United States have a Victims Advocate Program. These offices are staffed with trained people who care about the victim and their rights during their involvement in the criminal justice system. Their goal is to help lessen the impact of being a victim of crime or a witness to a crime, and provide information about how the court system works and the current status of their case. Remember, it is the very important for the victim to keep law enforcement that is working the case informed of any changes; keeping the lines of communication clear, open and up to date.
Like the media, the criminal justice system and organisations in and around the criminal justice system play a major contribution in the construction of an ‘ideal victim’. As stated by ‘….Rock (2006), Institutional practices shape the public representations and private understandings of victims of crime’. For instance, in Australia there are many organisations that help victims and their families of serious crimes. Although on the other hand, there are limited or no services available to victims of minor crimes.
Victims of crime, particularly those violent in nature, have their rights violated and experience exceedingly high level of trauma and stress (Appendix B, 2015). It is surprising then, that Criminal Justice Systems (CJS) around the world forgo many victims’ rights and provided limited space for them to interact with the system (Sarre, 1999). Rather systems are built around balancing the rights of offenders against the greater safety and need of the community whilst neglecting individual justice needs of the victims (Sarre, 1999). With limited rights and minimal involvement a victim often becomes a disposable utensil to the CJS (Clark, 2010). They are used by the courts to determine the ultimate truth so justice may be served, with no care for the damage that may be caused in the process and then disposed of the case is concluded (Braun, 2014). In 2011-2012 a victimisation survey revealed that 1.2 million Australians were victims of personal crimes, such as assault, robbery and sexual assault (Australian Institution of Criminology, 2013). Of these victims, only half of the crimes were reported to the police (Australian Institution of Criminology, 2013). Such low reporting rates have been contributed in part to this notion of imbalance offender VS victims’ rights (Braun, 2014). Due to the sensitive nature of sexual crimes, the limited available evidence and victim rights, these crimes tend to carry the lowest reporting rates (Braun, 2014). During the latest Australian
Tom sat on the sofa, his shoulders hunched forward, his eyes staring listlessly into space. In his hands, a forgotten cup of coffee trembled violently, the lukewarm liquid spilling over his fingers. He hadn’t uttered a single word since his impassioned attempt to justify Booker’s assault, and as the minutes ticked by, his silence only added to Doug’s concerns. Although not an expert, as a cop, Penhall understood about trauma, and fearing his friend was going into shock, he made the decision to call 911. With an ambulance on its way, he dialed a second number, and after a brief conversation, he hung up. Turning his attention to Tom, he wondered how to proceed. While he wanted to offer comfort, he honestly did not know what to say. How did you console the victim of sexual assault when the perpetrator was a trusted colleague you worked side by side with day in day out? He was out of his depth and terrified of making matters worse, but he knew he needed to do something other than making a cup of coffee, and approaching Tom, he squatted down and laid a hand on his knee. “How ya doin’, buddy?”
The process of addressing memories of private suffering within “The Victims” by Sharon Olds is implied through contradictive perspectives. In the poem there is a shift in focus and tone during line 17. The poem addresses issues of suffering from two distinct perspectives, the first coming from a little girl and the second a grown woman. The narrative, imagery and diction are different in the two contrasting parts of the poem, and the second half carefully qualifies the first, as if to illustrate the more mature and established attitudes of the narrator in her older years – a stipulation of the easy imitation of the earlier years, when the mother’s views dominated and set the tone. Change has governed the poems structure here; differences
Sexual abuse to a child at times is confusing to the family. Families who are affected by sexual abuse to a child tend to have a difficult time talking about the abuse. About one out of every four girls and one out of every five boys are sexually abused by the time they are 18 years old.
From the beginning of time there have always been crimes against persons. People went by the saying “An eye for an eye”. You stole from your neighbor, they stole from you. You hurt someone, they hurt you. It wasn’t until the 1940’s people started taking a closer look into these crimes against person, which they later called victimology. This paper will look into victimology and their theories as we go back into the past and how victimology is now.