Victimology Case

Victims have certainly been catalysts for some of the most far reaching reforms to the criminal justice system. Justice requires that as well as punishing offenders, victims of crime must be given all the support that they need, so that they are not isolated and alienated from the community or the criminal justice process. Historically victims of crime have been neglected i.e. not given sufficient consideration, however throughout recent years and with the enlightenment period also came community awareness about the need to sufficiently recognize victims and to make such reforms to our criminal justice process in doing so. In this essay I will first give a definition of what a Victim is , I will then give various examples of reforms i.e introduction of Victim Impact Statements, Compensation reforms, legal immunity tken away from husbands, that have been made to the Criminal Justice system due to Victims, showing the point that Victims have been catalysts for some of the most far reaching reforms to the criminal justice system, I will then discuss the implications of these Reforms of the rights of the accused.

History has shown us that victims have been neglected by the Criminal Justice. The fisrt major Reform to the Criminal Justice system system in Australia was that which occurred in 1967. Margeret Fry, a Brittish magistrate and social reformer directed attention to victims and failure of the state to develop a plan to compensate them in her 1951 classic Arms of the Law. In the late 1950's she refined her thesis, postulating state compensation for victims as a means of providing them with adequate restitution. The devbate which followed led to the eventual enactment of criminal injuries compensation legislation ecnacted by New south wales in 1967. This is one such reform showing that Victims were indeed the catalysts for this reform.

Moving on to female victims of crime, for example the Rape in Marriage case. Women were always seen as a mans property and society was such that whatever happened in the private sphere was not to be brought out in the public, when women would a report a case of abuse at the hands of the husband, very little if at all did the police intervene and for this reason a lot of abuse cases were not reported by the women. From the 1970's feminism challenged the dichotomy between the public and private sphere. It was in the mid 1980's that legal immunity to sexual assault by husband was removed, and inturn this also brought a wave of reorms in regards to sexual assault cases. In the 1970's the women's movement was effective in drawing attention to the emotional stress experience by victims of domestic violence, this saw the implementation of legislation and services both within the police force and social welfare services i.e rape inquiry unit within police force, hospital based sexual assault referral centre and