The History of the Crime Victims' Movement in the United States

The History of the Crime Victims’ Movement in the United States A COMPONENT OF THE OFFICE FOR VICTIMS OF CRIME ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Sponsored by: Office for Victims of Crime Office of Justice Programs U.S. Department of Justice Written by Dr. Marlene Young and John Stein National Organization for Victim Assistance December 2004 Justice Solutions National Association of Crime Victim Compensation Boards National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators National Organization for Victim Assistance This project was supported by Grant Number 2002-VF-GX-0009 awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view in this document are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Contents PAGE The OVC Oral History Project . 1 The Office for Victims of Crime . 1 Introduction . 1 The Beginnings: Victimology . 1 Victim Compensation . 2 The Women’s Movement . 2 The Criminal Justice System . 3 The Growth of Victim Activism . 4 The 1980s: Growth and Acceptance . 5 The 1990s and Beyond. 9 Research Contributions and Advances in Responding to Victims . 9 Expanding and Deepening Victim Services . 10 The Ongoing March for Victims’ Rights. 11 Conclusion . 12 Endnotes . 13 2005 NCVRW RESOURCE GUIDE The History of the Crime Victims’ Movement in the United States The OVC Oral History Project Introduction The Office for Victims of Crime Oral History Project is The crime victims’ movement is an outgrowth of the cosponsored by Justice Solutions, the National rising social consciousness of the 1960s that Association of Crime Victim Compensation Boards, the unleashed the energies of the idealistic, 20-something National Association of VOCA Assistance generation of the 1970s. Its continued strength is Administrators, and the National Organization for Victim derived not just from the social forces through which it Assistance. Sponsored by the Office for Victims of began, but also from the leadership of extraordinary Crime, within the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. individuals, some of whom have personally survived Department of Justice, this project seeks to document tragedy, and others who have brought extraordinary the rich history of the victims’ rights and assistance compassion and insight as witnesses to such tragedy. field since its inception in 1972. The project’s four In retrospect, one can say that the victims’ movement goals are to: in the United States involved the confluence of five 1. Develop two special reports that highlight the independent activities: historical importance of two events: 1) the 30-year 1. The development of a field called victimology. anniversary of the field and 2) the 20-year anniversary of the publication of the President’s 2. The introduction of state victim compensation Task Force on Victims of Crime Final Report. programs. 2. Provide initial documentation via videotape of the 3. The rise of the women’s movement. past 30 years of the victims’ rights and assistance 4. The rise of crime that was accompanied by a movement through interviews with key contributors parallel dissatisfaction with the criminal justice to the movement’s overall success. system. 3. Develop archives housed in a university setting 5. The growth of victim activism. (videotaped and paper-based), as well as on the Web (digital tape and electronic versions of The Beginnings: Victimology transcripts). “Victimology” arose in Europe after World War II, primarily to seek to understand the criminal-victim 4. Develop a recommended format for states, U.S. relationship. Early victimology theory posited that victim territories, and the District of Columbia to develop attitudes and conduct are among the causes of criminal their own individual oral history. behavior.(1) The Office for Victims of Crime The importation of victimology to the United States was The Office for Victims of Crime is committed to due largely to the work of the scholar Stephen Schafer, enhancing the Nation’s capacity to assist crime victims whose book The Victim and His Criminal: A Study in and to providing leadership in changing attitudes, Functional Responsibility became mandatory reading for policies, and practices to promote justice and healing anyone interested in the study of crime victims and for all victims of crime. OVC works with national, their behaviors.(2) international, state, military, and tribal victim assistance and criminal justice agencies, as well as other As Tokiwa University (Japan) Professor of Criminology professional organizations, to promote fundamental and Victimology John Dussich noted, “As a graduate rights and comprehensive services for crime victims. student in 1962, I had the privilege of being a student of Stephen Schafer who was a victimologist and criminologist from Hungary, one of the early victimologists. He first spoke about victimology in his class on criminological theory. It was the first time that he ever gave a lecture in this country and we became friends after that.” 2005 NCVRW RESOURCE GUIDE 1 The History of the Crime Victims’ Movement (continued) The interest in victimology correlated with increasing victims in the criminal justice system since they concern about crime in America in the late 1960s. It is required victims to report crimes to the police and to perhaps no coincidence that the precursor to Dr. cooperate with the prosecution. Schafer’s book was a study he conducted for the U.S. Administrators of the early programs were not always Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.(3) The passionate advocates of victim issues. According to crime wave of the time led to the formation of the Kelly Brodie, the former Director of victim compensation President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the programs in Iowa and California: Administration of Justice in 1966, which conducted the first national victimization surveys that, in turn, showed “… I didn’t think I would ever work in compensation that victimization rates were far higher than shown in because I had very hard feelings about the law enforcement figures – and that many non-reporting compensation program as a result of my work in the victims acted out of distrust of the justice system.(4) victim assistance field. And it was only through This captured the attention of researchers who began to chance that I ended up in compensation…I thought examine the impact of crime on victims, as well as I never wanted to work in this particular arena victim disillusionment with the system. because I saw compensation as a bureaucratic structure…that was almost a payment for a “In my view it is no accident that the explosion of prosecution-oriented, very adversarial process for interest in victims and victimization surveys developed victims.” simultaneously,” Michael J. Hindelang wrote in “Victimization Surveying, Theory and Research” Later, compensation administrators often became published in 1982. “Each has provided some stimulus articulate advocates of society’s responsibilities to for the other and each has the potential for providing victims. benefits to the other.”(5) The Women’s Movement As will be discussed, the prosecutor-based There is little doubt that the women’s movement was victim/witness revolution in particular was a direct central to the development of a victims’ movement. consequence of victimological research. Their leaders saw sexual assault and domestic violence – and the poor response of the criminal justice system Victim Compensation – as potent illustrations of a woman’s lack of status, The idea that the state should provide financial power, and influence. reimbursement to victims of crime for their losses was initially propounded by English penal reformer Margery Denise Snyder, Director of the Washington, D.C., Rape Fry in the 1950s. It was first implemented in New Crisis Center, reflects that “…if you go back 30 years Zealand in 1963 and Great Britain passed a similar law ago when the [Rape Crisis] Center first started,…the shortly thereafter. silence was deafening. This issue was one that society didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to hear about. Early compensation programs were welfare programs The individual survivors felt incredible isolation.” providing help to victims in need. This was reflected in Justice A.J. Goldberg’s comment, “In a fundamental Long-time victim advocate Janice Rench of sense, then, one who suffers the impact of criminal Massachusetts describes the influences that propelled violence is also the victim of society’s long inattention her into the victims’ movement: to poverty and social injustice…”(6) California initiated “It was not by accident [that I joined the the first state victim compensation program in 1965, movement]. That was my passion, having been a soon followed by New York. By 1979, there were 28 victim of a sexual assault crime. I wanted to right a state compensation programs. By then, most had wrong…we have to step back…when I started, it rejected the welfare precept in favor of a justice was a time of excitement, it was a time of orientation in which victims were seen as deserving of passion….We didn’t have any plans, any books…but compensation whether or not they were in need. as we listened to the victims, we certainly got a Compensation programs also promoted involvement by 2 2005 NCVRW RESOURCE GUIDE The History of the Crime Victims’ Movement (continued) sense of what was going to work and what wasn’t. often did back in the old days.” And so it was the victims themselves, I believe, that Some of the victim/witness programs began borrowing really started this field and certainly it was the service ideas from the grassroots programs and new sexual assault field in the ‘70s that did it.” ones based in law enforcement; some of the The new feminists immediately saw the need to provide prosecutor-based staff received training in crisis special care to victims of rape and domestic violence.

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