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 fairly reliable funding from local crime budgets; 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.
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. The Victim Support budget has become more discretionary
since the establishment of Police and Crime Commissioners; the budget
for Victim Support in each PCC region is controlled by the PCC, and can
be directed to whatever area of work the PCC thinks appropriate.
Although in theory the PCC could turn off the tap, what this has meant
in practice is that more funding can be given to areas of work
which are particularly prominent in one area - e.g. support for victims
of domestic violence or anti-social behaviour.
Victim Support does some campaigning on behalf of victims, but it campaigns 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.
Rights for victims within the criminal justice process are Victim
Support's key campaigning priority: 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.
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.
So, where next for victims - what needs to victims have which are still not being met?
Thursday 26 February 2015
Week 5: Crime by and against business
Corporate crime, white-collar crime, crime by business is a crime of power: a type of offence that takes place against the backdrop of unequal power relations, which
affect both the likelihood of becoming a victim of crime and the
likelihood of gaining recognition as a victim.
Corporate crime takes many different forms. When Ken Lay of Enron, or Robert Maxwell of the Mirror group, destroyed their own businesses from within for their own benefit, that was corporate crime. When banks sold people mortgage policies that were never going to pay out adequately, or insurance policies that they were never going to be able to claim on, that was corporate crime. When a Dutch company sold Romanian horsemeat to British supermarkets and food processors under the guise of beef, that was corporate crime. All these very different examples reflect a difference of power. Businesses large and small have much more power over us than we do over them, and in some cases the power they have is exercised in unlawful ways: overcharging us, selling us sub-standard products, ordering us to work excessive hours.
Even when it takes directly life-threatening forms, corporate crime has a tendency to remain invisible - "man crushed by machinery at workplace" may be an item on the local news but it won't make the national press. Not only that, but it won't get into the crime statistics. Nobody knows how much law-breaking goes on in business. One reason for this is that business regulation - the main approach used to control commercial rule-breaking - has a strong orientation towards gaining compliance rather than prosecuting wrong-doers. Where prosecution is used, it is used as a last resort: inspectors will try to get managers to co-operate, then use the threat of prosecution to try and induce compliance. Actually taking a company to court is an implicit admission that other methods have failed, and is almost a punishment in itself.
There are good reasons for using this 'responsive', compliance-oriented approach: being treated with respect encourages managers and employees to commit themselves to the rules being enforced, rather than just treating them as a box-ticking exercise. The more punitive approach of prosecuting everything that can be prosecuted may lead to staff getting stressed and demotivated, and only caring about sticking to the rules because they're afraid they'll lose their jobs.
But even if it does produce better results, with less disruption, than a more punitive approach, there's a question-mark over the responsive approach when it comes to the victims of corporate crime. Should corporate criminals always be prosecuted for the sake of doing justice to the victims? Alternatively, is it better to implement regulation that leads to better practices being adopted, so that there are fewer victims in future?
Corporate crime takes many different forms. When Ken Lay of Enron, or Robert Maxwell of the Mirror group, destroyed their own businesses from within for their own benefit, that was corporate crime. When banks sold people mortgage policies that were never going to pay out adequately, or insurance policies that they were never going to be able to claim on, that was corporate crime. When a Dutch company sold Romanian horsemeat to British supermarkets and food processors under the guise of beef, that was corporate crime. All these very different examples reflect a difference of power. Businesses large and small have much more power over us than we do over them, and in some cases the power they have is exercised in unlawful ways: overcharging us, selling us sub-standard products, ordering us to work excessive hours.
Even when it takes directly life-threatening forms, corporate crime has a tendency to remain invisible - "man crushed by machinery at workplace" may be an item on the local news but it won't make the national press. Not only that, but it won't get into the crime statistics. Nobody knows how much law-breaking goes on in business. One reason for this is that business regulation - the main approach used to control commercial rule-breaking - has a strong orientation towards gaining compliance rather than prosecuting wrong-doers. Where prosecution is used, it is used as a last resort: inspectors will try to get managers to co-operate, then use the threat of prosecution to try and induce compliance. Actually taking a company to court is an implicit admission that other methods have failed, and is almost a punishment in itself.
There are good reasons for using this 'responsive', compliance-oriented approach: being treated with respect encourages managers and employees to commit themselves to the rules being enforced, rather than just treating them as a box-ticking exercise. The more punitive approach of prosecuting everything that can be prosecuted may lead to staff getting stressed and demotivated, and only caring about sticking to the rules because they're afraid they'll lose their jobs.
But even if it does produce better results, with less disruption, than a more punitive approach, there's a question-mark over the responsive approach when it comes to the victims of corporate crime. Should corporate criminals always be prosecuted for the sake of doing justice to the victims? Alternatively, is it better to implement regulation that leads to better practices being adopted, so that there are fewer victims in future?
Monday 2 February 2015
Week 3: Compensation for victims
This unit has three main themes running through this unit. The first, encapsulated in the idea of the Ideal Victim,
has to do with how we think about victims. We've seen how entrenched
some assumptions about victims are, and - more importantly - how
unhelpful those assumptions can be. The second has to do with the criminal justice
system, and how difficult it is to fit victims into it: the victim
doesn't belong on either side of the confrontation between the Crown and
the offender, and often ends up, literally, serving as a witness to her
own victimisation. Following on from this, the third them has to do
with restorative justice, and the broader challenge of taking a victim-centred approach
to crime. Actual victims - ordinary people who happen to become victims
of crime - want, and need, many different things: some victims are
vengeful, some are
forgiving; some are knocked flat by the after-effects of the crime, some
shrug it off; some want to take an active part in the prosecution of
the crime, some want to put it all behind them. The only thing all
victims have in common is that they want to be taken seriously, listened
to (if they want to talk), given support (if they need it) - in short,
treated with respect.
Last Friday's lecture involved all those three themes. As we saw, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme is explicitly designed to exclude anyone who doesn't co-operate with the police and anyone with a 'bad character' - which is to say (among other things) anyone who has served a custodial sentence of any length within the last seven years. (Hard luck if you go to prison for non-payment of debts and get beaten up a year later.) Only the innocent and virtuous need apply, in effect.
The other main form of compensation is the Compensation Order, which can be handed down by courts as part of a criminal sentence. This is a vivid illustration of the inadequacy of the criminal justice system to give victims what they need. Remember the dark figure of crime: not all crimes are reported to the police; not all of those are detected, i.e. have an offender identified; not all of those are prosecuted, and (inevitably) not all prosecutions lead to a guilty verdict. But it's only a guilty verdict that can lead to the imposition of a Compensation Order. Even when the option is available - and courts are encouraged to impose it when it is there - in practice most sentences don't include compensation, often because the offender would be unable to pay. Putting it all together, the criminal justice system can only provide compensation, in the form of a Compensation Order, for a tiny, tiny minority of victims.
Coming on to the question of respect and victim-centrality: when compensation is awarded, how much should it be? This is a difficult one. Somebody who has had a leg broken in three places, suffering permanent impairment as a result, isn't going to want to be fobbed off with a ten pound note. But suppose a more satisfactory order was made - £10,000, say. (The maximum compensation payable for this injury under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme is currently set at £4,600, incidentally.) Would accepting this level of compensation mean that you were saying the leg was worth £10,000 (or £4,600)? It's not a calculation anyone would want to make. I think we have an instinctive sense of when monetary compensation is far too low, without having a clear sense of what the right level would be. The reason is the message that it conveys - the point of a very low amount is that it conveys a lack of respect. Similarly, research has shown - perhaps surprisingly - that victims don't object to compensation payments being spread out over a long period, if there is no other way that the offender can pay. What victims do object to is not knowing how long the period will be or what the payments will be: in short, they object to being kept in the dark, treated with disrespect.
But even if the payments are scaled satisfactorily and made on time, both the main compensation schemes are wildly inadequate. Victims need respect, which may mean looking at alternatives to criminal justice; and they need support, in the form of a universal and unconditional service for victims.
And that's where we're going with the next lecture, which will be a guest lecture from Emma Golden of Victim Support. It's a real privilege to hear from somebody who's actually working with VS: be there!
Last Friday's lecture involved all those three themes. As we saw, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme is explicitly designed to exclude anyone who doesn't co-operate with the police and anyone with a 'bad character' - which is to say (among other things) anyone who has served a custodial sentence of any length within the last seven years. (Hard luck if you go to prison for non-payment of debts and get beaten up a year later.) Only the innocent and virtuous need apply, in effect.
The other main form of compensation is the Compensation Order, which can be handed down by courts as part of a criminal sentence. This is a vivid illustration of the inadequacy of the criminal justice system to give victims what they need. Remember the dark figure of crime: not all crimes are reported to the police; not all of those are detected, i.e. have an offender identified; not all of those are prosecuted, and (inevitably) not all prosecutions lead to a guilty verdict. But it's only a guilty verdict that can lead to the imposition of a Compensation Order. Even when the option is available - and courts are encouraged to impose it when it is there - in practice most sentences don't include compensation, often because the offender would be unable to pay. Putting it all together, the criminal justice system can only provide compensation, in the form of a Compensation Order, for a tiny, tiny minority of victims.
Coming on to the question of respect and victim-centrality: when compensation is awarded, how much should it be? This is a difficult one. Somebody who has had a leg broken in three places, suffering permanent impairment as a result, isn't going to want to be fobbed off with a ten pound note. But suppose a more satisfactory order was made - £10,000, say. (The maximum compensation payable for this injury under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme is currently set at £4,600, incidentally.) Would accepting this level of compensation mean that you were saying the leg was worth £10,000 (or £4,600)? It's not a calculation anyone would want to make. I think we have an instinctive sense of when monetary compensation is far too low, without having a clear sense of what the right level would be. The reason is the message that it conveys - the point of a very low amount is that it conveys a lack of respect. Similarly, research has shown - perhaps surprisingly - that victims don't object to compensation payments being spread out over a long period, if there is no other way that the offender can pay. What victims do object to is not knowing how long the period will be or what the payments will be: in short, they object to being kept in the dark, treated with disrespect.
But even if the payments are scaled satisfactorily and made on time, both the main compensation schemes are wildly inadequate. Victims need respect, which may mean looking at alternatives to criminal justice; and they need support, in the form of a universal and unconditional service for victims.
And that's where we're going with the next lecture, which will be a guest lecture from Emma Golden of Victim Support. It's a real privilege to hear from somebody who's actually working with VS: be there!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)