Introduction

In the short space of twenty years, there has been a sea change in the attitudes towards victims of crime in many developed nations. The ‘first wave’ of reforms saw the setting up of State compensation schemes, first in New Zealand in 1963 and followed by England in 1964 and California in the United States in 1965, which eventually spread to other parts of the United States, Canada and Europe. The ‘second wave’, starting from the middle of the 1970s, at first focused on the needs of victims of domestic violence and victims of sexual offences through the setting-up of shelter homes and rape crisis centres, but these support services were eventually broadened to render general victim assistance to other victims of crime. From 1980 onwards, the ‘third wave’ of reforms involved the ‘institutionalization’ of victim support schemes by the local or central governments through government funding and professionalization of workers in the field, and the formal recognition of certain victim rights in the criminal justice process (van Dijk 1988).