ABSTRACT
At first blush, the proposition that the victims of crime should have rights is unexceptionable and a number of States assert that they have now ceded them. After all, it had long been complained that victims were marginal, the ‘forgotten party’, treated only as potential witnesses, complainants and ‘alleged victims’ until a conviction had been secured and, in very exceptional cases, as claimants to criminal injuries compensation. Victims were denied property in their own crimes (Christie 1977); denied information about the progress of ‘their’ cases (see Shapland et al. 1985); found it difficult to retrieve stolen possessions; experienced delays and discomfort waiting for trial (if trials ever materialized); and were subjected to the possibility of aggressive cross-examination at trial itself. In 1987, Lois Herrington (1987, p. 141), the former Assistant Attorney General of the United States and the chairwoman of the 1982 Presidential Task Force on Victims of Crime, claimed that:
The system served the judges, lawyers, and defendants, while ignoring, blaming, and mistreating the victims. Once they survive the initial impact of a crime, the victims are drawn into a system that treats them with indifference at best and abuse at worst.
An increasing number of victims cried out for what they called recognition and respect.