ABSTRACT
Segments of this article originally were written and presented to an international audience at the meetings of The World Society of Victimology, held in Jerusalem in 1988; other parts of the paper are new. The early material has been expanded and updated to reflect recent changes in assistance to crime victims. The first part of the paper presents a brief history of the victim assistance movement in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s. The second part discusses the organization and operations of the victim assistance system at the federal, state, and local levels; the final section provides suggestions for evaluation, and perhaps change, in policy and procedure.
