Victims Movement
Stacy Barron
Intro to Victims Advocacy
The Victims Right Movement
Wayne Skinner
Everest University
Victimology in its most simple form is the study of the victim or victims of a particular offender (Roberson. & Wallace, 2011). I feel that the Victims’ Movement has not yet reached its full potential because just like every form of law, legislature or even government there is always ways to improve and to become stronger. Much like when we started to form our government it had so many flaws and it still today has the ability to improve. The problem is that as society changes and crime changes the laws and the system have to change with it in order for things to improve. When it comes to crimes it isn’t just the victim that is affected, everyone involved is affected including the offender and the society. Starting in the 1960’s victims of crime began to volunteer with many different programs to assist other victims, speaking on their behalf and trying to fight for rights and fighting for a voice. Because of these actions we now have programs like Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) which is an agency that provides funds for law enforcement to establish victim-witness programs (Roberson, Wallace, 2011). The downfall in creating programs like this is the funding, having the money to pay for them. That was exactly the problem in in the 70’s and 80’s, not enough funding to keep them going. This is a problem for a lot of law enforcement and criminal programs. Not to be discouraged the movement just started to move into specialized groups such as National Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and POMC; Parents of Murdered Children. Another one that we hear about a great deal still today is MADD which is Mothers Against Drunk Drivers founded in 1980 by Candy Lightner whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver (Roberson,Wallace,2011). Having these programs can be so helpful to so many people that it is important to have the money to fund them;
Intro to Victims Advocacy
The Victims Right Movement
Wayne Skinner
Everest University
Victimology in its most simple form is the study of the victim or victims of a particular offender (Roberson. & Wallace, 2011). I feel that the Victims’ Movement has not yet reached its full potential because just like every form of law, legislature or even government there is always ways to improve and to become stronger. Much like when we started to form our government it had so many flaws and it still today has the ability to improve. The problem is that as society changes and crime changes the laws and the system have to change with it in order for things to improve. When it comes to crimes it isn’t just the victim that is affected, everyone involved is affected including the offender and the society. Starting in the 1960’s victims of crime began to volunteer with many different programs to assist other victims, speaking on their behalf and trying to fight for rights and fighting for a voice. Because of these actions we now have programs like Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) which is an agency that provides funds for law enforcement to establish victim-witness programs (Roberson, Wallace, 2011). The downfall in creating programs like this is the funding, having the money to pay for them. That was exactly the problem in in the 70’s and 80’s, not enough funding to keep them going. This is a problem for a lot of law enforcement and criminal programs. Not to be discouraged the movement just started to move into specialized groups such as National Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and POMC; Parents of Murdered Children. Another one that we hear about a great deal still today is MADD which is Mothers Against Drunk Drivers founded in 1980 by Candy Lightner whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver (Roberson,Wallace,2011). Having these programs can be so helpful to so many people that it is important to have the money to fund them;
References: Roberson., C., & Wallace, H. (2011). Victimology: Legal , psychological, and social perspectives, third edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Person Education, Inc. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, MADD 2012 retrieved from http://www.madd.org