Victims of Crime in the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

Practically no subject in either criminal or civil law is so fraught with emotion and polemics as that of victims of crime. The idea of being a victim goes to the heart of our social assumptions about moral values, our political judgement about how to treat perceived aggression against law and order, and perhaps most importantly, our individual sensibilities with respect to the experience of being victimized. Regardless of the perspective from which we approach the broad subject of victimology, be it political, social, ethical or individual, there is a set of assumptions which have affected individual judgement and social policy.