NCJ Number
90638
Journal
Contemporary Crisis Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Dated: (July 1983) Pages: 293-303
Date Published
1983
Length
11 pages
Annotation
Victims, like other witnesses in court, experience degradation as a result of their treatment by both prosecutors and defense attorneys and ultimately as a result of the structure of the judicial process.
Abstract
Prosecutors can treat victims abruptly because their goal is to present the facts of the case as defined by law and strategy rather than by the victim's perceptions of the experience. From the prosecutor's perspective, the victim is a problem requiring careful management. Thus, the adversarial nature of the legal system is a structural factor underlying the degradation that victims experience in court. A second factor is the basic relationship between the criminal justice system and the State, in that the state is the victim, not just the arbiter in a trial between victim and offender. As a result, the victim has no special rights and is treated like any other witness. Moreover, the judge's exercise of the formal powers of the judiciary can be degrading to victims. Thus, both the offender and the victim are pawns in a game about social power and the struggle for dominant definitions of reality. Victimology has ignored the structural issues and from a political standpoint, has contributed to the strengthening of the State's role by tending to reinforce the official definitions of criminal and victim. Eleven reference notes are provided.