This blog is mainly about the governance and future of policing and crime services. (Police & Crime Commissioners feature quite a lot.) But there are also posts about the wider justice system. And because I am town councillor and political activist, local & national issues are covered a little, as well.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Victim Centricity (draft 2...)

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an outline of a tool to appraise how 'victim centric' a local criminal justice system is. I have now done some further work on this and I am keen to crowd source how it might be improved.

The link to the latest version of the document is here. I would welcome your feedback on how the tool might be improved. I do not claim any special expertise in this area and whilst I have done some work that connects to victim and witness support,  I would expect that I have overlooked some key areas.

My overall aim is to turn this into a working tool, to help Police & Crime Commissioners (and others) fulfil their pledges, promises and oaths to do all that they can for victims and witnesses involved in the criminal justice system.

All contributions welcome - thanks! 

Here are a couple of snapshots to give you a flavour (full pdf available from the link above)



UPDATE: With thanks to Steve Bachelder, I have now uploaded a new version based on his comments below. You can access the 040113 version here (and above link changed too)
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6 comments:

  1. Russell Webster3/1/13 17:02

    This is an excellent start, covering key areas and I was glad to see Restorative Justice being highlighted. I think the trickiest challenge is who would "score" performance. It is quite hard to evaluate these sort of criteria although an annual survey of victims would be a great place to start...

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    1. Jon Harvey3/1/13 17:34

      Absolutely RJ has to be part of this - as it is about restoring victims, community and offender to better balance. As to who would score, I would be keen for this not to become a wield ~over~ the CJS agencies but instead something they can use to self assess albeit critically informed by the views of victims, witnesses and their representatives.

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  2. Steve Batchelder4/1/13 09:02

    Jon,

    What about a measure regarding victim satisfaction with the outcome - whether that be a court disposal, restorative justice, police disposal etc.

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    1. Jon Harvey4/1/13 09:14

      Hi Steve - sounds like a good idea - as a new dimension or as embedded in one of the existing ones?

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  3. Steve Batchelder4/1/13 09:40

    It could be included as an element of the communication or sentencing dimensions. However I think it deserves its own dimension because it is important that the victims voice is heard and even if this cannot directly influence the outcome it should inform the process and over time would lead to a body of evidence that actually reflects what victims & witnesses want & not what people think they want.

    I offer the following as possible starting points for the ratings:

    Fail victim/witness not made aware of outcome
    1 star victim informed of outcome
    2 stars victim consulted on outcome but not satisfied
    3 stars victim consulted on outcome and satisfied that outcome is fair and meets their needs.

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    1. Jon Harvey4/1/13 09:44

      OK - got you - I think that is a useful addition. I might tweak it a little, but I get your gist. Thanks

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