Restitution for victims of crime

The study of victimology has been extensively done and various facts have been drawn or reached on concerning the victim blaming, theories have been put forth and legal outlines and guidelines on the protection of victims from further blame have been stipulated. It is important however, to know and have in place a comprehensive and holistic victim restitution plan order to ensure that the victims of crime are adequately compensated and restored as much as possible to their previous nature and status.

The intimate partner crime victimization is common within the society hence the need to fully understand the meaning of intimate partner abuse and the possible restitution plan that can help in compensation of such victims within the required period of time.

The main paper will hence look at the following major areas in order to fully understand intimate partner crime and victimization of the victims of such crimes and how best the holistic victim restitution process can be done.

a. What victimology is in the context of intimate partners and the historical perspective and background to victimology.

b. What restitution is and the various ways used to determine the levels of restitution and the modes of collection plus the challenges therein.

c. What factors are considered when determining the amounts to be paid by the perpetrator in form of cash restitution.

d. The institutions and individuals charged with collection of the restitution amounts.

e. The challenges faced in the process of investigating intimate partner crimes, the challenges in processing the cases in court and the challenges that the restitution process faces.

The paper will majorly look at what needs to be understood and done in order to ensure efficient holistic victim restitution and also how the needs of victims, particularly of intimate partner violence, can be assisted through the pain and the restitution process.

A. In order to address the needs of the victims of intimate partner crimes, it is important to understand first what restitution is. Restitution is what the offender owes the victim as is defined and determined by a competent court of legal justice system. It comes in the form of medical and dental bills paid for, mental health counseling, return or payment for damaged or stolen goods, lost wages, travel and relocation costs, any future expenses related to the case and funeral costs for homicide victims (Montana Department of Corrections, 2017).

B. The paper will also strive to discuss what intimate partner is actually all about. To highlight what the different scholars say about intimate partner violence, the causes of intimate partner violence, what forms the intimate partner violence takes and what the law says about the intimate partner violence. It shall also outline the various categories of people at risk of intimate partner violence and how this vice can be prevented (CDC,2014).

C. There is need to as well understand what victimology is all about. Herein, the paper will strive to explain the various forms of victimology that exists and the reasons that often feature in victimology. The historical look at the rise of victimology and the changing trends in victim blaming will form the baseline for the study of the rise of victimology. To analyze this rise in victimology, the research shall look into at least three different articles with deep literature review that focuses on the history and origin of victimology in different nations across the globe (Dussich J.P.J., n.d ).

D. There is need to understand what victim contribution to the intimate partner crime could be and how these can be handled when dealing with restitution situation. It will be important to extensively explain how the victim contribution can significantly affect the restitution process causing unnecessary loss of monetary compensation or even delays in submission of the restitution money (University of Portsmouth, 2012).

E. Bearing that the restitution process can be tedious as indicated before, there is need to have a holistic approach to restitution that will centrally involve the victim and the perpetrator and all the players in the process. The victim advocate needs to be made aware of the loss information just as the victim. This will help in having a collective follow-up. Then there is need to have the crime report number for ease of follow-up on a regular basis by both the victim and his attorney. The attorney and the victim also need to keep the copies of the receipts, bills, insurance information and expenses to help in the fast tracking of the case. If the victim is of the vulnerable group like the children or the female gender, the need of registering with a pressure group that will help in the following up of the restitution may arise (California Victim Compensation Program, 2015).

A. The past

The historical look at the rise of victimology and the changing trends in victim blaming will form the baseline for the study of the rise of victimology. To analyze this rise in victimology, the research shall look into at least three different articles with deep literature review that focuses on the history and origin of victimology in different nations across the globe. It will also be necessary to use historical academic material on victimology of various age groups and the male and female gender in order to gain a deeper understanding and analysis of the rise of victimology. The pile of literature will help form a seamless flow of timeline and development of victimology.

B. The present

The cases or incidences of victim blaming still exists and most are often propagated by gender and economic status of the victims. Most communities still accept it as a near normal thing and in a way it affects restitution of the victims and their general pursuit of justice. Victimology therefore covers even the restitution process which currently is often a painfully slow process and may take years before the first receipt of restitution is experienced. This calls for a holistic plan that can ensure that the restitution process is hastened as much as is practicable and possible. The holistic restitution plan would however require several factors taken into consideration like the history of victimology, the data on crime victims, the justice system among other pertinent factors.

The data that will be collected from the various literature reviews will be tabulated in form of counties or states for the US-based data. This will then give the possibility of getting an average from the sets of data on each subject. For instance the number of child victim blames in California as depicted in each of the articles used, then finding an average that would give a more realistic number. It will also be significant to pick out anomalous data diversions then that will need to be cleaned out. The data will also be categorized in terms of span of ten years for easier interpretation and trend study. The data once filtered will give the most objective data representation of the victim blaming trends and how the trends keep changing.

The paper will strive to have an objective look at and explanation of the contribution that victims make to the crimes. This will require a close study of the available definitions of victim contribution to crimes, and of greatest importance is the thorough examination of the case studies where the victims were presumed to have contributed to the crimes that happened or befell them. This approach of studying case gives the clear characteristic of a crime and the loopholes that could have led to the victim participation and also the possible false accusations. It is after looking at these facts that the paper will proceed to apportion the appropriate roles and extent of involvement of the victim to the crime.

The criminal justice system is one of the arms of governance that directly deals with the crimes and the victimization process. It is therefore significant to ensure there is in-depth understanding of how the justice system operates and thereafter look at the way the various instances of victimization were handled by the justice system whether they were satisfactory and the aspects that were considered before the clarification of a possible victimization case. The case studies will again be of great significance and the take of the justice system on the individual cases as reported and recorded on their websites.