Victimology -- Voices of Victims:

Victimology -- Voices of Victims: Criminal Justice Professionals

Theme #1 -- Insufficient Emphasis on Victims

The first theme is the insufficient emphasis on the welfare of victims by law enforcement agencies. Many victims expressed frustration and resentment that the law enforcement community had little apparent interest in victims except in connection with exploiting them for the purposes of establishing their criminal cases at trial. Victims often feel used by prosecutors and abandoned by the law enforcement community once their contribution within their roles as sources of information and as witnesses for the prosecution of offenders is no longer needed. In that regard, optimal criminal justice functioning would be easier to achieve if law enforcement agents and prosecutors learned to better step into the shoes of victims and if they received more training to respond to the needs and sensibilities of victims as aggrieved individuals rather than viewed primarily as sources of intelligence and evidence.

Theme #2 -- Insufficient Protection of Victims from Intimidation and Retaliation

The second theme is the insufficient emphasis on the welfare of victims in terms of their vulnerability to offenders in connection with their cooperation with law enforcement investigators and prosecutors. Many victims expressed frustration and resentment that the law enforcement community often ignores the tremendous risks to victims and to their families posed by un-incarcerated offenders and by associates incarcerated offenders who dominate their neighborhoods. Victims often feel exploited used by prosecutors and by the law enforcement community in that they are left to fend for themselves in their neighborhoods after having cooperated with investigators and prosecutors.

In that regard, optimal criminal justice functioning would be easier to achieve if law enforcement agents and prosecutors learned to better protect victims of crimes and other witnesses who cooperate with their investigations. Ultimately, this would increase the success of prosecutions by removing the greatest impediment to cooperation that frequently causes victims and other witnesses to decline assisting law enforcement investigations and prosecutions, especially in high-crime areas.

Theme #3 -- Penal Institutional Culture that Promotes Recidivism

The third theme is the insufficient emphasis on the welfare of offenders within penal institutions. Specifically, penal institutions are environments where the strong and ruthless prey on the weak and comparatively innocent. As a result, the penal institutional culture demands that offenders maintain gang-like affiliations, typically based strictly on race and on neighborhood identity on the streets. That mentality fuels violence instead of rehabilitation and also promotes the intensification of criminal inclinations, particularly among first-time offenders and others who arrive as non-career criminals. More often than not, incarceration increases the criminal mindset of offenders instead of decreasing it, thereby perpetuating criminality after release back into the community.