Читать книгу Criminology For Dummies - Steven Briggs - Страница 17

Crime doesn’t just carry an economic cost, however. Every day, thousands of lives are turned upside down by criminal violence and theft. Think of the impact on a senior citizen who’s defrauded out of her life savings or on a battered spouse who’s isolated from her friends and family and lives in constant fear of upsetting her husband. There’s simply no way to quantify the human toll of crime.

In the old days, crime victims were pretty much left to fend for themselves. But in the early 1980s, a movement began that brought help to victims. Today, in every state, a victim of violent crime can get financial help with medical bills, grief counseling, lost wages, and other economic losses. Victims can also get help understanding the criminal justice system.

Significantly, within the last ten years, a movement to grant rights to victims has gathered tremendous momentum. In most states today, victims have at least the following rights:

 The right to be notified of all important hearings

 The right to speak at release hearings where criminal defendants seek to be released from jail

 The right to obtain a “no contact” order, which prohibits the defendant from contacting the victim

 The right to prevent the defendant from getting the victim’s address

 The right to demand a blood test of the defendant if there’s a possibility that a disease, such as HIV or hepatitis, was transferred to the victim during the crime

 The right to receive restitution for financial impact from a crime

 The right to give a statement to the judge explaining the impact of the crime on the victim at the time of sentencing the defendant

For much more information about what the criminal justice system does to protect victims, see Chapter 4.