The money is being allocated to local organisations that have a proven track record in supporting victims at their most vulnerable.
Children’s groups are among those that will benefit from the announcement, along with charities supporting the victims of rape, domestic violence, hate crime, burglary, anti-social behaviour and other violent crime.
Those bereaved by murder, manslaughter and fatal road traffic crimes will also receive the specialist support that they so desperately need.
Justice secretary Ken Clarke commented: “Grass roots groups know the needs of their local area, and bring a wealth of experience to our drive to support the most seriously affected, vulnerable and persistently targeted victims of crime as they rebuild their lives.”
The minister added: “Funding these local organisations will help bring a targeted, sustained and tailored service to those who need it the most. This approach, coupled with our plans to reduce re-offending and to break the cycle of crime, will help us achieve our dual goals of protecting society and better supporting victims.”
The three-year funding will benefit lots of organisations, helping them to provide sustained, specialist support to families who have been bereaved through crime.
For example, Winston’s Wish is a national charity providing emotional and practical support to some of the 24,000 children who are bereaved of a parent each year, and those coping with the death of a sibling.
Victims like the family of 19-year-old Mark, who was murdered in an unprovoked attack in 2009. After contacting the charity through their national helpline, Winston’s Wish supported Mark’s parents and siblings for more than 18 months through individual and family meetings.
After attending a residential group run by Winston’s Wish for families bereaved by murder, Mark’s mother said: “From all the negatives in our lives, this is a positive. It was so good to know that professionals were keeping me safe and helping me to express myself.”
Liz Koole, the family services manager at Winston’s Wish, commented: “It’s a double blow when a homicide takes place. Not only does the family have to cope with a sudden and unexpected death, they also have to deal with the way their relative has died. Children can often be left overwhelmed and bewildered by what has happened. These are ordinary children in extraordinary circumstances. Some families who have been bereaved through violence describe it as ‘grief with the volume turned up’.”
Winston’s Wish is helping children and families bereaved through homicide across the UK. Experience shows that children who receive timely and appropriate support, information and advice are better able to face the future with confidence and hope.
Detail on the Karma Nirvana charity
Another charity to benefit is Karma Nirvana, which supports both female and male victims of forced marriage and honour-based violence.
Saima was just 14 when her parents promised she would marry an older cousin she had met briefly on a family holiday to Pakistan. She was tricked into returning to Pakistan, and then forced to marry the 26-year-old man she hardly knew, who beat and sexually abused her.
Following a harrowing ordeal – including three suicide bids, an ‘honour’ knife attack which killed her unborn baby and being completely cut off from the family which claimed she shamed them – Saima contacted Karma Nirvana for support and advice. The charity helped her to rebuild her life.
“The worst thing was the fact that so many people were alerted. I told them, but no-one helped because they thought I was a teenager seeking attention,” explained Saima.
“Hopefully, now the law has changed, places like schools and colleges and people such as social workers, police officers and doctors will take this issue more seriously than they did even just a couple of years ago.”
Jasvinder Sanghera, founder of Karma Nirvana, said: “This funding means we can now say with certainty to victims of forced marriage and honour-based violence that our national helpline will be here for the next three years. We can save more lives, and we can respond to an issue that our Government recognises is happening in the UK. We know the 550 calls we take each month, from women and men, are the tip of the iceberg and we want to encourage more people to seek help.”
Joanne, 15, found she could no longer cope after being raped at a party by a fellow school pupil. She said: “I had nowhere to turn to and no-one understood. Cathy [at the Safety Net Advice and Support Centre] listened, didn’t judge me and just ‘got it’. She stuck with me. Without her I’d be dead.”
Abigail Finnegan, chief executive of the Safety Net Advice and Support Centre, said: “Ministry of Justice funding will help us reach children and families affected by rape and sexual abuse, particularly on the West Coast of Cumbria where services for this type of work are few and far between.”
Finnegan added: “There is no quick fix to the devastating after-effects associated with the trauma of sexual abuse. The provision of sustained funding means that a postcode lottery of specialist services is removed in West Cumbria, and that we have increased capacity to provide long term specialist support to those who need it most.”
Anti-social behaviour consultation
The Home Office has produced a paper on reforming the whole area of anti-social behaviour and how it is dealt with. This will also affect the way certain offenders who impact on businesses and their staff, either through shop theft or anti-social behaviour may be dealt with.
The overriding objective of proposed reform is to speed up and simplify the process for police and other agencies and to make redress more accessible to local communities who suffer from any type of anti-social behaviour.
The main changes propose to introduce the following:
- ‘Criminal Behaviour Order’: available on conviction for any criminal offence, and including both prohibitions and support to stop future behaviour likely to lead to further anti-social behaviour or criminal offences
- ‘Crime Prevention Injunction’: a purely civil order with a civil burden of proof, making it much quicker and easier to obtain (the injunction would also have prohibitions and support attached, and a range of civil sanctions for breach)
- Community Protection Order (Level 2): a local authority/police power to restrict use of a place or apply to the courts to close a property linked with persistent anti-social behaviour
- Community Protection Order (Level 1): a notice issued by a practitioner to stop persistent anti-social behaviour that’s affecting quality of life in an area or neighbourhood, with a financial penalty for non-compliance or other sanctions where relevant (for example the seizure of noise-making equipment)
- Police ‘Direction’ power: a power to direct any individual causing or likely to cause crime or disorder away from a particular place, and to confiscate related items
Causation of harassment, alarm or distress
The first two powers will have an application to persistent shoplifters who cause harrassment, alarm or distress or for groups of people whose persistent anti-social behaviour or harrassment of a community convenience store, for example, could be dealt with by one of these measures (or by the police direction power which would also be available to PCSOs, and would appear to be a more direct means of dealing with this type of anti-social behaviour).
The consultation paper asks a number of questions on each topic.
Too many crime victims left in the dark
An Ipsos MORI survey of over 1,100 victims of crime carried out for Victim Support suggests that too many victims are left in the dark after reporting a crime, and shows that nearly half (42%) feel that victims are treated unfairly by the criminal justice system.
The survey coincides with the annual report of crime in England and Wales and shows that just over one-in-three (35%) victims weren’t told what had happened by the justice system after they reported a crime.
This was even worse for victims of criminal damage, including those who had their house or car vandalised (40%). For those who had something stolen from them, like their bag being snatched or their pocket picked, 42% heard nothing. Victims of fraud (45%) were the most likely to be kept in the dark.
As well as the need to keep victims better informed, the survey shows that the top priorities for improving the justice system are sentencing decisions needing to be clearer (48%) and for justice to be speeded up (39%) so that victims can move on with their lives.
Comment from Victim Support
Commenting on these figures Javed Khan, chief executive for Victim Support, said: “We know from talking to the thousands of victims we help every day that behind the British Crime Survey are real people whose lives have been turned upside down by crime.”
He added: “The rise in burglary is a deep concern, as is the fact that there are still over 25,000 new crime victims every day, yet too many hear nothing after they have reported a crime and too often they feel they have been treated unfairly by the justice system.”
Added to this, urged Khan, is the fact that two out of every five trials in court don’t go ahead as planned, meaning that it’s no wonder confidence in the criminal justice system is low.
“As well as being kept informed,” he explained, “the victims want sentencing decisions to be clearer and justice to be quicker so that they can move on with their lives. Justice agencies need to work together and treat victims and witnesses as real people and not just another statistic.”
A total of 5,396 interviews were carried out with adults (15+) face-to-face in homes across England and Wales between 3-23 June 2011. Of these, 1,134 respondents (21%) identified themselves as having been a victim of crime within the previous two years at an initial filter question, and proceeded to complete the questionnaire.
Quotas were set to ensure that a representative sample of the population was obtained, and final data was also weighted by age, gender, ethnicity, social class, working status and Government Office Region to reflect the population profile.
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