Changing the Landscape: Justice for Victims
Department of Justice
Policy Centre for Victim Issues
National Victims of Crime Awareness Week April 2008
Finding the Way Together
Twenty-five years ago, a federal-provincial task force mandated with examining and sensitizing the public and criminal justice agencies about the needs of victims of crime released a watershed report that would change the landscape of victims' rights and services across the country.
It took two years for the members of the task force – largely federal and provincial lawyers, criminologists and bureaucrats – to prepare their report, Justice for Victims of Crime. It took far longer for governments, police forces and community service agencies to implement the majority of the report's 79 recommendations, many of which evolved over the ensuing quarter-century.
But looking back at the report from the vantage point of 2008, it is clear that what was innovative policy in 1983, when the task force urged its adoption, laid the foundation for what is accepted practice in 2008.
The task force helped to launch victim advocacy onto the national agenda. It set the stage for the increased voice of victims in criminal justice matters. It paved the way for the victim and witness assistance programs that today, in the words of the mother of a murdered child, make an awful process “bearable.”
“We have attempted to indicate ways in which victims of crime
can be treated justly and humanely, while at the same time protecting
the rights of the offender and the needs of the state,”
Chairman Don Sinclair said in the letter transmitting the report to Roger Tassé, then the federal Deputy Minister of the Department of Justice.
“It is our belief that our criminal justice system can and should
express more concern for, show greater consideration to, and ensure better
care of those who are the victims”
, wrote Sinclair.
That concern and consideration for victims was the task force's starting point – along with the conviction that, after reviewing barren landscape of programs and services that existed in the early 1980s, the way forward was through working together across jurisdictions..
Perhaps most importantly, the task force report called upon all those involved in making laws, developing policies and working in the criminal justice system to demonstrate an attitude of sensitivity. The Task Force sought to bring about a shift in attitude towards one that acknowledged victims' rights and their needs for care, consideration and communication.
“If the will exists to do these things, they will be done,”
the task force concluded.
Demonstrating that sensitivity provides the only light in the dark place that victims are plunged into when they are hurt or violated, or one of their loved ones is killed, says Lesley Parrott, whose 11-year-old daughter Alison was murdered in 1986. Parrott, who testified against the man ultimately convicted of killing her daughter in 1999, endured the trial of Alison's offender with the help of service providers from the Ontario's Victim/Witness Assistance program. While the program could not give Parrott the one thing she wanted in all the world – Alison – the decency and sensitivity of the program’s service providers helped her get through it, she says.
“The biggest antidote to any of this awfulness – and frankly
I think it's the only thing that makes a difference – is humanity,”
says Parrott, unconsciously echoing the message the task force had relayed so many years before. “It's
so important for everyone in the system to give you their humanity.”
This article will look at the services that existed for victims prior to 1983, the reason for the task force's existence and its recommendations, and the way that laws and services have been developed over the past 25 years to reflect those recommendations and the need for victim services. Finally, it will discuss the gaps in services that still exist, and the need for enhanced cooperation between all levels of government and service providers
Launching the Task Force
In the 1980’s high profile cases were bringing the rights and needs of victims of crime to the forefront. In July 1981, Sharon and Gary Rosenfeldt, whose son Daryn was murdered by Clifford Olsen, founded Parents of BC Child Murder Victims. That same year, Inge Clausen and other residents of Duncan, B.C., founded Citizens United for Safety and Justice, after the murder of 15-year-old Lise Clausen by a parolee. In 1983 – the same year the task force issued its report – the Rosenfeldts registered Victims of Violence as a national charitable organization to advocate for victims' rights.
At the same time that these organizations were beginning to provide victims of crime with a voice, federal and provincial Justice Ministers recognized the need to address victim issues. In 1979, Ministers created a working group to examine the issue of justice for victims of crime. The working group recommended the creation of a task force to look at victims' needs, the funding implications and mechanisms, legislative options, restitution and sentencing alternatives, and the community involvement necessary to develop services for victims. The task force was also to recommend how to sensitize the public and criminal justice agencies to victims' needs, and to identify ways federal and provincial governments could work together to share information and expertise.
Following the working group recommendation, the Task Force was launched in 1981.
“It was the first time that you had an exercise like that to look at how the whole justice field was dealing with victims,”
says Yvon Dandurand, a task force member representing the Department of Justice at the time.
“All the governments, federal and provincial, were looking at defining their own policies, and this was an exercise that was important from the point of view of understanding the different areas of policy that were required,”
says Dandurand, now Dean of Research and Industry Liaison for the University College of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, B.C.
Early Victim Services
As the task force met and began its work, members brought with them information about services that already existed in their provinces. They consisted primarily of piecemeal programs, largely associated with the police, in several provinces and communities across Canada, including Edmonton, Calgary, Saint John’s and Regina. While consisting of valuable programs and efforts, it was far from the consistent, co-ordinated response that victims desired. Many areas of the country, particularly rural communities, were not well-served by any victim services.
“At this point in our history, the victim assistance sector was totally undeveloped – almost non-existent,”
says Dandurand.
Although every province except Prince Edward Island had criminal compensation programs in place for victims of crime, many of the programs were under-utilized. There was little information flowing to victims about the programs, and scant help in how to apply for compensation.
Few victim advocacy organizations existed, but the ones that stood out to task force members were those dedicated to assisting women who had been the victim of sexual assault or other sexual offences.
“Therefore the task force received more information about those victims than it did about others, because that was the only side of victim assistance that had really been developed at the time, so they were a little more vocal,”
Dandurand remembers. “This is where we had a clearer picture.”
The Task Force
The 18-member task force reviewed surveys and literature. Some members travelled to France to look at the way that country was integrating victims into their judicial proceedings. Others talked to Gary and Sharon Rosenfeldt and a few other representatives from early victim organizations, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving, to hear directly from them. Members also discussed and debated the best way to bring greater balance to the rights of accused individuals with victims' needs for more communication and a increased role in the justice system. One perspective brought forward was the idea of revamping the entire judicial process to allow victims of crime to be represented by their own lawyers – an idea the task force ultimately rejected.
“The first thing was that some of us had to convince others that [the role of victims] was a real issue,”
remembers Michel Vallée, a Criminology Professor at Ottawa’s Carleton University, who was, at the time working on issues of domestic violence (then called wife assault) for the federal Department of the Solicitor General. “We all did some work, some research, some interviews, and some consultation.”
Susan Lee, now director of court operations for the City of Toronto, was also working for the Department of the Solicitor General and had a background in victim issues. She was assigned to help the task force with research and writing.
“What happened in those meetings was that there were great big discussions about the needs of victims of crime and how they could be met while still respecting the integrity of the criminal justice system,”
she says.
By the time the group came together to hammer out recommendations and issue the report, “we had a lot more sensitivity about the issues,”
says Vallée. Ultimately, the task force issued 79 recommendations. The areas they covered included:
- prompt return of property;
- restitution;
- criminal injuries compensation;
- victim impact statements;
- protection from intimidation;
- in-camera hearings;
- holding trials within a reasonable time;
- services to the elderly, to children, to assaulted women, sexual assault victims, native victims, and families of homicide victims;
- information to victims;
- private justice;
- costs and funding, such as the use of a fine surtax; and
- monitoring the implementation of recommendations.
Victim Impact Statements
One of the most contentious areas concerned the task force’s recommendation that the courts should consider victim impact statements at sentencing. Members of the task force who represented the Crown prosecutors were concerned that judges and Crown attorneys would not accept the statements if they felt they were unduly influencing the process.
“They didn't want it tainting the trial process, but they also wanted to inject the victim's voice into it, for the purpose of assisting victims and telling the court how the criminal event had affected them,”
says Lee.
James Blacklock, now a judge with the Ontario Court of Justice, was among the task force members not yet convinced about the importance of victim impact statements. At the time, he was a senior counsel with the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General. He believed that he understood enough about what victims felt that he could convey those feelings, as a Crown attorney.
“I just didn't appreciate what I've come to appreciate as a judge,”
Blacklock says now. “The victim impact statement gives you a really personal insight.”
For Blacklock, that lesson has struck home many times since he was appointed to the bench in 1993 – none more so than a case that came before him in the mid-1990s. A young man in his 30s had been shot in the throat and paralyzed. During his victim impact statement, which Blacklock heard before carrying out his sentence, the young man talked about his inability to pick up his child.
“I can remember thinking that I wouldn't have thought of that,”
says Blacklock.
Although that detail did not influence the sentence Blacklock handed out, it touched him. It also affected the sensitivity with which he wrote his reasons for sentencing. He delivered them not only to the offender, but as a way of speaking to the victim and acknowledging his pain.
“I can remember describing the situation he was in, which looked medically irreversible, and saying that you can never medically discount people's abilities and their spirit and their capacity to achieve and to contribute,”
Blacklock says.
Those statements have many positive uses as they convey to the accused the impact of what they have done, often “in pretty graphic terms,”
Blacklock says. Many of the people he sees in his courtroom are ordinary people who, through combinations of background, environment, circumstances and their own weaknesses have gotten themselves into difficulty, he points out.
“But they are feeling people. So it [the statement] has an impact on them. You can see it”
, continues Blacklock.
Sometimes, he makes offenders read the victim impact statement; on other occasions, he has directed them to review it with their parole officers. Above all, the victim impact statements bring the human dimension into the courtroom, he says.
“When you're made aware of some of the subtleties, you can in turn put some subtleties into how you handle your piece of the process, in a way that, while respecting the rights of the accused, can recognize and validate the victims and say some things that might help people,”
Blacklock says.
Ultimately, the task force decided that it would not recommend revolutionizing the justice system, but would recommend changes that worked within the system to sensitize all of the players to the impact of crime on victims. The task force recommended that the Criminal Code be amended to permit a victim impact statement to be considered at the time of sentencing.
In 1988, Bill C-89 brought forth an amendment to the Criminal Code to reflect the task force recommendation. In 1996, that provision was strengthened to require any Court sentencing an offender, to consider a victim impact statement, if one was prepared. In 1999, further amendments required judges to ask victims if they were advised that they could prepare a victim impact statement, and permitted victims to present their statements orally. In 2006, further changes to the Criminal Code were passed that ensure victims are advised of the opportunity to present victim impact statements at disposition hearings for offenders found not criminally responsible due to mental disorder. Victims now receive notice of these hearings, called Criminal Code Review Board hearings, and have the option of presenting their statement orally.
