Victim and Witness Intimidation

Résumé du livre

Several recent initiatives have been directed at helping, advising and protecting victims and witnesses of crime from subsequent intimidation. The 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act brought into being two new offences. An intergovernmental working group on the treatment of vulnerable or intimidated witnesses has led to a range of new actions and procedures, some of which received legal force in the 1999 Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act. In contrast, there is limited research evidence on the extent of intimidation though two recent sweeps of the British Crime Survey (BCS) have attempted to provide more authoritative estimates. In the 1994 and 1998 sweeps of the survey respondents were asked if they had been a victim of crime and, if so, whether they had experienced any subsequent intimidation. In addition, a randomly selected half of the sample were asked if they had witnessed a crime and, if so, whether they too had experienced any intimidation.