PRESS RELEASE

New book aims to rebalance justice for 20 million Americans who will be victims of crime this year

WASHINGTON, DC:  On average, an American will be a victim of assault 3 times and a woman has a one in five chance of being forcibly raped at some point in her life.   The time has come to tip the scales – and the expenditures – decisively in favor of crime victims, says Dr. Irvin Waller in his new book, Rights for Victims of Crime:  Rebalancing Justice (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. – http://irvinwaller.org/).

Victims and taxpayers hope that justice and victim assistance will meet their needs but, as the book points out, too often the response from law enforcement and the machinery of criminal justice do not make the victim count. Government spends $225 billion on courts, cops and corrections but only $4 billion on victim assistance and compensation. For every woman accommodated at a transition house, for example, one is turned away. Legislation calling for restitution is ignored and governments do not invest in the proven programs that stop violence.

Of the book, Chief Justice Richard Barajas (ret.), Texas Court of Appeals, El Paso said, “This is a work that people must hold up to their legislators to demand that victims’ issues be urgently addressed through legislation that will change our national agendas. Only then will we see a proper balance of justice in our society.”

The book advocates for a long overdue shift from only punishing offenders to law enforcement where victims matter, services and victim assistance are universally accessible, and restitution ordered and collected.  Professor Waller points to successful examples in the US and throughout the world and proposes specific actions for legislators in each chapter.  To make the paradigm shift, we need re-allocation of funding, comprehensive laws and constitutional change that guarantee victims the right to safety, to reparation and to justice, while ensuring those rights are judicially respected rather than trumped by offender rights.

As a young man working on a freighter, Waller’s life was forever changed when he was the victim of a life threatening assault and a fellow sailor was murdered.   He subsequently obtained an MA in Economics and a Ph.D. in Law from Cambridge University and took up the cause of using science and international standards to fight for victims’ rights.

Waller has consulted to attorneys general in more than forty countries, was the founding executive director of the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime affiliated with the United Nations, and currently serves as the President of the Oregon-headquartered International Organization for Victims’ Assistance.  A Full Professor at the University of Ottawa who also taught at the State University of New York in Albany, Waller’s first book is the popular “Less Law More Order: The Truth About Reducing Crime,” which shows how to  stop  crime before it happens and shift from misspending on ineffective  “tough on crime” responses.