Canadian victims face five disturbing facts. Crime does $83 billion in harm. Rates of victimization are not decreasing. Victims are going less to police. Governments are spending much more on criminal justice but not on victims. Current knowledge on violence prevention suggests that rates of violence could be cut by 50%.
Canada wants to enact the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights so that it will be a cornerstone that will meet the needs of victims of crime. It can only be a cornerstone if there are guarantees for the rights of victims of crime by providing funding, informing victims about them, making the rights measurable and measured, and by ensuring prevention that stops victimization.
Five Disturbing but Not Well Known Facts about Crime Victims in Canada
• Justice Canada estimates the harm to victims of crime annually at $83 billion (Zhang, 2011) – equivalent to a deeply disturbing 4.5% of GDP.
• Statistics Canada shows that real rates of victimization of Canadians aged 15 and older by crime from 1988 to 2009 are not decreasing even though police are taking on less recorded crime
• Statistics Canada shows that the percentage of victims of crime who still report their crime to the police has dropped from 42% in 1993 to 31% in 2009 – that is one third fewer victims of crime are going to the police
• Federal and Provincial governments in Canada have not increased funding for victim services and rights and prevention of victimization by significant amounts (the revisions to the fine surcharge are unlikely to be the solution). Yet, there was clearly no shortage of money in the last ten years as expenditures for other aspects of criminal justice grew rapidly. Policing alone has grown by $6 billion to $13 billion. (see for instance Parliamentary Budget Officer, 2014) Victim rights need funding.
• The evidence is clear that real rates of victimization could be reduced by approximately 50% by shifting investment into ways of preventing violence that are recognized as proven by the US Dept of Justice, the World Health Organization and others (Waller, 2013) – a 50% cut would mean $40 billion less in harm to victims.
A Victim Bill of Rights Needs Funding, Evaluation of Results and Action to Reduce Victimization
• An Act to enact the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights and to amend certain Acts is an achievement because for the first time federally Canadians will have a law called a bill of rights for victims of crime and this is long overdue. But the number one lesson from every other jurisdiction in the affluent democratic world with a bill of rights for victims is that Bills like these do not deliver rights and services to victims unless there is funding and ways to monitor its implementation and so make adjustments.
• Bills of rights for victims are not new to Canada. Manitoba under an NDP government had already adopted a bill of rights in 1986 and importantly now has a complaint procedure. Ontario under a conservative government adopted its bill of rights in 1996 and established an advisory Office for Victims of Crime.
• Most US States already have some type of Bill of Rights. Based on its 1984 legislation, the US federal government has used large fines on rich corporate offenders to fund practical services and compensation across the USA.
• In 2004, the US Congress adopted a landmark Victim Rights Bill which included the requirement for the General Accounting Office to evaluate and monitor its implementation and so it has already led to important improvements by policing, prosecutors and judges.
• Some States such as Oregon and Arizona have enforcement procedures for their bill of rights, which have successfully engaged the courts to guarantee rights for victims.
• The European Union adopted in 2012 its Directive establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime. This built on the lessons learned from the evaluation of the EU framework in 2001. This demonstrates that 28 sovereign nations using 24 official languages can agree a comprehensive set of rights for victims.
• In 2014, the Canadian federal government co-sponsored a resolution at the World Health Assembly for the World Health Organization. This resolution invited Canada and many other governments to invest in proven violence prevention, particularly affecting women and girls, as well as children.
Amendments Needed to the Victims Bill of Rights
General Recommendations
• I commend the government of Canada for establishing the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. The Ombudsman is shifting the conversation in Canada on crime victim rights, has held important national meetings with victims and victim organizations to make recommendations for legislative action, and has proposed a number of important amendments to the Act that I hope this committee will adopt.
• For the Canadian Bill of Rights to help victims and become a corner stone for the future, its implementation must be funded and measured and it must be accompanied by modern methods to prevent victimization.
• With the implementation of this Bill, I encourage the Government of Canada to work with the provinces and territories to bring victim rights in Canada up to or exceeding the standards established in similarly situated democracies, notably in Europe and North America.
Strengthening Victims’ Rights – Victims´ rights deserve funding – You cannot get something for nothing.
1. The Bill should be amended to provide for the federal government to gradually increase its expenditures on innovations in services and rights and prevention of victimization until it reaches the equivalent of 10% of what is spent federally on policing, courts and corrections by 2020.
2. The Bill should be amended to include an amendment to the RCMP Act that requires all RCMP officers responding to call for services to provide victims with information about, and refer victims to, services and reparation.
Strengthening Victims’ Rights – What gets measured gets done.
3. The Bill should be amended to specify how the implementation of the legislation will be monitored and evaluated with a view to assessing the extent to which victims are informed about services, get services to meet their needs, and are able to enforce rights provided in the law.
4. The Bill should be amended to require Statistics Canada to undertake annual surveys of Canadians to determine rates of victimization, rates of reporting to police, and the extent to which victim needs are being met for (i) common crimes (eg assault, robbery and thefts), and (ii) intimate partner and sexual violence.
Strengthening Victims’ Rights – An Ounce of Prevention is worth a pound of cure.
5. The Bill should be amended to establish a federal violence prevention office responsible for working with the provinces and other partners to implement measures to protect Canadians from crime and victims from repeat victimization. This would reduce violence and crime in Canada by adapting current international knowledge and standards, such as the UN crime prevention principles and the WHO resolution on the prevention of violence.
Mandate
• I am President of the International Organization for Victim Assistance (IOVA) which is in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the UN.
• Our IOVA board brings together several of the recognized pioneers of the victim rights movement in the USA and abroad. Our mission is to be a catalyst for change for victims´ rights and services and the prevention of victimization across the world.
• We are proud to be invited regularly by the Bi-partisan Caucus for Victim Rights of the US Congress to highlight developments internationally to their annual victim rights forum. We have recently drafted at the request of the United Nations a handbook on the implementation of victim rights.
• I personally have worked. as professor at University of Ottawa, for victim rights and services and prevention of victimization for more than 40 years, including
o getting international recognition for my role in getting the UN General Assembly to adopt the Magna Carta for Victims in 1985
o advising Ministers of Justice across the world and from every political stripe in Canada on rights for victims of crime
o recent books on Rights for Victims of Crime: Rebalancing Justice (Rowman and Littlefield, 2010) and on Smarter Crime Control (Rowman and Littlefield, 2013) which use the best practices from Europe, the USA and other countries to provide a guide to politicians on how to make the human rights for victims a reality and how to prevent victimization and save lives and money.
