Psychological Aspects Of Victim/Witness Assistance Programs Based In Prosecutors’ Offices Essay Sample

First witness/victim programs were created in the 1960s and 1970s in order to alleviate suffering of victims and witnesses and thus help them to bridge over the immediate time period after crime and recovery. With the first implementations of victim compensations in the 1960s and creation of specific legislation that compensated victims for federal crimes, also the organizations of civic society started to take interest in the recognition of the acute needs of witnesses and victims, which included agencies or rape centers formed to take care of issues related to child abuse or raped women. The evolution of these programs however seems to have stopped. The present problem of victim/witness assistance programs lies many times in the fact, that the programs take place in the prosecutor’s office. The prosecutors and the administrators of the programs are not liable for prevention of any psychological damage to those witnesses or to those victims that can suffer due to the physical proximity of the offenders or due to a potential visual encounter that can easily happen in the corridors of the prosecutor’s offices. Also, the atmosphere of spaces were the malfeasants are kept and where their feats are being described in a sometimes difficult personal confrontation, not speaking about the esthetical form of the surrounding, can be an aggravating factor for psychology of victims or witnesses that are in a frail psychological states. It may be a more efficient and a more human approach towards the victims and witnesses to move the assistance programs to a different place. The psychological recovery could be much shorter and the additional costs related to transport of administrative staff could be compensated on the macroeconomic level precisely by a shorter time needed for the victims and witnesses to acquire solid psychological state. The effects of crime on victims and especially the violent crimes cause in a high percentage of cases posttraumatic stress disorders (PTSD) or can be a cause for suicidal tendencies, leading to prolonged hospital stays. For this reason, the move of victims and witnesses to different premises is to be considered a wide strategy, even despite logistical issues related with a more demanding communication between the prosecutor’s office employees and victims or witnesses.