RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56

VICTIM ASSISTANCE IN CANADA
Ezzat A. Fattah*
I. INTRODUCTION
Canada is a beautiful and lovely country.
It is consistently rated as one of the bestplaces in the world to live. Canada is aconfederation of ten provinces and two
territories. As a confederation, Canada has
a complex political and government system.
There are actually three levels ofgovernment in Canada: federal, provincial,
and municipal. The federal government
has sole jurisdiction in some areas, forexample, the criminal code. This is why,in contrast to the United States where eachstate in the union has its own criminal
code, in Canada there is one federal
criminal code that applies to the entire
land. The provinces and the territories
have sole jurisdiction in some matters, forexample, education.
The administration of justice is a mixed
jurisdiction. There are federal courts andprovincial courts. Some judges areappointed by the federal government andothers by the provincial government.
There are provincial prisons and federal
prisons called penitentiaries. To someextent, policing is a shared responsibility.
There are three main types of police forcesin Canada. I say main types, because inaddition to these three, there are
specialized or localized police forces suchas harbour police which operate in ports
such as the Port of Vancouver.
The three main types of police forces arefederal, provincial, and municipal. The
largest police force in Canada is obviously
the federal police, known as the Royal* Professor Emeritus, School of Criminology, Simon
Fraser University, Canada.

48

Canadian Mounted Police or the RCMP.
The two largest provinces in Canada;
Ontario and Quebec, each has its own
provincial police force in addition to manymunicipal police forces. But they are theonly ones that have such a provincial force.
Each city or municipality in Canada could
have its own municipal police force andlarge cities usually do. But even smaller
municipalities can have their own police
force consisting of seven, eight or ten
constables. In the greater Vancouver area,
this is the case of municipalities such asWest Vancouver or Port Moody. In
Montreal, many years ago, all municipal
police forces were amalgamated into one
force called the “Montreal Urban
Community” police force.
Through a contract signed between thefederal government and the provinces,
municipalities that do not want, or cannot
afford, to have their own police forces could
have their territory policed by the RCMP.
They can have an RCMP detachmentservicing the municipality.
This division of jurisdiction has anenormous bearing on victim assistance inCanada. This is because there are no truly
national standards or unified sets of rulesthat govern victim services. As a result,these services are more developed incertain areas than in others, and in someplaces they are virtually non-existent.
Even in an area such as government
compensation to victims of crime, because
each province has its own Compensation
Act or law, the rules and amounts ofcompensation can show substantial
variation. Naturally, this is a far from ideal
situation, though it is not very different
from what exists in other federalist states,

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
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such as the United States, Switzerland orAustralia. These difference make it
impossible to offer a general picture ofvictim assistance in Canada or to present
a general synopsis of the state of victim
services in such a huge and diverse country.
II. VICTIM ASSISTANCE IN
CANADA: A BRIEF HISTORY
Until the 1960’s, the situation of crime
victims in Canada was no different fromtheir situation in other western countries.
Not only were they the forgotten persons
in the criminal justice system, but they
were also the orphans of social justice.
They had no legal status, no rights, and noone seemed to pay any attention to theirplight. They were a disenfranchised groupwith few supporters and even fewer
defenders! Until now I can hardly
understand how or why it is that in welldeveloped welfare states, in the aftermathof the second world war, where the statecame to the help and rescue of the weak,t h e p o o r, t h e u n e m p l o y e d , t h eunderprivileged, the dispossessed, nothing
was done to improve the victims’ lot or to
alleviate their plight. It is simply
incomprehensible that at a time whensocial solidarity and social assistance werebuzz words, the cause of crime victims was
totally ignored.
Things began to change in the early
1960’s. Thanks to the laudable efforts of a
British magistrate, Margery Fry, andothers, voices were heard on both sides of
the Atlantic calling for state compensation
to victims of crime. But it was New Zealandwhich was to become, in 1963, the first
country to establish a state compensation
program for crime victims, only to befollowed the year after by Great Britain.
In the United States, the first initiative wasthat of the State of California, which began
a compensation scheme in 1966, to befollowed a year later by New York and

Hawaii.
In Canada, the lead was taken by theProvince of Saskatchewan in 1967, followedby Ontario (1968), Alberta and New
Foundland (1969), Manitoba and New
Brunswick (1971), British Columbia andQuebec (1972). Today, all Canadianprovinces have compensation programs forthe victims of certain offences. Althoughcrime victims compensation isadministered exclusively by each provinceor territory, it is financed on a cost-sharebasis with the federal government. Lateron, we will see to what extent these
programs have been successful infinancially assisting crime victims.
Financial assistance was thus the firstsign of society assuming some
responsibility for crime victims. Victim
services were yet to wait for some more
years before being offered to the victims.
And this was not even a government
initiative but a grass roots one. The
feminist movement should be given credit
for recognizing the suffering of female
victims of sexual assault and of domestic
violence, and for setting up privately run
rape crisis centres and shelters for battered
women, where victims not only could seek
refuge, but also could get counselling andassistance of varying kinds.
The ideological roots of rape crisis
centres and shelters for victims of domestic
violence have remained largely unchanged
and explain why it is that their clientele is
exclusively women (and in some cases theirchildren). This is so, although research in
the US suggests that men are as often
victims of family violence as women are(Steinmetz, 1978; Straus, Gelles andSteinmetz, 1980) and it is by now a wellknown fact that rape and sexual assaults
are not exclusively a male/female
phenomenon. In fact, in one of the early
shelters in Vancouver (Ridington, 1978)

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
there were only three rules: no liquor, nodrugs, no men. One of the reasons why
male companions of the residents are notallowed is the fear that they might cause
trouble, and this is why the locations of the
shelters are kept secret and strict
precautions are taken to keep them thatway (Peltoniemi, 1989, p335).
The creation of rape crisis centres andbattered women shelters highlighted thelack of services available to crime victims
and their dire need for some help andassistance to find their way through themaze of the criminal justice system, to copewith the traumatic effects of victimization,and to avoid future victimization.
The police, ever anxious to improve theirimage and to strengthen their contacts andrelationships with the community they
serve, quickly realized that there wereseveral administrative benefits to begained from establishing victim assistanceprograms. It is sad to say, but in Canada
at least, the impetus for victim assistanceprograms was not a genuine concern forthe plight of crime victims but theadministrative goals of the police agencies.
Compensation programs were actuallydesigned to encourage victim reporting to
the police and to improve victim
cooperation with the criminal justicesystem. The primary benefits were seen
as enhancing victim participation andcollaboration, thus increasing the efficiency
and effectiveness of the system.
The same can be said of victim assistanceprogrammes. The major guiding influence
was not compassionate or humanitarianconsideration for victims, but theadministrative goals of the agency. The
Calgary Victim Services Programme, oneof the first of its kind in Canada (started
in 1977), is just one example of many. The
programme is described in a document
published by the Solicitor General’s

50

Department in Ottawa. The document
makes no secret of the fact that theobjective of the programme “is to develop agood working relationship with victims ofcrime in order to encourage their futurecooperation with the police in crime
prevention”. This statement tells a great
deal about the victim service programmes
which were set up by various police
departments in Canada, as in othercountries. It explains the distinct
preference for having these programmes
housed in police departments or publicprosecutors’ offices, rather than in thecommunity.
III. MODELS OF VICTIMASSISTANCE
Victim assistance programs do not follow
the same model. The choice of one model
rather than another is dependent upon alarge number of variables. Since evaluative
research analysing and comparing thedifferent models is lacking, it is impossible
to tell whether a certain model is betterand more effective than the others, or tojudge which model works best for which
victims. The setting for the program, thatis, whether it is housed in a police station,
the prosecutor’s office, or the community;t h e p r o g r a m ’s p e r s o n n e l , w h e t h e r
professionals, para-professionals, orvolunteers; the type of assistance theprogramme offers: referrals, counselling,emotional support, etc; the type and lengthof follow up on program’s clients; are all
factors that are bound to affect thep r o g r a m ’s p e r f o r m a n c e a n d i t seffectiveness. As does the ideology
underlying the program or the service.
Studying women shelters, Peltoniemi(1989, p334) identified two shelter
ideologies: the feminisit shelter ideology
and the family-oriented shelter ideology.
According to Peltoniemi, the mostimportant feature of the feminist shelter

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
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ideology is its emphasis on a nonhierarchial system. He points out that insuch shelters there are no specified work
roles and those staying at the shelter are
called women, not clients or anything else.
The whole ideology is based on one
explanatory theory of family violence: thestructual theory saying that family violenceis caused by a patriarchal society. The
feminist ideology also emphasizes thecriminal nature of family violence and the
preponderant role of the court system incontrolling and preventing it. Peltoniemi
explains that the family-oriented shelter
ideology is the exact opposite of the feminist
ideology. Family violence is seen as
violence that is not directed exclusively at
women but towards many different victims
within the family. He adds:
Several reasons for violence aresuggested, and it is considered thatthe entire family needs help, not only
women. The shelters are organized
in a more traditional way andcooperate closely with social careagencies (1989, p335).
In Canada, victim assistance programs
housed in police departments and operated
by the police agencies are generallyorganized according to popular models.
There is usually one coordinator, in mostcases a civilian (not a member of the force)
who is hired and paid by the police. The
major responsibility for this coordinator isto recruit, train, and supervise a numberof volunteers, to assign their duties,
determine their case load, and to coordinate
their activities. The coordinator is also
expected to liaise with the community, topublicize the existence of the program andto ensure its acceptance and support by thecommunity.

IV. PROGRAM SETTING ANDPERSONNEL
The most appropriate setting for victim
assistance programs, as well as the mostappropriate background for victim helpers,
have been the subject of many heateddebates. Should victim assistanceprograms be housed in police departments
and be run directly, or under close
supervision by the police? There is no clearcut answer to this question, and there arevalid arguments on both sides of the issue.
The major argument in favour of this modelis rather a practical one. It is claimed that
placing the program in the police stationis the surest way of having the largest
number of victims take advantage of theservice. The first encounter of crime
victims with the criminal justice system,in the vast majority of cases, is their contact
with the police. Once a complaint is filed,
the police get the victim’s address (andtelephone number), and refer the victim
immediately to the victim service, or
provide the program with the necessary
infomation to get in touch with her/him.
It is argued that programs located in thecommunity will be much less successful inknowing who the victims are and inlocating them.
Those who argue in favour of placing
victim assistance programs within thecommunity are generally apprehensive
because of the strong temptation to use theservices for victims as a means to ensure
victims’ continued cooperation with thepolice. They also point to the great
reluctance of many victim groups:
minorities, immigrants, deviants,
homosexuals, prostitutes, etc, to takeadvantage of a service offered andcontrolled by the police. They insist thatrape-crisis centres and battered womenshelters would have had little chance ofgetting clients if they were located in andoperated by the police. They also argue

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56that community programs are likely to be
more neutral, more impartial, to take amore objective approach to the needs andwishes of the victims, and not to subscribe
to police stereotypes of certain
unconventional victims. Should victim
assistance programs use volunteers as
their main service providers or should thedelivery of services be done, as incorrections, by professionals and paraprofessionals?
The practical considerations that
dictated that victim assistance programs
be housed in police stations or police
departments are similar to those that
resulted in victims assistance being
delivered mainly by volunteers. The
decision to use volunteers was not basedon valid, scientific evidence that they can
perform this task better than paid
professionals or para-professionals. It was
not based on a sound judgement showingthat volunteers are better service providers
than others. Financial considerations were
the primary reason for the adoption of thevolunteer model.
Governments, as reluctant as they were,to provide decent budgets to statecompensation schemes for crime victims,
were even more reluctant to allocate
financial resources to victim services. They
wanted the programs because they were
popular with the general public, and thus
politically beneficial, but they wanted tocommit only token amounts to theiroperation. It should also be kept in mind
that victim assistance is a very new field
and to my knowledge there are no college
or university programs offering training,courses, diplomas and degrees in victim
services. In fact, our knowledge of this fieldremains so rudimentary that no viable
programs could be mounted at present totrain professionals in this area.
Like other models, the volunteer model

52

of victim assistance has some advantages
but also significant drawbacks. The
overwhelming advantage is obviously
economical. Programs using volunteers arenaturally much less costly than those using
professionals, be it psychologists,
criminologists, social workers, or others. It
is also suggested that volunteers,particularly those with similar
victimization experiences, can relate betterto the victims and can better understandtheir pain and suffering, the traumaticeffects of the crime, and the impact it hason their lives, than do professionals.
Volunteers therefore might have more
sympathy and empathy than those whose
daily activities over the years are meeting
victims and listening to their tragic or sad
stories. Volunteers also tend to treat thevictims they are dealing with as humanbeings, as fellow citizens, rather than‘clients’ or ‘recipients of services’.
Be this as it may, the most importantdimension on which the models should beassessed and judged is the quality ofservices to crime victims. Do volunteers
provide better and more effective services
to the victims than professionals or paraprofessionals? This is questionable. In
Canada, the training that recruited
volunteers receive before working in victim
services is very crude and very elementary.
There is therefore a danger that the service
they provide might not be effective, and areal danger that the intervention, thoughdone with the best of intentions, will insome cases do the victims more harm than
good (that is, prolonging or evenmagnifying the trauma, delaying thenatural healing process and so forth).
Volunteers tend to be more emotional thanprofessional, they tend to side with theperson they are trying help. And while thismight provide temporary comfort to anumber of victims, it might not be in theirbest interest in the long run. This isparticularly true in cases where the most

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
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appropriate advice the victim needs issound, objective, candid and non-partisan
advice.
In the field of corrections, therehabilitation of offenders, the issue of
professionalization and of specialized
training for those who deliver the services,that is, the treatment and rehabilitation
programs, was settled several decades ago.
It would be unthinkable at the present timein the industrialized world to return to thevolunteer model of corrections that was
spearheaded last century in the US by the
Quakers, and in the State of Massachusetts
by John Augustus, who initiated thepractice of probation.
In Canada, the delivery of victim
assistance is done predominantly by
volunteers. As the volunteers have no
training or expertise in psychology orcounselling, they are instructed to refrainfrom acting as psychologists or counsellors.
They might be able to provide some
practical assistance to the victim: driving,cleaning, shopping, baby-sitting, helping
with the children and so forth, but in mostcases the only thing they do provide isemotional support.
This should not be interpreted as anendorsement of counselling for crime
victims, as there is no evidence showingthat counselling is effective. Davis andHenley (1990) reviewed research findings
and found little indication that counsellingof any sort is effective in reducing postcrime trauma. They regretted the fact thatmuch money is being spent on crisis
intervention services for victims in theabsence of knowledge as to which forms oftreatment work and which do not. There
are also reasons to believe thatintervention, if not done properly, can delay
rather than accelerate the natural healing
process and can prolong rather thanshorten the trauma of victimization.

V. THE NEEDS OF CRIME VICTIMS
Victims of crime constitute a very
heterogeneous population. And whilecertain needs might be common to all those
who suffer some form of criminal
victimization or another, there are several
groups of victims who might have special
and rather specific needs and therefore
might have to receive special andindividualized services. In the field ofcorrections, the principle of individualized
penal measures and of individualized
treatment, has been recognized for many
decades. There is a long-held view that
offenders respond differently torehabilitation and treatment programs,that certain programs are totallyineffective for certain types of offenders,
while other programs are more effective forsome than for others.
The diversity of the victim populationand the enormous variety of the types ofcriminal victimization from which they
could suffer, suggests that the principle ofindividualization is as important and as
valid in interventions with victims as it iswith offenders. Few examples could
illustrate well what is meant by
individualized intervention. The needs ofvictims of sexual offences are different fromthose of victims of property crimes, or evenvictims of common assault. But even for
those who are sexually victimized, theneeds may vary greatly from one group of
victims to another, and even from one
victim to another. The needs will vary not
only in the function of socio-demographic
variables such as age, gender, social class,level of education, race, etc, but will also
vary according to the type of offence
committed (rape, sexual touching,molestation, indecent exposure, anal
penetration, and so forth), the amount ofviolence or coercion used, the relationshipbetween the offender and the victim (total
stranger, acquaintance, close friend, pro-53

RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
genitor, etc), the age and race differentials
between the offender and victim, and soforth.

that would satisfy the specific needs of eachcrime victim, or of a specific victim group.
VI. THE TYPES OF SERVICES

Lurigio and Resick (1990) insist that
because reactions to crime and otherdeleterious experiences are often quite
varied, it is essential to study individual
differences in response to criminal
victimization. They state that variability
in victim recovery can be a function of
victim characteristics and predispositions,the nature of the incident, victims’
perceptions and interpretation of theoccurrence, and events that occur in theaftermath of the crime. Lurigio and Resick(1990) place a high emphasis on theindividual correlates of post-crime distressand recovery. But socio-cultural factors andattitudes can be of great importance as
well, and plays a significant role inspeeding up or delaying the recovery
process. In our society, there is a tendency
to stress, even overblow, the negative
effects of victimization, whereas in others
only the positive effects are emphasized.
Even physical injuries resulting fromvictimization do not carry the same weight
everywhere, and their impact, therefore, isbound to be greater or lesser according toa host of variables. It is undeniable thatpsychological wounds heal faster andbetter in some cultures than in others. All
this is to say that victim assistance is a lot
more than just a charitable or
humanitarian endeavour. If done properly
and effectively, victim assistance is not a
simple, easy or a mere common sense task.
In other words, it is not something that
could be delivered in a hasty or ad hocmanner unless it consists of nothing morethan moral support, tea and sympathy.
To my knowledge, no victim assistanceprogram in Canada, or for that matter,elsewhere, is able at the present time toprovide the kind of individualized services

54

Crime victims, regardless of the type ofvictimization they suffer, need different
types of support and varying kinds ofassistance. They need practical services
such as fixing the lock, replacing thewindow, or driving the kids to school. They
need information and advice, particularly
advice on how to avoid future victimization.
They might need referral to other services
or legal assistance. They need a great dealof emotional support. All these types ofservices are not problematic and the moreof them available to the victim after the
event, the better it is. It is the other kindof well-intentioned support: counselling,
therapy, and treatment that can pose real
problems.
One common need, spelled out by thevast majority of victims, is the need for
information about the progress of theircase. They felt frustrated that nobody
cared to tell them what is happening,whether the case will proceed or not, andif so, on what date. Once the case is before
the court, they want to be informed of theoutcome, whether the Crown will launch
an appeal, and the final disposition in any
appeal by the defendant or the Crown. If
the offender is sentenced to a prison term,
they want to know the eligibility dates forthe various types of early release, the datesof the hearings, the decision by the paroleboard. They want to be notified when theoffender is released. In response to thisexpressed need for information, guidelines
have been developed in many provinces in
Canada in order to ensure that the victims
are not kept in the dark, that they are being
kept informed of the progress of the caseat the various stages of the justice process.
This simple and rather inexpensive service
has gone a long way towards alleviating

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
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victims’ dissatisfaction with the justicesystem.
Another need that many victims have isthe need for some legal assistance and legal
advice. They are frustrated that free legal
aid is usually available for those offenders
who do not have the means to hire private
legal counsel, but the victims have to pay
if they needed to consult a lawyer. In many
provinces in Canada and elsewhere, there
are now provisions that make it possible
for victims to get some basic legal advice
without pay. Sometimes it is the prosecutor
who provides this advice, other times it isby a paralegal. But everywhere thisremains a process separate andindependent from the office of the publicdefender or that of legal aid.
VII. FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO
CRIME VICTIMS IN CANADA
Although crime victim compensation, or
criminal injuries compensation, as it isusually called, is administered exclusively
by each province (or territory), it is financed
on a cost-share basis with the federal
government. The federal government
assists in program funding to ensure theestablishment of uniform, minimum
standards. There are approximately forty
crimes of violence that are covered by thesefederal/provincial agreements.
While provincial (and territorial)
compensation schemes in Canada sharemany similarities and have several
common characteristics, there are stillsome notable differences. For example, thenature and structure of the compensating
agency vary from one province to the other.
In Ontario, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland,and Alberta, it is a separately establishedboard. In Quebec, Manitoba and British
Columbia, it is part of the already existing
Workman’s Compensation apparatus, stillin others it may be a provincial judge.

Schemes also differ in terms of the upper(and lower) limits the set for lump sum
awards and for periodic payments.
Financial assistance to crime victims in
Canada, as in most other countries thathave created similar schemes, is largely
inadequate and is subject to various
restrictions and limitations. This has led
many researchers to claim that statecompensation is essentially a symbolic act
by governments to show their concern forvictims, but with little real intention offollowing it through with hard cash (Miers,
1983, p19990; Maguire and Shapland,
1997, p218). As if to add insult to injury,
many governments, including theCanadian government, decided in recent
years to transfer the financial burden of
victim compensation to offenders througha levy called ‘a victim fine surcharge’imposed on those who are sentenced to apenal fine, even if the sentence is for a socalled ‘victimless crime’ (section 727.9 of theCanadian Criminal Code).
The major problem with Canadiancompensation schemes, as with others, isthat they exclude the vast majority ofvictims from the realm of compensation.
For the very few who are eligible forcompensation and who ultimately get it, it
is, for budgetary reasons, too little, andbecause of bureaucratic procedures, toolate.
In Canadian schemes, as in others,
victims of non-violent property crimes whoconstitute the bulk of crime victims, aretotally excluded from compensation. Sadly,
most of these victims do not have andcannot afford private insurance. In fourout of five of these property crimes, theculprit is neither identified nor caught.
And the few who are arrested, charged andconvicted are, more often than not, poor or
insolvent and nothing could be obtained
from them through a civil judgement even

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RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
if the victim had the means to obtain one.
Victims of violence for whom theschemes are designed do not fare muchbetter. The conditions of eligibility for statecompensation are such that only a small
fraction do qualify. In almost all systems,
eligibility is contingent upon reporting theoffence to the police and the victim’s
willingness to cooperate with the criminal
justice system. Many have a means test
ensuring that compensation is given only
to the poorest of the poor. Most exclude
violence among family members, whereasa good part of all violence occurs indomestic settings. Most also exclude (ordrastically reduce the awards to) victims
who provoked or otherwise contributed totheir own victimization. One sure way ofmaking the majority of victims of violenceineligible for state compensation is to set ahigh minimum limit for compensation
below which victims do not qualify. (In theUK, for example, the lower limit was set
at £1,000 despite the recommendations
made by victims groups to remove it). The
burden of proof is upon the victim and it iseasy to imagine how difficult it can be toprove that the injury resulted from acriminal attack when the attacker has run
away and there were no witnesses. With
the exception of sexual victimization, mostschemes do not provide funds tocompensate the victim’s emotional pain andsuffering.
It is not surprising that many victims
are deterred from applying by the lengthy
bureaucratic procedures and theinvestigative process. More distressing
still is that many victims are simply
unaware of the existence of the schemes.
As in many jurisdictions, the budget isdetermined in advance and cannot be
exceeded, the more applications the
program receives, the lower are the awards.
And as the schemes are poorly funded in
the first place, successful applicants

56

usually end up receiving ridiculously low
amounts as compensation for their
victimization. It is easy to understand,therefore, why it is that in some countries
there is a deliberate attempt not topublicize these state compensation
schemes.
VIII. OFFENDER RESTITUTION
Restitution by the offender to the victim
is one of the earliest forms of redress to
those who suffer injury or harm throughthe actions or negligence of another. This
was the composition or wergeld paid to thevictim or the victim’s kin.
Since state compensation programs areoften strictly limited to victims of violence,
restitution by the offender has re-emerged
as a means of redress in property offences
as well as in violent crimes. The problem
is that the vast majority of offenders areeither unemployed or do not have thefinancial means that would make itpossible for victims to collect restitution.
Added to this problem is the fact that inmany countries the collection of the penal
fine takes priority over restitution orders.
Provisions on restitution by the offender
to the victim are a relatively recent
addition to the Canadian Criminal Code
(CCC). Thus section 725 of the CCC
stipulates that:
Where an offender is convicted ordischarged under section 736 of an
offence, the court imposing sentenceon or discharging the offender shall,
on application of the Attorney Generalor on its own motion, in addition to
any other punishment imposed on theoffender, if it is applicable andappropriate in the circumstances,order that the offender shall, on suchterms and conditions as the court may
fix, make restitution to anotherperson.....

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
Section 737 pertaining to the placementof offenders on probation, cites a numberof conditions that could be attached to aprobation order. One of the conditions (737/2/e) is to ‘make restitution or reparation to
any person aggrieved or injured by thecommission of the offence for the actual loss
or damage sustained by that person as aresult thereof’’.
Section 737.8 contains various
provisions on how payment of restitution
or part of it could result in a reduction of
imprisonment.
IX. VICTIM-OFFENDER
RECONCILIATION AND VICTIMOFFENDER MEDIATIONPROGRAMS
Another important development inrecent years has been the rediscovery of
restorative justice. Restorative justice,which is widely practised in small,agrarian, rural societies, has a long andrich history in the aboriginal communities
in Australia, among Canada’s First Nationand the Inuit communities of the CanadianNorth.
The quasi-universal
disenchantment with the punitive/
retributive justice system was bound toforce those calling for justice reform to seek
alternatives to the current system ofpunishment. A turning point was the
publication of a seminal article by Nils
Christie in 1977 entitled “Conflicts as
Property”. In it, Christie explained thatthe root problem of the system is thatconflicts were stolen from their legitimate
owners, the victims, and became theproperty of professionals rather thanpeople. Christie’s ideas provided a strong
impetus to those who were calling for the
replacement of the destructive,
unproductive and ineffective system ofpunishment with the constructive practicesof dispute settlement, conflict resolution,
mediation, reconciliation and reparation.

Advocates of restorative justice pointed outthat in addition to its devastating effects
on offenders, their families and the larger
society, the system of punishment acts tointensify the conflict rather than solving
it. Instead of bringing the feuding parties
closer to one another, it widens the gap that
separares them (Fattah, 1997, p259).
Spearheaded by the Mennonite Church,
victim-offender reconciliation programs
were set up in Canada and the UnitedStates in the mid 1970s and then spreadto many other countries. Writing in 1983,
Dittenhoffer and Ericson (1983, 1992)
noted that the notion of VORP rapidly grewin popularity. They pointed out that at thetime, in Ontario alone, there were 24 VORP
centres operating, as were other centres
across Canada with similar programs. The
early programs have now been in existencefor over twenty years and the restorative
justice movement is expanding at a fast
pace. Outside of North America it hasestablished strongholds in Germany, theUnited Kingdom, Belgium, and France
among others. Three years ago, the Councilof Europe in Strasbourg set up the Expert
Committee on Mediation in Penal Matters.
The Committee has been meeting twice ayear and is due to release its report andmake its recommendations by the end of
this year.
Despite the appeal and popularity of thenotion of victim-offender reconciliation, thegoal of ‘reconciliation’ proved to be difficult
to achieve in practice. In many programs,
the foremost objective is to ensure
restitution by the offender to the victim andto see to it that the offender fulfills theobligations agreed upon in the mediationagreement. The programs were thus
inclined to changed their names fromvictim-offender reconciliation to mediation
programs.
Attempts to exploit the cause of crime57

RESOURCE MATERIAL SERIES No. 56
victims for political ends and to sell thepolicies of law and order, under the pretextof doing justice to victims, often required
the portrayal of victims as vengeful,vindictive, retributive and evenbloodthirsty. Those claiming to represent
and speak on behalf of victims gave theimpression that concern for crime victims
invariably requires a harsh, punitive
justice policy. While the distress of somevictims might be so overwhelming thatthey will demand the harshest possible
penalty for their victimizer, this could
hardly be said of the majority of victims.
Healing, recovery, redress, and preventionof future victimization are the primaryobjectives of most crime victims.
If the primary purpose of social
intervention is to restore the peace, redress
the harm, heal the injury, and stop the
repetiton of the offence, then it is easy tounderstand how and why the restorative
system (based on mediation, reconciliation,
restitution, and compensation) succeeds
where the punishment system fails.
Mediation and reconciliation bring the twoparties together, face-to-face, and ensurethat they see each other as human beings
in a state of distress. When faced with thevictim, it becomes impossible for thevictimizer to deny the victim’s existence or
the injury or harms s/he has caused. S/hecan no longer de-personalize, deindividuate, objectify or reify the victim. S/
he can no longer avoid post-victimization
cognitive dissonance. The confrontation
between the offender and the victim in amediation situation is the surest and mosteffective means of sensitizing him/her tothe victim’s plight, of countering andreversing the mental process of desensitization that s/he has gone through inorder to avoid guilt feelings or badconscience (Fattah,1991a).
The mediation process, when done
properly, can be very effective in awakening

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and activating any positive emotions theoffender might have lying beneath a crueland indifferent fecade. Emotions such aspity, sympathy, empathy, compassion,commiseration, can all be brought to thesurface and reinforced.
On the side of the victim, the mediation
situation can also have salutary effects.
The feared, stong, cruel and unemotional
victimizer is bared to a weak and often
helpless being, a being that evokes morepity than fear, more compassion thananger. Distorted but long held stereotypes
disappear when checked against the real
offender. Both parties end up by gaining arealistic view of one another andreconciliation becomes possible (Fattah,
1995, p312).
Thus in the long run, the interests ofcrime victims and of society at large are
best served by humanity, empathy andcompassion, by tolerance and forgiveness,by the development of conciliatory andforgiving communities rather than hostileand vengeful ones (Fattah, 1986, p13).
Constructive healing, not destructive
punishment, should be the primary andforemost goal of both victim policy andvictim services.
X. CONCLUSION
Hopefully, this bird’s eye view of victim
services and victim assistance programs in
Canada has provided you with some ideaof recent developments in this field.
Naturally, it is rather difficult toadequately present such a varied,multifaceted and broad sector in a brief andrather hasty overview. As mentioned at theoutset, the task is made more difficult by
the complexity of the Canadian system ofgovernment, and the enormous diversityof the Canadian provinces and territories.
As you probably have noticed, it was not
my intention nor is it my habit to present

112TH INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE
VISITING EXPERTS’ PAPERS
a rosy picture of the services or the
programs involved. I tried to present
things the way they are, and might havebeen overly critical at times. But whatevercriticism I have made is meant to beconstructive, and is intended to highlightthe problems, the weaknesses, theinadequacies, the shortcomings, so thatsomething may be done to correct them.
After all, the plight of crime victims has
been ignored for far too long. They surely
deserve much more and much better thanwhat they got in the past or are getting atpresent. Their cause is dear to my heart
and it has pained me greatly over the years
to see their cause being exploited byunscrupulous right wing politicians, andto witness their use as pawns in law andorder campaigns. The time has come in
Canada and elsewhere to hold politicians
to task and to require them to live up to
their promises and their rhetoric by
matching commitments in financial andhuman resources. Although the situationof crime victims now is undoubtedly better
than it was twenty years ago, the road isstill long and a great deal remains to bedone to help and assist those who are forced
to suffer as a result of unfair social
structures and failing social institutions.

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