Victim Support in England and Wales
| Author | RI Mawby |
| DOI | 10.1177/0269758016649065 |
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Victim Support in England
and Wales: The end of
an era?
RI Mawby
Harper Adams University, UK
Abstract
Victim Support in England and Wales emerged in the 1970s and spread throughout the UK. In
doing so, it became established as the national victims’ service, offering support for victims of
most types of crime. Valued under Conservative governments as an example of community-
based support, it became more professionalised and better funded under New Labour. How-
ever, in the age of austerity the coalition government sought to restrict growth and adopt
greater competition for government grants, and a move towards contracting services locally
through Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) has meant a furthe r readjustment of p rovi-
sions for crime victims, with significant implications for the future of Victim Support. This paper
speculates on whether this spells the end of an era for Victim Support, or ind eed a case of ‘back
to the future’, ending the distinctive generic service that Victim Support has established. This may
provide lessons for the future of victim services in other countries where developments came
rather later.
Keywords
Victim Support, generic services, Police and Crime Commissioners, crime victims, service
organisation
Introduction
Victim Support in the UK is unique. As one of the first national organisations in the world
dedicated to helping crime victims, Victim Support presented a distinctive approach that con-
trasted with that in the USA and Continental Europe (Brienen and Hoegen, 2000: 641720; FRA,
2015; Mawby and Simmonds, 2008; Mawby and Walklate, 1994). As victim services emerged in
the 1970s, Victim Support became the key national service for victims of crime. Unlike National
Corresponding author:
RI Mawby, Harper Adams University, Newport, Shropshire TF10 8NB, UK.
Email: professorrobmawby@hotmail.com
International Review of Victimology
2016, Vol. 22(3) 203–221
ªThe Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0269758016649065
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Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA) in the USA, which acts as a loose umbrella organisa-
tion to which local specialist services were affiliated, Victim Support in the UK offered a generic
service to all crime victims and positioned itself as the key provider of victim services (Mawby and
Walklate, 1994). Equally, while within Europe the model of victim services provided by an NGO
dependent on government funding is common, the UK model has traditionally been the most
extensive and most likely to reach victims of noncontact as well as co ntact crime (Van Dijk
et al., 2008; FRA, 2015; Van Kesteren et al., 2001). Reflecting this, its contribution was valued
by successive governments, indicated through a steady expansion in governm ent funding and
responsibilities. While this, almost inevitably, meant that the nature of Victim Support changed,
its expansion continued until the recent coalition government’s assessment of victim services that
was initiated in 2011. Since then, it has suffered a series of setbacks, and the concept of a national
body speaking on behalf of all crime victims has been undermined.
Based on the author’s personal experience and secondary source material, this article assesses
the development of Victim Support in three phases: the early years (19731999); developments in
the early part of the 20th century under New Labour, characterised as the period of growth
(20002011); and changes under the coalition government (2012 onward), that may be termed
future-uncertain.
1
Services are reviewed under four subheadings: the organisation of Victim Sup-
port; contact with victims; the population targeted; and the nature of the services offered. The
article concludes by re-evaluating the contribution of Victim Support and service changes pro-
posed and enacted by the coalition government and speculates on future developments. Since
central government priorities that predicated recent changes are shared with governments abroad,
the implications may be far-reaching.
The early years (19731999)
Victim services in the UK emerged in the 1960s and have, since then, been endorsed by both
Conservative and Labour administrations. The 1960s were characterised by Mawby and Walklate
(1994) as the decade of promise with the establishment in 1964 of the Criminal Injuries Compen-
sation Board (now the CICA). The 1970s brought more radical change with the creation of the
National Association of Victim Support Schemes (later Victim Support) and feminist-inspired
services for female victims (or survivors) of partner violence and rape. These developments were
noticeably located in the voluntary sector and initially at least received little government support.
However, the willingness of Victim Support to work constructively with statutory agencies led to
its expansion in the 1980s and beyond, with government funding increased against the general
trend of the Thatcher government. This was perhaps not altogether surprising, since Victim
Support epitomised the Conservative government’s commitment to the voluntary sector, a com-
mitment that was continued into the 1990s under New Labour.
Organisation of victim support
The genesis of Victim Support was the Bristol Victims-Offenders Group, formed in 1970 under the
auspices of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO) (Gay
et al., 1975; Rock, 1990). Bristol Victim Support, launched in Bristol in 1973/74, was, from the
start, a not-for-profit NGO, and this model continued for other schemes based on the Bristol model
that were formed across the country. In 1979 the National Association of Victim Support Schemes
was established and by 1980 there were 256 schemes nationwide, operating within a federal
204 International Review of Victimology 22(3)
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