‘We need to make sure that we are always something else’: Victim support organisations and the increasing responsibility of the state in supporting crime victims in Finland and Norway
| Published date | 01 May 2019 |
| Date | 01 May 2019 |
| Author | Maija Helminen |
| DOI | 10.1177/0269758018767668 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
‘We need to make sure that
we are always something
else’: Victim support
organisations and the
increasing responsibility of
the state in supporting
crime victims in Finland and
Norway
Maija Helminen
University of Turku, Finland
Abstract
In response to international obligations many Western states have strengthened their responsi-
bility for crime victims’ access to support services. This is also the case in Finland and Norway
where this interview study explored the views of representatives from five key civil society
organisations (CSOs) working with victims of crime in relation to the public sector’s increasing
duty to organise victim support services. The findings indicate that despite the fact that
improvements in victims’ access to support services were generally welcomed, there was a
growing concern that the position of these traditional CSOs could – or already had – become
challenged by the public and private organisations and other CSOs as new funding streams and
mechanisms attract new players to the field. This had created a need to highlight the distinctiveness
of these agents as CSOs working with victims of crime. This article argues that while international
standards for victim support services have been a triumph for victim movements in many coun-
tries, their realisation in the present era of austerity and mixed welfare economies presents tra-
ditional victim support organisations with new challenges in retaining their ownership and
distinctive ways of treating the problem of victimisation.
Corresponding author:
Maija Helminen, Faculty of Law, University of Turku, Turku 20014, Finland.
Email: anmahel@utu.fi
International Review of Victimology
2019, Vol. 25(2) 157–179
ªThe Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/0269758018767668
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Keywords
Finland, crime victims, civil society organisations, Norway, victim support services
Introduction
During the past few years, several international instruments aiming at improving access by crime
victims
1
to specialist support services have been introduced. In Europe, for example, such instru-
ments include the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against
women and domestic violence (the so-called Istanbul convention) that requires countries to pro-
vide specialised support services to victims of domestic violence, as well as the European Union
(EU) Directive 2012/29/EU (the so-called Victims’ Directive) obliging member states to organise
general and specialised support services for crime victims. These services consist of, for example,
emotional support, advice on financial and practical issues, shelter and temporary accommodation,
telephone helplines and rape crisis or sexual violence referral centres (Directive 2012/29/EU,
articles 8, 9; Council of Europe, 2011, articles 20, 21, 23, 24, 25).
2
States can satisfy these demands
in different ways by using their discretion. For example, they may establish new services, or
expand financing to existing victim support services by distributing funding directly to current
providers of victim support services or by arranging competitive tendering processes or introduce
new legislation, which strengthens victims’ access to services. As various civil society organisa-
tion (CSOs)
3
have traditionally acted as both providers of these services as well as interest groups
for victims in many countries, measures increasing states’ responsibility over victim support
services will have an effect on the work of such CSOs.
4
Previous research on victim support
organisations has indicated that as the amount of public funding has increased for these organisa-
tions, it has become more difficult for them to stay faithful to their original missions, and their
ability to challenge the state and raise new social problems to public consciousness has weakened
(e.g. Lehrner and Allen, 2009; Maier, 2008, 2011). It has also been argued that as CSOs become
more dependent on public funding, they endanger their independence as well as the qualities that
distinguish them from the public sector such as flexibility, and the ability to innovate and be
responsive to clients’ needs (Simmonds, 2013; Williams, 2016). Essentially, states’ increasing
duty to offer victim support services means that public agents will be increasingly more in charge
of deciding how these services should be offered.
The purpose of this article is to examine how representatives of key CSOs working with victims
of crime respond to increases in the responsibility of the public sector to organise specialist support
services for crime victims and how they reflect on their organisations’ roles amidst these changes
in Finland and in Norway. These two Nordic countries offer a distinctive context for analysing the
CSOs’ responses as Nordic CSOs have commonly welcomed the state’s responsibility to provide
different kinds of welfare services and have tended to enjoy a rather harmonious relationship with
the state (Stenius, 2010; Wijkstro¨m, 2011). By contrast, in the Anglophone countries where a great
deal of the previous research has been conducted CSOs and the state have had a more confronta-
tional relationship, and CSOs hav e also had more prominent roles in th e delivery of welfare
services (Taylor, 2004: 132). Therefore, Nordic CSOs may view the consequences of intensifying
cooperation with the state differently to CSOs in the countries characterised by a liberal ‘civil
society regime’ such as the UK and the USA (Anheier and Salamon, 2006: 106; Salamon and
Anheier, 1998). Moreover, Finland and Norway offer interesting opportunities to analyse whether
158 International Review of Victimology 25(2)
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