Monograph 7: Putting Victims on the Agenda. Proceedings of a National Workshop on Victim Empowerment and Support, Edited by Lala Camer

At the end of August 1996, a national workshop on the empowerment and support of victims of crime was held at the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park. The two-day consultative workshop was jointly presented by the RDP victim support programme of the South African Police Service (SAPS), and the crime and policing policy project of the Institute for Defence Policy (IDP). It was generously funded by the Royal Netherlands Embassy in South Africa, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the RDP Fund of the SAPS.

The workshop was attended by more than 80 delegates, invited after widespread consultation with various interest groups. Participants included the government (in the form of the departments of welfare, safety and security, justice, education and health), business, the media, academics, community policing forums, as well as a number of non-governmental and community-based organisations providing legal, counselling and social services.

The workshop was held because the organisers perceived an urgent need to bring interest groups in the field of victim support together for the first time, in a consultative forum. The following issues were on the agenda:

• international initiatives surrounding victim support;
  
  
• the need for empowering and supporting victims of crime in South Africa;
  
  
• identifying the various agencies involved in supporting and empowering victims of crime, and establishing their roles and responsibilities;
  
  
• defining the scope of police involvement in victim support, as `gatekeepers` to the criminal justice system;
  
  
• the election of organisations and individuals to serve on the National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS) programme team for victim empowerment and support;
  
  
• determining the functions of the programme team, and its relationship to other stakeholders; and
  
  
• the road ahead for the empowerment and support of victims of crime in South Africa.

The aim of this publication is to draw together the wealth of information and ideas shared at the workshop, and present it in an accessible form, suitable for distribution to the various decision-makers, stakeholders and interested parties in this field.

The first contribution highlights the major points raised by speakers during the plenary sessions, as well as themes emerging from the working group sessions. Prof Jan van Dijk`s keynote address follows, placing victim empowerment and support in an international perspective. Next, Graeme Simpson examines the need for victim support in South Africa.

In the following contributions, Lala Camerer examines the situation regarding victims of crime and the criminal justice system in South Africa; Juan Nel analyses the attitude of the police towards victims, and their role in victim support; Dr Rika Snyman proposes a national model for victim support in South Africa; and Nel and Camerer analyse the results of a questionnaire administered to delegates, aimed at assessing the current state of victim support services.

The conclusion documents various decisions taken at the workshop, notably the election of a steering committee, as envisaged in the NCPS, tasked with formulating a national victim policy for South Africa.