By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

established to protect victims of domestic violence (Rape Crisis Dunedin, n.d) 19 .Groups such as these were resisting, what were considered to be, the dominantsocietal structures to confront gendered power relations (Foucault, 1994). In makingthis challenge, the agencies hoped to bring about positive social and legal changethat would see women (and certain groups of men) empowered. The sentencing andtreatment of offenders, however, was still left to policymakers and experts.Another significant development to take place within the victim’s movement inNew Zealand was the inception of the Victims Task Force in 1987. This Task Forceinvestigated the ‘most appropriate models which could be used to develop policyinitiatives in the area of victim support’, whilst simultaneously working with otherpublic agencies ‘in developing awareness of victims’ needs and how best to meetthem’ (New Zealand Parliament, 1989: Par. 2). The Victims Task Force was able tooversee the treatment of victims in the criminal justice system and maderecommendations to government as to how these should be enacted (New ZealandVictims Task Force, 1993). In 1989, then Minister of Justice Bill Jefferies outlined anumber of task force recommendations, which included: the production of a videoproviding victims with information about the court process, the organisation ofseminars to bring together groups working in victim support, the distribution ofleaflets informing victims of the provisions in the upcoming Victims of Offences Actand the allocation of funding, together with the New Zealand Police, for thecompilation of victim statistics (New Zealand Parliament, 1989). The Victims ofOffences Act, implemented concurrently, was further used ‘to make better provisionfor the treatment of victims of criminal offences’ (New Zealand Victims Task Force,1993: 99). The Victims of Offences Act 1987 introduced radical change into thecriminal justice system,looking back over a thousand years to re­introduce the victim of acrime as a person with a special interest in the pursuit of justice, anddeserving special acknowledgement for the experience they have hadforced upon them.(New Zealand Victims Task Force, 1993: 75)19Interestingly, Rape Crisis, the National Network for Stopping Violence and the National Collectiveof Women’s Refuges did not support the 1999 referendum because they stated that the question wastoo confusing to be valid (Milne, 2000)42