By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

The Victims Task Force believed that if all the provisions set out in the Victims ofOffences Act were achieved, the quality of justice provided to all New Zealanderswould be improved (New Zealand Victims Task Force, 1993). These steps signifiedthe government’s attempt to include the victim in the criminal justice process, wherethey were to be better informed on criminal justice matters.In 1986, another major development for victims’ groups in New Zealand was theestablishment of the first Victim Support office in Gisborne by police officer KevinJoblin (Victim Support (N.Z), 2006). Victim Support Schemes had been introducedin Britain in 1974 and were concerned above all else with the care and welfare ofvictims (Maguire & Corbett, 1987). The early British Victim Support’s primaryobjective was simple: ‘to act as a “good neighbour”, or perhaps “good Samaritan”, topeople who had suffered at the hands of the thief or assailant’ (Maguire & Corbett,1987: 2). The New Zealand model was largely based on the British example but hadseveral other defining characteristics that illustrated the government’s commitmentto victims: the services were based in local police stations, Victim Support was givenfull access to police records, and the New Zealand Police provided ‘full logisticalsupport to their local Victim Support Group’ (Outtrim, 1999: 3). After the initialinception of Victim Support in Gisborne, several Victim Support services emergedoffering voluntary services to victims. The ad hoc community based groups wereestablished to provide professional support and assistance to all crime, accident andemergency victims and witnesses at large, as well as their relatives and friends(Victim Support (N.Z), 2003a).In March 1993, the new National government announced the disestablishment of theVictims Task Force claiming that it had been introduced on a limited five year planas part of the Labour government’s ‘radical’ Victims of Offences Act (New ZealandParliament, 1993b: Par. 2). As a result, government funding, which had previouslygone to this organisation, was transferred to various Victim Support groups aroundNew Zealand, widening the scope of Victim Support (New Zealand Parliament,1996b). Victim Support agencies were then able to offer a wider range of services tothose in need and have since continued to assist victims of crime throughcounselling, court support, attendance at trials and parole board hearings (Victim43