By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

how victims and offenders have been typified using a ‘good guy … bad guy’ theme(Claster, 1992: 15).Common assumptions about crime victims – that they are all ‘outraged’ and wantrevenge and harsher law enforcement – have come to underpin victims’ rightsrhetoric (Henderson, 1992). For example, the Sensible Sentencing Trust and thepress frequently note the ‘anger’ and ‘outrage’ victims and supporters of the Trustfeel towards government and the criminal justice system (see Berry, 2004; Binning,2004; Carter, 2004; Dewes, 2004). Apart from the fact that no quantification is evergiven to their supposed public sentiments (something that, again, McVicar is neverchallenged on by journalists), anger and its manifestations are indeed normalresponses to violent crime, but they are not necessarily tied to the desire or need toretaliate (Henderson, 1992). Thus, victims may experience anger as their initialimpulse, but after the initial shock has passed, victim’s emotions and reactions mayvary considerably ‘from physical retaliation to withdrawal, to efforts to preventfuture harms, to forgiveness of the offender’ (Henderson, 1992: 128). The Trustchooses to bypass the fact that many victims are remarkably forgiving – acontradiction that goes completely unnoticed by the New Zealand media. Instead,anger towards offenders is a common reaction held by supporters of the Trust.Again, it is interesting to compare the different approach to victimisation of theSensible Sentencing Trust and Victim Support. The latter is concerned with victimissues and victims’ rights and not those of the offender. As with many victims’groups, one of Victim Support’s aims is for the victim to be placed at the heart of thecriminal justice system when addressing victims’ rights. However, the organisationis careful not to disregard the rights of the offender and has refrained from becominga campaign lobby group. For example, the 2005 report by Victim Support ‘ACommitment to Victims’ Rights: The Way Forward’ states that ‘[i]t is important tomaintain the rights of the offender – but much needs to be done to achieve equalrights for the victims of their offending’ (Victim Support (N.Z), 2005: 12). VictimSupport is careful not to make suggestions that will further undermine the rights ofthe offender and in so doing, has refrained from using the victim as a political tool.Interestingly, Rock (2004: 118) notes that worldwide, Victim Support58