The story I think is possibly being missed here is the miscarriage of justice suffered by Napper's next victims, Samantha Bissett and her daughter Jazmine. When the criminal justice system gets it wrong, not only do the falsely accused suffer, but we all suffer. The real perpetrators are allowed to roam free and destroy more lives.
There is, quite rightly, a process for getting miscarriages of justice corrected. It takes time, too much time, but sometimes it works. Sadly there is no equivalent process for getting non-carriage of justice corrected. When no-one is convicted of an offence because of a failure in the system, there is no-one out there campaigning on behalf of the victims and the potential future victims.
That is why I think there is a need for a Victim's Ombudsman. Someone who can take up a case on behalf of victims and their families when the criminal justice system fails to do its job and secure justice.
Every now and again, for understandable reasons, and with the best intentions on the part of the individuals involved, the criminal justice system fails. Things fall between the cracks, get missed or messed up. Sometimes the policies, procedures, rules and regulations, drawn up with the best of intentions, don't quite work.
When that happens in local government there is an Ombudsman who can take up a complaint, make a ruling and get the decision changed. Once a year a report comes out and sometimes the wrinkles get ironed out. There are Ombudsmen in all sectors who can write systemic wrongs. There is one for prisoners, there is one for estate agents, there is even one for the removal industry. Its time we had one for victims.
2 comments:
Sorry Steven but you have got you facts wrong. Public Authorities can, and often do, ignore an ombudsman's findings. In addition the Local Government Ombudsmen are the perpetrators of more injustice than the local authorities they are supposed to protect us from. Visit the websites below to learn the truth about Ombudsmen.
http://ombudsmanwatch.org/
http://ombudsmanwatch.org/
Here is the States, many jurisdications are instituting "victim's advocates." My wife, a retired police detective, has just taken a job with the district attorney. There is a lot of stuff ignored in victim management and recovery, hopefully the trend to adopt these posistions will continue.
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