Highlights
Perhaps it is time for crime victims to turn to the courts for redress and financial compensation to force their perpetrators to pay a price that commiserates with their crimes.
Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Former senior crime prevention and statistics specialist at the Ministry of Justice Clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former adjunct associate professor of criminology and public affairs at the University of Maryland, University College. Former police officer. Retired federal senior spokesperson.
Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the national media campaign “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime.” Successful media campaigns against crime produced by the state.
Thirty-five years leading award-winning (50+) public relations for state and national criminal justice agencies. Interviewed thousands of times by every national news outlet, often focusing on crime statistics and research. Created the first state and federal podcast series. Produced a unique and emulated style of proactive government public relations.
Certificate of Advanced Study – Johns Hopkins University.
Author of ”Media Success: Everything You Need to Survive Reporters and Your Organization‘ available from Amazon and other booksellers.
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Opinion
What are the rights of a crime victim regarding ownership of the name and future income of the perpetrator who victimized him?
The Associated Press story below gives a person shot multiple times by Nikolas Cruz during the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida protection from future publicity and allows the victim to collect future financial benefits related with the perpetrator.
Does the court’s decision have consequences for other crime victims?
Court rulings on restitution rarely compensate crime victims. Criminal offenders rarely comply with efforts to collect parole and probation. But what if the perpetrator inherits money? What happens when the media comes for an interview?
This was a big deal when I was director of public information for the Maryland Department of Public Safety; The Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center (to whom I currently provide data for legislative efforts) came to us complaining that the publicity surrounding prisoners participating in media interviews was causing further distress to the people they victimized. They wanted us to ‘open up’ the possibility of interviews with crime victims, which we agreed to.
Victims of crime can and do live lives of significant emotional and financial distress. Their lives are changed forever, something most likely to be ignored, yet entire families live with the impact.
New York Post: “The woman who existed before November 3 is gone,” said Phanor’s third victim, who was out for a morning run when she wanted “a few extra steps” and turned down Pier 45 before she was raped on November 3, 2022.
“This attack has stolen my sense of security, my marriage and the close bond between my children,” she wrote in her statement read out in court, adding that her 20-year marriage “crumbled” after the attack and led to divorce. .”
Will courts be willing to consider additional requests for damages by allowing victims to “appropriate” the name of the person who victimized them and give them access to future financial benefits? Does that give victims a sense of peace? It is more than likely that overburdened courts would revolt at this prospect unless the crime were heinous.
Associated press
Associated press: “The most seriously injured survivor of the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland now owns the name of gunman Nikolas Cruz, and Cruz cannot give interviews without his consent, under a settlement reached in a lawsuit.”
“Under his recent settlement with Anthony BorgesCruz must also give up any money he would receive as a beneficiary of a family member’s life insurance policy, participate in scientific studies of mass shooters and donate his body to science after his death.
“The agreement means that Cruz, 25, cannot profit from or collaborate with films, TV shows, books or other media productions without Borges’ permission. Cruz serves consecutive life sentences in a secret prison for each of the 17 murders and 17 attempted murders he committed in one three-story classroom building on February 14, 2018.”
“We just wanted to shut him up so we never have to hear about him again,” Borges’ attorney, Alex Arreaza, said Thursday.
“Borges, now 21, was shot five times in the back and legs and collapsed in the middle of the third-floor hallway.”
Conclusions
The vast majority of what is written about criminal offenders focuses on additional opportunities and leniency, which makes sense to some extent because our prisons are overcrowded.
But a large percentage of criminal cases are routinely dismissed by prosecutors and more than 90 percent are negotiated, resulting in charges being modified for sentence reductions. All of this depends on arrests and successful criminal investigations, which seem to be falling like a stone. Even when restitution is ordered by a judge, victims will rarely see a cent of the money back.
But anything that counters the perception that the financial and emotional situation of crime victims is not important has merit. We rightly demand that the rights of our fellow citizens, who are members of marginalized groups, be protected and we are willing to do almost anything to help the vulnerable.
But that does not apply to crime victims. Few seem to worry about that. Perhaps it is time for crime victims to turn to the courts for redress and financial compensation to force their perpetrators to pay a price that commiserates with their crimes.
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