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THE 8TH

INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON VICTIMOLOGY

ADELAIDE 21 26 AUGUST 1994

Dame Ann Ballin

It is not often that it is possible to join a gathering populated by the historical figuresinvolved in a particular segment of the social sciences, but it was my privilege to do just thatat the 8thInternational Symposium on Victimology I was surprised to find that these peoplewere still relatively youthful and very approachable so that some interesting conversationsabout the genesis of their wor! was possible as the wee! progressed

Victimology as an academic entity is "young" in comparison to its parent, criminology#iterature suggest that the study of the victim arose out of some early wor! on the victim ofcrime as provocateur, a notion which ma!es us uncomfortable now but which wasacceptable four decades ago $ver that time, our consciousness of victims of crime has risen

to the point where contemporary critics as! whether victims were not invented by "wetliberal thin!ers" promoting a dangerously fearful and dependent attitude amongst the

population % particularly female

&his very issue was craftily represented by the two !eynote spea!ers at the opening plenarysession 'rofessor (obert )lias, in a very disciplined paper, challenged victimologists toconsider the need for returning to the application of scientific rigour *e challenged themore humanistic influences as having ta!en the issues too far without ade+uate en+uiry andsuggested that many hypotheses could not be sustained It seemed to me that this was a veryimportant paper in terms of the demand that we eamine where we are in the victimologicalfield *owever, the response to this was -an van Dy!e.s report on, among other things,crime surveys and what they reveal about the eperience of international populations &hoseof us who have wor!ed with victims of crime do not find it difficult to accept these findings,many of which concern unreported crime

/y personal eperience of the symposium was dominated by the fact that I was assigned 0asone of four rapporteurs1 what appeared to me at first as a "rag bag" of papers after mycolleagues had chosen what they wanted &his meant that I was eposed to topics that Imight not otherwise have heard and my education was broadened thereby

&here were do2ens of papers, some of doubtful worth, which meant that each session

comprised at least three 3ith such numbers, it is very hard to engage in decent dialogue sothat good critical appraisal and challenge was virtually impossible I thin! it was regrettablein view of the better material and I hope the organisers of the net symposium inAmsterdam in 4556 are more careful in accepting papers

An early session on the offender as victim produced a paper by (obert 'eacoc! of the7niversity of &rans!ei, on the tragic conse+uences of incarcerating blac! juvenile offendersin adult goals where the inevitable degradation of their lives ta!es place with little hope ofrescuing their personal identities or selfesteem &his paper and others made me ashamed ofthe frustration I so often feel with our progress in 9ew :ealand on social issues 3e have solittle to deal with in comparison with a country li!e South Africa; but on the other hand,

should we not be more efficient< 'eacoc! taught =riminology to students for whom )nglishwas a second language and he later described to me the difficulties this presented for them


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with so few facilities to help them deal with the obstacles *e seemed ehausted and hadevery intention of emigrating

&he same session saw an ecellent study by a young psychologist and a social wor!er whoresearched the efficacy of teaching young offenders about the victim.s eperience 7sing a

control group, they were able to show that by eposing their clients to real victims,insurance officers etc, they were able to produce empathic responses to a significant degreeIt was a good practical effort from professionals who surely must have had enough to dowithout engaging in research

-apanese criminologists presented a very detailed study of the effects of conviction on theoffender.s family and the subse+uent difficulties encountered by the young offender whentrying to get wor! and resume a place in the community Although they seemed verysimplistic studies, I wonder in hindsight whether a 9ew :ealand study would prove that oursociety is any more accepting and accommodating to offenders and their families than iscommon in -apan

&wo papers on family violence were presented from different cultures but reflecting what-ustice >rishna Iyer passionately referred to as the "debasement of society", in his superb!eynote address In the first paper, 9yrell Broo!s, a senior Aboriginal wor!er from&ownsville, described the humiliatingly low social position of the Aboriginal man and theassociated violent behaviour so common in families who have lost their tribal status andway of life During the isolation of the offending males, indigenous wor!ers involve them inreeducative sessions, not just in anger management but in reintroduction of cultural

protocol and s!ills /eanwhile, the women and children are ta!ing part in similar activitieswith fre+uent contact of families over time &his seemed very much the system many /?oriwould endorse

In contrast, Dr Anshu 'adayachee of the 7niversity of Durban % 3estville, described theplight of @ million women in South Africa where family violence has little or norecognition in their criminal justice system So far, they have 8 refuges $ne rape every 8seconds and so it goes on Add to this what we are now learning about the incidence ofAIDS amongst African women and the situation is almost too dreadful to contemplate

$ut and about at mealtimes, we 9ew :ealanders were often embarrassed by people comingup to us and enthusing about our wonderful compensation system -ohn /iller, of #awCaculty at Victoria 7niversity, gave a paper on the Accident =ompensation Act but not

everyone heard him describe what is really the case these days *e did not include the issueof restricted coverage of medical misadventure which some people were concerned about

A paper I actually chose to attend was that by Dr Debra >eenahan, =entral ueensland7niversity, on Stal!ing &his little understood activity has a traumatic effect on its victimsand has only recently attracted true criminal status so that some legal control can be eertedDr >eenahan provided a very useful description of the types of people who carry out typicalstal!ing activities around their chosen victims and the often devastating results &hehopelessness and resignation of the female victim was wellillustrated and actually made theissues involved in a spouse remaining with the abuser a little easier to understand &hisecellent presentation was followed by Dr Allan Barlow, eplaining a new Act recently

introduced by the South Australian government, ma!ing it easier for a stal!ing victim to getprotection


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-udge /ichael Brown.s !eynote address on youth justice was very balanced and createdmuch interest which it certainly merited 9ew :ealand.s pioneering wor! in this field hasmany years of development ahead of it but there is sufficient !nown to help other countriesuse the epertise Eabrielle /awell.s careful research on youth justice activity under the

=hildren, Foung 'ersons and &heir Camilies Act, 4585, 0/awell and /orris 4551 willhave international value and a progress report would be a valuable contribution to the 4556symposium

'rofessor *itimichi /orosawa, again spea!ing in a plenary session, reviewed the scope ofvictimology using a list of studies carried out in -apan over a decade as a reference *e cited

pollution and mar!et monopolies as interesting eamples and medical issues reminiscent ofthe infamous 9ew :ealand cervical cancer scandal &his was another area that I thoughtwould merit a 9ew :ealand paper at Amsterdam By 4556, the legislation that followed as aresult of the =artwright (eport will have been in place for just under three years and thereshould be some useful followup on the position of the patient in law at that point &he right

to !nowledge, informed consent and medical misadventure seem to be universal concernsjudging from some brief international conversations I had at the conference

/orosawa referred also to bullying in schools and to abuse by the media, both topics whichconcern us from time to time

)arlier, I mentioned the presence of historical figures in world victimology Some of thesemen and women actually wrote the draft for the 7nited 9ations Declaration on the (ights ofVictims of =rime and the Abuse of 'ower of 458G which was the basis for our Victims of$ffences Act of 4586

It was the matter of abuse of power which seemed to underlie a good deal of the -apanesestudies, but even more so when consideration of the position of torture and incarceration of

political dissidents was aired in papers on this topic 'rofessor -acob Sahetapy described thepolitical situation in Indonesia which was almost unbelievable to a 9ew :ealander but truenevertheless &he 'rofessor delivered this paper with a nice spar! of humour which wasvery noticeable in an otherwise dour atmosphere and he did it, as some of his colleaguesremar!ed, with a good deal of courage It is not a healthy occupation in his country to becritical of the current government

Abuse of power over women and children was also discussed, as was the victimisation of

gay and lesbian people I am told that many countries featured in these papers do not havehuman rights legislation in place or even in sight Apparently it is still possible to sell youngwomen as prostitutes in the streets of =hina; indeed it is +uite common

And what were the 9ew :ealanders doing all this time< I have mentioned -udge Brown and-ohn /iller - - &aylor and Dave Smith from the 'olice gave several papers on ourlegislation, victim support and the victim impact statement and the -ustice Departmentrepresentative described its victim needs survey 3hen loo!ed at dispassionately, we wereable to give a good account of our progress and as I have said we can also see that we are agreat deal more advanced than most other countries Cresh from her postgraduate study at=ambridge 7niversity, (uth 3il!ie made the radical suggestion that if we are to assist the

victim in the criminal justice system, the present structure should be scrapped and we shouldstart all over again


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In spite of the cost of attending the conference, there was a large contingent of 9ew:ealanders present, representing not only the judiciary, state services and academic interests

but victim support groups and those concerned about the position of families of murdervictims who were able to meet with their Australian counterparts

$ne feature of the conference was the almost immediate availability of session tapes atAH4 as well as the various papers if they had been made available by the authors &his is avery worthwhile service because tapes can be used for training among other purposes 3eteach very little victimology in 9ew :ealand tertiary institutions or in refresher courses andgood audiovisual material can initiate interest and discussion rather better than papers,

particularly where the concepts are new to students

I regret not having purchased more tapes to capture some of the topics that I could not coverat the time (eading over the programme again I am really ama2ed at the breadth of subjectscovered and I wish it were possible to convey more than I have If I have done nothing else,

I hope that I may have caused some readers to consider planning to attend the 5 th

International Symposium at Amsterdam in August 4556

REFERENCES

/awell, E/ and /orris, A 04551Family, Victims and Culture: Youth Justice in NewZealand, Social 'olicy Agency, Department of Social 3elfare and Institute of=riminology, Victoria 7niversity of 3ellington, 3ellington


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