Author: Advocate for Victims
Date: 4/27/2009 10:27 pm EDT
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Why does the Pennsylvania Victim's Bill of Rights need to become law? The best analogy which can be shown is the United States Bill of Rights which became the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
Until codified (passed into law), the U.S. Bill of Rights was nothing more than a nice set of principles to operate by. If they were not followed, so what? There was no accountability or responsibility towards their application. It is the same with Pennsylvania's Victims Bill of Rights.
Until passed into law, with no accountability and/or responsibility placed on the criminal justice system, the Pennsylvania Victim's Bill of Rights is meaningless. The victims of crime in Pennsylvania are seemingly overlooked or looked on as second class citizens at best. It is apparent the Pennsylvania Legislature does not really care about the victims, people placed in that category not by choice, but often by the most cruel of circumstances.
Codification of Pennsylvania's Victim's Bill of Rights would bring it into line with the other thirty seven states which made their Victim's Bill of Rights law. Codification of the Victim's Bill of Rights would place the responsibility to follow it upon the criminal justice system. If they failed to live up to their responsibility,as law, accountability in the form of sanctions may be imposed. These could range from the criminal to the civil. Many times victims have a harder time with the criminal justice than those criminals who have victimized them.
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