Читать книгу Approaching Victimology as social science for Human rights a Spanish perspective онлайн

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Please, write a “General guide for victims to deal with the media” and a “General guide for journalists to raise awareness on victims’ rights and needs”. Consider the following excerpt from Mulley (2001):

Contrary to popular opinion, some crime victims and witnesses will derive great comfort from receiving media attention. Talking to the media can be beneficial for a number of reasons, in addition to a general desire to help with the police investigation and the detection of the offenders. Some individuals need to express their feelings and convey the hurt and anguish they have suffered. Others will want to tell their side of the story (rather than all the attention necessarily being focused on the offender), or they may believe that the record needs to be set straight. This can be particularly important for people who have been bereaved though violent crime, who may wish to exert some control over what is being reported about a loved one. Another strong motivation for cooperating with media interest is altruistic: to help and give strength to others who may have suffered a similar experience. Unwanted intrusion However, for many other crime victims, media attention is an unwanted intrusion at a very stressful time. Media interest is often experienced as a form of secondary victimisation and can make individuals feel harassed, vulnerable, lacking control... A device that can be particularly painful is the use of library footage of previous crimes and disasters to illustrate a current news story. Their privacy has been violated. All of these feelings may well have been experienced when the crime was originally committed, and they are then compounded by the response of others to that crime. Victim Support, through offering its services to over one million individuals each year, has unique access to the concerns and common problems experienced by crime victims and witnesses. Unwanted and invasive media attention is one such problem. For example, when researching the treatment of the families of murder victims, 50 of the 80 families interviewed for the research had complaints about the media. Only one reported a positive experience. Victims of crime (whether or not they want publicity) are of intrinsic interest to the media, and often at a time when they are least able to cope with it. This is particularly true for victims of the most serious crimes. When people are suffering from shock or trauma or grief, either soon after an incident or at a significant event such as the trial, they may find it extremely difficult to cope with assertive and persistent journalists. At Victim Support, we have heard of extreme cases of intrusion and harassment, for example of journalists repeatedly shouting through the letterbox, climbing into the back garden or refusing to leave the pavement outside the house. Many victims simply do not want their names or photographs to be published with details of the crime. Victim Support is aware of several cases where victims have been subjected to intimidation from the friends of the offender following newspaper reports which have printed their names and addresses. At the moment anonymity is only legally guaranteed for child witnesses, or when the person is a victim of rape or sexual assault. However, in cases where the witness is likely to suffer fear or distress the judge can now impose reporting restrictions. For victims of the most serious crimes, media interest may be a life sentence. Certain crimes enter the public consciousness almost becoming public property, the personal anguish of the individuals directly concerned forgotten. Ten and twenty years after the event journalists will still be asking questions, making reconstructions and writing books (p. 30).