The attention recently paid to victims, the abrupt coming of victims onto the legal and political stage over the last years can be accounted for by several factors. First and foremost, the increased number of crimes has resulted and is resulting into an ever increasing number of people being exposed nowadays to the risk of turning into victims. For instance, criminological science has reported of late that the scope of the victims of crimes against property has expanded - on account of the wider range of the redistribution of resources among European populations (see D. Garland, Punishment and Modern Society, Il Saggiatore, Milan, 1999). However, there is an additional reason for that. Victims are increasingly aware of their rights and capable to demand judicial authorities to step in, join forces in a group, and seek the assistance of legal counsel. Just like the accused, they know their rights - contrary to what happened in the past - and are ready to assert them.
Awareness of the victimological nature has also been raised by major trials that - thanks to their media appeal - have impacted considerably on public opinion. Reference can be made here to proceedings related to environmental crime or occupational accidents, or to the scandals caused by reports on the corruption in the political and economic world - as Marco Bouchard pointed out in his Offesa e riparazione, Mondadori, 2005, p. 121.
Last, but not least, the role of victims, their needs and interests gained considerable momentum at international and European level following the adoption of several instruments in this area.
For instance, the recent Recommendation R(2003)20 by the Council of Europe (New Ways of Dealing with Juvenile Delinquency and the Role of Juvenile Justice) refers to the "victim" for as many as 21 times - including the initial recitals, ever since the first paragraph which lists "addressing the needs and interests of victims" among the main objectives of juvenile justice. This is even more significant by having regard to a similar instrument that the Council of Europe had issued a few years earlier - i.e. Recommendation R(1987)20, where the "victim" was only referred to once (see M. Dalloz, Le direttive europee in materia di giustizia penale minorile, Lecture given at the Catania Colloque, Dottorato franco-italiano, 15-16 April 2005, Proceedings to be published by Giuffrè, 2006).
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Tools in Network is a project of the Department of Juvenile Justice - Ministry of Justice of Italy in the framework of the Leonardo Da Vinci Education and Culture Lifelong Programme