Crime doesn't pay

The LRC has launched a victims of crimes of violence report that proposes scrapping the current 30-year-old scheme in favour of a statutory, rights-based compensation framework that finally puts victims – not process – at the centre. Sorcha Corcoran reports

On 23 March, the Law Reform Commission (LRC) published a new report, proposing that the State’s scheme for compensating victims of crimes of violence be placed on a statutory footing.

This would include the establishment of a dedicated independent statutory body charged with delivering the compensation to these victims.

The current scheme, in existence since 1994, is purely administrative. The report, Compensating Victims of Crime, addresses the need for substantial reform and modernisation, incorporating a completely new structure that would be “trauma-informed, victim-centred and rights-based”.

The recommendations are designed to bring the State compensation scheme into compliance with European law and with a recent decision of the Court of Justice of the EU that the scheme should compensate for pain and suffering.

The decision came from the High Court referring questions to the Court of Justice following Blanco v Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal and Ors ([2024] IEHC 171).

In arriving at its recommendations, the LRC carried out an extensive consultation process with victims, professional bodies, human-rights organisations, advocacy bodies, individual experts, and relevant Government departments. The researchers also conducted a broad sweep of international best practice.

Draft bill

Along with the report, the LRC has prepared the draft Compensation for Victims of Crimes of Violence Bill, which LRC president Mr Justice Frank Clarke hopes will speed implementation up if the Government decides to go along with its recommendations.

At the launch event, he explained that the proposed independent statutory body would have three layers.

The first ‘assistive tier’ is largely focused on ensuring victims can produce all the necessary documentation to support their claim. Once victims have been supported at the assistive-tier level, their case would move up one step to what the LRC refers to as the ‘adjudicative tier’.

The intention is that, in the vast majority of instances, a case shouldn’t require any further information and would be ready to be dealt with straight away.

A major recommendation at this stage is to ensure that compensation is paid as quickly as possible.

The third tier would be an appeals process, whereby victims who are dissatisfied with the decision of an adjudicator would have a right to appeal to a three-person panel, which the LRC believes provides a further layer of robustness to the system.

Ruth Maxwell, a prominent Irish victims’ rights advocate and campaigner, was one of the key contributors to the consultation paper on the LRC report.

A survivor of a knife attack in 2016, she has personally gone through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal process and has been engaged in its reform for almost nine years. The issue for Maxwell is not what the scheme says it will do, but what victims will actually experience when they try to use it.

“The people I support are not straightforward cases. They are traumatised. Many are dealing with ongoing abuse. Many struggle to engage consistently. I also work with families who have lost loved ones to violent crime, and who are then expected to navigate a complex and intrusive application process while grieving,” she says.

“In many cases, they simply cannot complete the applications because they haven’t the heart to put a value on their loved ones’ lives. So this is not just about access in theory; it’s about whether people in these circumstances can realistically engage with the system at all.”

Three-tier process

Acknowledging that a three-tier administrative application process would give clarity, with the potential to create greater efficiency, Maxwell says that the assistive tier could be crucial in providing a victim-focused pathway.

“Most victims and bereaved families don’t come to this process with a clean set of documents and evidence ready to go. In domestic and sexual-violence cases, victims often don’t report immediately, don’t have medical documentation, and have fragmented or incomplete evidence.

“Even if a conviction isn’t required, in reality, victims still need to prove their case, and that means gathering evidence that many cannot access. If the system still depends on the victim knowing what documents are needed, knowing where to get them, and having the capacity to follow that through, then the burden hasn’t been removed, it has been renamed.”

Caseworker support and evidence gathering are intended to be part of the assistive tier. The key issue, says Maxwell, is not whether these supports exist in principle, but how they will operate in practice.

“Will every applicant be automatically assigned a named caseworker from the outset? Or will support depend on the victim understanding the system and requesting help?

"And, in relation to evidence gathering, will the statutory body take primary responsibility for obtaining documents or will victims still be expected to source them themselves? In practice, that distinction is critical.

“From my experience of supporting victims and working on this at policy level, there are practical elements that need to be clearly embedded. Support must be active, automatic, and consistent across all cases.”

Legal support?

Regarding the question of whether there ought to be some form of legal support in the new system, the commission is of the view that as much as possible of the funding that the State is prepared to make available should go into the pockets of victims.

“But we do recognise that there may be cases where there may be a need to have something a bit more than the assistive tier in the form of legal advice or legal representation,” says Frank Clarke.

“The recommendations allow for lawyers in appropriate situations, including with complex cases or due to the vulnerability of the applicant. There should also be a mechanism for applicants who cannot afford legal representation.”

The commission recommends a new application time limit of two years from the date of the crime giving rise to the claim, with some exceptions. This is to reflect the understanding that victims can be deeply traumatised after a violent crime and may need recovery time before making an application.

The law already allows the courts to order convicted persons to pay compensation to victims. However, this provision is not widely or frequently used in the courts, for a variety of reasons.

The LRC acknowledges that not every accused person will be in a position to pay compensation, but is advocating the increased use of the existing provision.

“We believe that, while the State has a clear obligation to compensate victims of crime, the perpetrators of the crime should be the first port of call wherever that’s practicable,” says Clarke.

Sorcha Corcoran is a freelance journalist and a regular contributor to the Gazette.