Introduction to the special section on victim rights and victim values

Since the 1980s, victims of crime have moved up the political, legal, policy and practice agendas. Concomitantly, there has been an associated change in the meaning and significance of ‘victimhood’. This special section of the International Review of Victimology explores the relationship between the increased salience of victim rights (or entitlements) and victim values (or status), and vice versa. Of particular interest is the intersection of different victim values and how they shape our understanding and response to the victims of crime and injustice. Central to this special section are the overarching themes of ‘victim values’ and ‘victim rights’ and how these two themes are interrelated. It is undeniable that the victims’ movement and victimology have made significant advances in the status afforded to victims and their treatment within the criminal justice system. The last 50 years has taken victims from the hinterland into the heartland of our thinking and practice of justice. This special section will prompt an important and timely discussion of a new phase of criminal justice, in which we are witnessing the ascendancy of the victim as the new cultural icon of crime and injustice, which brings with it a challenge to the orthodoxy of traditional criminal law’s approach to procedural justice. How is this affecting our conception of justice and due process? To what extent is access to victim rights shaped by the product of political or systemic bias?