Victims’ fundamental needs for safety and privacy and the role of legislation and empirical evidence

Various laws, guidelines and other types of regulation have
been created that introduced new rights worldwide for victims of crime. Many of these rights focus on active victims
who wish to step into the open and to orally express their
views and experiences in court. Rights and wishes to remain
in the background and to preserve one’s privacy received
less attention. This article focuses primarily on the wishes of
victims that reveal their intention to not play an active role in
the criminal process, and on victims who fear an invasion of
their safety and privacy. According to the literature, such
wishes and needs can be considered to be fundamental. The
article questions the empirical basis for the present victim
legislation: are the new laws that have been created over the
decades founded on empirically established victim needs, or
on presumed victim needs? The article concludes with a plea
for a more extensive use of empirical findings that shed light
on victim wishes in the legislation and the criminal process.