Michael Kilchling

Victims of Terrorism Policies: Should Victims of Terrorism Be Treated Differently?

Producing large-scale victimization is one of the prime goals of terrorists worldwide. A regular characteristic not only of the unparalleled attacks of 9/11, with its more than 3,000 direct fatalities, is to provoke maximum public attention by producing as many casualties as possible. Victims fall prone to such events due to a terrorist preference for soft and symbolic targets. Not surprisingly, victims of terrorism receive particular attention when counter-terrorism policies are formulated. In practise, however, compensation and support for those directly or indirectly affected by terrorist acts is often rather poor. This article aims to analyse (i) the situation of victims of terrorism in a theoretical victimological framework, and (ii) legislation in favour of victims of terrorism from a comparative perspective. Significant differences can be found not only within Europe where victim policies are basically EU and CoE guided but likewise in comparison with the policies in the US and Israel, which have both implemented particular legislation for victims of terrorism decades ago. This article argues for the adoption of a principled approach to compensation based on social solidarity instead of tort law rules. Further attention is drawn to a particularly unprivileged group: those individuals who become victims of terrorist threats abroad and who, as a consequence of the territorial limitations applicable to compensation rules, have no access to victim compensation schemes in their home countries.

Legal and Practical Perspectives on Victim : Offender Mediation in Austria and Germany

This article compares the legal possibilities for reparation and victim/offender mediation (VOM) in Austria and Germany, and their practical impact. The first part focuses on the theoretical framework of restorative justice from a victim perspective. In light of the results of empirical — mostly victimological — research, VOM is deemed to be a victim-related approach that provides a better position to the victim than do regular criminal proceedings. Furthermore, the authors stress that Austria and Germany have made VOM available for cases involving adult offenders as well as juveniles. Thus VOM has become a regular part of both criminal justice systems with the effect that victims have a better chance of profiting from these benefits than in systems which limit VOM to cases involving juvenile offenders. The second part gives a comparative overview of the current provisions available to impose compensation and mediation in both countries. In the third part, a comparison of existing official statistics is presented. From the different rates of application the authors conclude that VOM is of great practical relevance in Austria whereas the criminal justice system in Germany is still unwilling to apply VOM to a similar extent.

Organised Crime Policies in Germany

During the 1990s, organised crime and the ways to react to this empirically rather unknown phenomenon (Albrecht, 1998) was the subject of highly controversial debates in Germany. Sometimes strong disputes between pro and contra organised-crime ideologies could be witnessed which, in retrospect, appear to some degree irrational. Just one highlight in this context shall be mentioned here: the profound disagreement on how to write the term organised crime in a politically correct manner – an issue that was cultivated in politics as well as in academic circles. On the one side there were the proponents of capital letters – Organisierte Kriminalität – who accused those who wrote the adjective ̒ organised ̓in accordance with the rules of German grammar with a small initial letter of underestimating or even trivialising the threat of organised crime. The ʻsmall writers ̓on the other hand saw the capitalisation as a symbol of the exaggeration or even creation of a (virtual) danger that in reality does not exist.1 It is certainly true that for both sides, the writing style was used as a political symbol. Even today no uniform style of writing has been established. From a present point of view, however, such an ideological involvement which is without precedence within the usually quite austere disciplines of criminal law and criminal procedure appears rather strange. Nowadays most authors choose their own style presumably without reflecting any longer on the possible political message of a capital or a small letter.2

Täter-Opfer-Ausgleich im Justizvollzug

Mediation im Strafverfahren wurde in Deutschland unter dem Begriff Tater-Opfer-Ausgleich (TOA) implementiert; zunachst 1990 im Jugendstrafrecht, dann 1999 im allgemeinen Strafrecht. Im Zusammenhang mit den Bemuhungen, eine Opferorientierung im Strafvollzug zu entwickeln, wird der TOA aktuell in den Justizvollzugsgesetzbuchern der Lander mehr oder weniger deutlich benannt.

VICTIM-OFFENDER MEDIATION WITH JUVENILE OFFENDERS IN GERMANY

The issue of Victim-Offender Mediation (VOM) has been discussed in Germany continuously since the mid 1980s. The generic term which prevailed here is Tater-Opfer-Ausgleich (TOA). This particularity of German terminology can be explained as a characteristic of the VOM discussion and its origins in the country as well as of the ideals of its prime discussants; in other words, it is more than just an “accidental” matter of translation, that the wording in German is “offender-victim mediation” instead of victimoffender mediation. This is even a mirror of the fact that the criminal justice system here is still less victim-oriented and more offender-centred than in many other countries. It is of importance to point out at the beginning of this chapter, that the principal offender orientation is even more significant in the context of juvenile justice which is based upon an explicit educational approach. Unlike in the adult criminal law field, the potential positive effects of VOM have to be assessed in the light of the impact upon the young offender; from

Beschleunigte Verfahren und Schlichtung als opferrelevante Optionen in Deutschland

ZusammenfassungZusammenfassend ist festzuhalten, da\ sowohl die beschleunigte Verfahrensform als auch derTÄter-Opfer-Ausgleich in Deutschland für den Opferschutz nutzbar gemacht werden können; dies gilt auch unter der PrÄmisse, da\ sie primÄr eigentlich unter anderen Gesichtspunkten implementiert wurden. Darüber hinausgehend ist aber auch festzustellen, da\ die Opferstellung in Deutschland noch weit von einer konsistenten, in sich stimmigen Konzeption entfernt ist46, wie sie dem EU-Rahmenbeschlu\ als Ideallösung vorschwebt. Freilich bleiben Ideallösungen gerade im Strafrecht, das wie kein anderes Rechtsgebiet gro\en tagespolitischen Einflüssen unterliegt, wohl immer zu einem Gutteil Utopie.Trotzdem oder vielleicht gerade deshalb wird es einiger gesetzgeberischer Anstrengungen bedürfen, sollen die eu-rechtlichen Vorgaben auch im deutschen Recht tatsÄchlich mit Leben erfüllt werden.