THE PROBLEMS AND OBSTRUCTIONS TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CRIME VICTIM ASSISTANCE POLICY

Abstract

The objectives of this research are as follows: (1) To study problems and obstructions in the policy implementation to assist victims of crimes; and (2) To suggest ways for policy implementation to assist victims of crimes in the future. This research is a qualitative research by making research on documents related to the policy implementation and the policy to assist victims of crimes and the in-depth interview was also applied with key informants, governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The result of the research showed that the objectives contained in the content of the policy are unclear because of following reasons: many laws are involved in; materials, equipment, and tools used to perform duties are inadequate; the number of personnel is not sufficient to support a lot of applications that request compensations from all over the country; the rights and liberties protection officers and legal officers have low morale, spirit and welfares to perform their duties because most of legal officers are service contracting employment officers and legal officers have an indicator of compensation request application that spends 21 days; a number of related departments also results in the delay of operations. Consequently, following actions are advised: there should be a law that covers all relevant laws in assisting victims of crimes, and the Office of the Criminal Injuries Protection should be particularly assigned, the budget for the purchase of materials, equipment and tools for working should be increased, more legal officers should be recruited and selected to work in many provinces, the working morale of legal officers should be enhanced and the legal officers should be hired as temporary employees instead of being hired as service contracting employment officers in order to entitle them for social security. Additionally, other suggestions are: the information technology should be used to facilitate the coordination of information requests with other agencies, the points of decisions in performing duties should be minimized, while the number of subcommittees should be increased to cover all provinces and the meetings should be held at least 3 times per month as well as the government sector should encourage non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to participate in assisting victims of crimes more and more.