Victims of Crime Research Digest, Issue No. 4

Many Voices, Many Paths

“Many Voices, Many Paths” is the theme of the 2011 National Victims of Crime Awareness Week. This theme recognizes that victims of crime all define their experiences differently and have different ways of working through the aftermath of their victimization.

Social science research plays an important role in recognizing the many voices of victims of crime and the many paths that they may take. Research about victims of crime emanates from a wide range of disciplines and from an even greater variety of methods and data sources. This diversity helps us to understand the uniqueness of each crime, each victim, each reaction, and each path taken. While this uniqueness brings challenges, it also reminds us–whether we are researchers, policy makers, or criminal justice professionals working directly with victims of crime–that victims come from all walks of life and from all regions of the country. They all deserve to be treated with compassion, respect, and fairness.

In this, our fourth issue of the Victims of Crime Research Digest, we are pleased to present a number of articles that speak to these different experiences. Susan McDonald and Katie Scrim present data from a benchmarking study undertaken in the fall of 2010 on Canadians' awareness of victim issues such as available services and needs of victims. Melissa Northcott presents police-reported data on family violence in rural vs. non-rural areas of the country. Our invited contributors, Bill Morrison, Cynthia Doucet, Brenda Thomas, and Patricia Peterson, provide a short synthesis of their work looking at assisting victims with drug and alcohol addictions. Sidikat Fashola takes a look at the findings from a case study on the community impact of hate crimes. And in the final article, Luke Pelot, Catherine Allan, Jodi-Anne Brzozowski, and Patrick St-Cyr from Statistics Canada describe the method used in the collection of data in the territories for the 2009 General Social Survey on Victimization.

As always, we hope you enjoy the articles in this issue. Your comments and ideas are welcome.