Support Services for Victims in England & Wales

Abstract

This chapter will stop short of discussing victims at court or within the trial process itself, which will be discussed in Chap. 4. Following the discussion of local commissioning, however, the chapter will examine other areas of victim support which have remained subject to national commissioning. Again, the goal will be to offer some assessment of how recent governments’ approach to this issue has impacted upon service provision. In sum, this will allow the chapter to draw conclusions concerning the general rise of the third sector in the provision of victim services as well as the continued promotion of a neo-liberal, cost-effective ethos in this area. This will be done in the overarching context of developments in cultural victimology set out in Chap. 1 in order to evaluate the extent to which the wider body of victims suggested by this approach now have access to support, or otherwise.