범죄피해자지원센터의 운영현황 및 활성화방안

Methods to revitalize the Support Center for Crime Victims and its present state of management

Starting from the civil-initiated Support Center for Crime Victims in the cities of Gimcheon and Gumi in September, 2003, and to the most recently(February, 2005) established center in Ueiseong county, a total of 54 non-profit, non-governmental Support Centers for Crime Victims have been set up in units of prosecutor’s offices across the nation. Despite their short period of activities, the centers evoke a favourable response in the local community. In the meantime, several problems arising from their short history have been pointed out in the management of the centers. Here upon, this paper considers methods to revitalize the support centers and their problems while reviewing on the present state of their management including main assistance examples in the support centers. More specifically, questions such as public relations, training of a volunteer worker, nationwide systematization of the support for victims, formulating a support plan by victim type, problems caused by private-initiated management, financial problems, establishment of identity of support center, application of resources of local community, etc. A research result shows that a good many support centers are more or less formally run under the leadership of government, and the fact that 42 of 54 centers are located within the prosecutor’s office is not irrelevant to the above-mentioned. In addition, when we consider that widely used Arbitration could be abused as a means of settling a case for a prosecutor and it could also cause harmful side effects, a prudent arbitration is needed. For all that, this paper concludes that good results since the foundation of the centers give us enough reason for prospecting the high possibility of realization in the protection of victims on a non-governmental basis.