Services for Victims of Crime

Kevin McLaughlin

COR1923 450: Introduction to Criminology

Professor Jennifer Zubick

Date

Services for Victims of Crime

Persons who suffer from a loss of or damage to property, emotional or physical harm or financial loss as result of the commision of an offence are victims of the offence commited. As such these individuals under current legislations are entitled to assistive services and/or programs. This study shall look at services and programs available to those individuals who have become victims to the growing issue of Fentanyl trafficking. This issue has multiple facets when identifying its victimolgy as it has many bi-lateral victims.

“Upper Ottawa Valley OPP have charged 11 people following a major drug bust in Pembroke. Police say they executed two search warrants at homes on William Street last week. They reportedly found suspected fentanyl and cocaine, along with scales, money, drug paraphernalia and cell phones.” (myFM News, Jan 31,2024)

Identifying the Victims

Drug trafficking has many victims from the general public to even those who are directly involved in the actual act of traffickingi. Crime related to this endeavour range from property related damage, theft, human trafficking, home invasion, homicide, threats, money laundering to name a few. With such a wide range of offences it may become difficult to assess who is the victim and who is the offender when they can be one in the same. The trafficker may not be a willing participant, they may be a victim as well. For example the individual selling the drugs at street level may only be doing so as a result of threats against their person made as a result of an indebtedness to the dealer they once procured drugs from for their own drug habit. That same victim may as a result of this indebtedness perpetrate other offences such as theft in order to get out of debt. In summary what can be done here if the committer of the offence is also the victim of said offence. The technical terminology for this is the victim-offender overlapii In this instance we need to shift our way of thinking and recognize that although yes this person may have committed this offence but they may also be a victim to it as well. I wish I could find some study done to co-relate my work here however none seem to exist. And this in itself I believe is a problem. It means that no one of note feels that this merits a case study, no one of note recognizes the need to deal with the victim offender overlap that exists within the drug trade.

Assessing the Need For Victim Services

Let’s talk about what is available for services for victims of crime bearing in mind that persons involved may also be victims of it as well. First and foremost is the Victims Fundiii This is primarily to assist setting up programming by facilitators who in turn are able to use that resource to provide aid to victims. Without this aid many of the programs available would not be possible. In relation to drug use in itself several resources are available such as the Addictions Treatment Helplines in Canadaiv or Wellness Togetherv both are good starting points and have the ability to point some one to a more local resource for assistance. For example in the Pembroke area there is the Renfrew County Addiction Treatment Systemvi which can facilitate a road to recovery.

Conclusion

Identifying the victims of drug trafficking can be challenging. Even more so when one considers the overlap between its victims and its perpetrators. Drug trafficking has far reaching implications, it reaches into the sex trade, human trafficking, organized crime, terrorism in all forms. It is a domestic and international issue. While we must deal with the implications of committed offences I also believe we have the need to deal with the very real possibility that those who commit drug related offenses are very well indeed its victims.

ihttps://www.grc-rcmp.gc.ca/en/news/2023/rcmp-rnc-jfo-west-talks-impacts-drug-trafficking-including-increased-violent-crimes-and

iihttps://www.victimsfirst.gc.ca/res/pub/ROV-ROV/index.html#_Toc121406416

iiihttps://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/fund-fina/cj-jp/fund-fond/index.html#:~:text=The%20Victims%20Fund%20provides%20grants,available%20to%20victims%20of%20crime

ivhttps://www.ccsa.ca/addictions-treatment-helplines-canada

vhttps://www.wellnesstogether.ca/en-ca/

vihttps://www.renfrewcountyaddictiontreatment.ca/

Thing on the To-Do list that never gets done

Daily writing prompt
Something on your “to-do list” that never gets done.
View all responses

The one thing that never seems to get done, well there are many, but in the grand scheme of things they all roughly equal one thing, and that is take care of myself… all things seem to boil down to that.
Not getting baking done = not taking care of yourself
Not getting groceries done = not taking care of yourself
Not getting medication, medical assistance not doing the thinks on the list all boil down to not taking care of yourself

APA Format

What do you think about APA formatting? Do you think it adds to a paper or does the need for attention to form detract from the ability to demonstrate knowledge of a subject? I had one professor who was so hung up on formatting that he completely disregarded the content of what I wrote as a result. If it were not for doing well on the class quizzes, I would have failed simply because not enough emphasis is placed on demonstrated knowledge, which makes me wonder if there were people who spewed absolute garbage and managed to pass simply on the form?

Thing i am most scared to do

What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?

Take on new business, and ending business relations/contracts. Both can damage a professional image.

I have done both in the last three months. Taking on the challenge of a new client, followed by ending the business relation with that very same client.