Since the Victim Protection Act was enacted in 1998, the services to victims and their families have been delivered by the District Prosecution Offices and the 21 offices of Association for Victims Support. However, current service provision is limited due to fragmented central policy and weak connection and poor collaboration with networks in local governments. Using data collected by comparative case study, secondary data analysis, and focus groups, the White Paper intends to review the international trends of victim support, investigate the existing effectiveness and hindrance of domestic legislation, policy, and service for crime victims. The White Paper has its foundation on the decisions made by the Presidential Judicial Reform National Committee and newly revised Strengthening Crime Victim Protection Project (2018.12.28). The Aim of the White Paper is to propose long-term policy suggestions for victim issue related agenda-setting, strategy-building, and action plan. The White Paper is divided into five chapters, namely background, international trend of victim support, the current victim policy review and vision, strategy and action plan, and conclusion and suggestion. In Chapter 1, we describe the historical development of Crime Victim Protection Act and Crime Victim Protection Policy. It is found that the latter, which was supposed to be at Ministry level, but in fact has been downsized through years, causing very limited advance in integrated work. Although different protection organizations have some formal or informal connection and cooperation, victim-centred guidelines to combine the resources and actions between central and local governments and between public and private sectors are yet to be developed. According to the analysis of international trend in Chapter 2, several international organizations and benchmark countries have made efforts to secure victim’s rights in criminal justice systems and rights for services. The focus of victim’s rights is exemplified by Victim’s Right legislations and minimum standard of victim service and Victim’s Charter. In addition, it is important to have fulltime supporting staff or victim’s desk to support and assist victims during the criminal justice process. It is also important to have independent civil organizations to provide long term support. Chapter 3 investigates the progress and limitations of current victim services. Through focus groups and interviews, we have found that both the current definition of “crime victims” and “protection services” to be too narrow. Nation fund victim service organization seldom played the role as a significant policy advocator and inspector. We found several weakness in terms of legal aid, restitution and economic security, protection network, physical and emotional recovery, and service quality. Based on our findings from foreign experiences and domestic practices, we propose five core tasks: upgrading victim “services” to victim “rights”, promoting trauma-informed and sympathetic social culture through education, establishing victim support fund to secure distributive justice for the victims, organizational reform to promote the profession and autonomy of the Association for Victims Support, and lastly, reasonable resources and professional staffs for victim protection organizations. Regarding legal aid in court, we propose five suggestions: expand the legal definition of crime victims, regulate the procedural status of victims, protect the privacy of victims, ensure the victims’ entitlement of information, and promote the victim rights of legal aid. Regarding the economic security, three suggestions are: provide victims’ rights for restitution and compensation, reform the national compensation to promote efficiency and reduce secondary victimization, and establish a municipal/county level resources platform for economic support. As to physical and emotional recovery, we propose firstly, a design-thinking model and victim centred networking and service procedure, and secondly, evidence-based multiple victim support services which keep up with the international development on best practices. In Chapter 5, the summary of White Paper and listed suggestions are provided to address the key players, and the aims, strategy, and actions for short or longer term policy development.
