| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立雲林科技大學 === 科技法律研究所 === 97 === The French social criminologist Ｅ.Durkheim once said that acts of crime are an unavoidable social phenomenon. This has been a proven fact throughout history, regardless of political structure or economic state. Acts of crime are products of society that result in victims. However, past studies of criminal acts have always focused on the character analyses of the perpetrators and overlooked the victims of the crimes and their roles they played. As a result, most victims and their family members (apart from a few that have been partially compensated through insurance) have not been compensated due to various reasons that include death, lack of information on whereabouts, and lack of finances and insurance.
More emphasis has been placed on the rights and protection of victims of criminal acts and their wills in democratic countries since concepts concerning criminal principle changed in the mid 20th century. With the instating of laws over time to compensate victims’ losses, systems for the purpose of compensating the victims of criminal acts have been established. The ROC passed the "Law Governing Protection of Victims of Criminal Acts" on May 5th, 1995, in which the system of compensation was stated and on November 1st of the same year, put into practice. This, though slightly later than American and European countries in comparison, was a huge step forward in the ROC’s protection of victims of criminal acts. A recent amendment that occurred on May 8th, 2009 was passed by the Legislative Yuan and later published per a Presidential Decree on May 27th to include compensation for victims of sexual and emotional abuse to provide more concrete and detailed compensation for the victims.
The contents of this article include procedures for victims to get compensation and the establishment of institutions for the aid and protection of victims, with the main focus put on the establishment of a compensation system of the state for victims who have lost their lives due to criminal acts, their survivors, and those who have been severely injured or were subjected to sexual abuse.
This paper aims to discuss the relevant theories and legal examples to do with the compensation system of victims of criminal acts centered on the compensation system as established by the ROC’s "Law Governing Protection of Victims of Criminal Acts." In this paper, subjects such as why the state needs to protect these victims, the necessity and theories behind the evolution of victim protection through the years, and the origins and developments of compensation systems for victims of criminal acts are explored. At the same time, the origin and developments of the legislature of our "Law Governing Protection of Victims of Criminal Acts" are also explored, and the compensation systems of countries such as the UK, the USA, Japan and Germany are also introduced and analyzed and compared to our own for introspective purposes and to establish an overall viewpoint. In addition, we also aim to analyze our system through theory and observations to explore whether or not it needs to be strengthened or changed and make suggestions to do with the operations within the system for future planning and proceedings.
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