THESIS: VICTIMOLOGY TODAY, VICTIMAL EUROPEAN AND SPANISH LAW AND ATENTION FOR VICTIMS OF CRIME IN SPAIN

(VICTIMOLOGÍA HOY, DERECHO VICTIMAL EUROPEO Y ESPAÑOL Y ATENCIÓN A LAS VÍCTIMAS DE DELITOS EN ESPAÑA)

Translation of the abstract for “Teseo” record, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, University Coordination Council (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Consejo de Coordinación Universitaria)

Author: MARÍA DEL MAR DAZA BONACHELA

University of Granada, Department of Criminal Law

Doctoral Program: Criminal Law and Criminal Policy (today inside Legal Sciences)

Reading and defense date: 2/9/2014

Qualified: “Sobresaliente Cum Laude”

ABSTRACT The goals of this research are:

1) to deepen the current knowledge of Victimology and Victims' Rights;

2) to examine normative and institutional support systems for victims in Spain;

3) to analyze and present the work of a Victims' Attention Service.

This is accomplished from a critical perspective, based on empirical knowledge, that permits the presentation of useful proposals to advance the state of Victimology as a discipline, as well as improve the treatment and situation of victims.

Based on these premises, I have tried to interrelate the various currents in Victimology:

1. Victimological doctrine, or scientific/academic Victimology.

2. The normative framework of victims' rights.

3.The practices of attention/assistance to victims, or practical Victimology, including organizational aspects of managing the Victim Assistance Services, focusing on generalist services.

4. Victimological activism, the location of social movements in support of victims, which intersects with doctrinal, legal and assistance areas, all of which are also interconnected.

To understand these currents, their study has required the location, revision and analysis of: 1. The literature on Victimology and other, more general texts, on aspects of Law and Justice which are related to it. 2. Juridical norms regarding victims ranging from the supranational (United Nations, Council of Europe, and European Union) to the (Spanish) national and autonomic level. 3. The data available from the work performed by various Victim Assistance Services in Spain, focusing most closely on the autonomic and local levels, leading to a case study on the application of Victimology in the practice of the SAVA (Victim Assistance Service of Andalusia) in Granada and the political and working condition which it faced and still faces. 4. The perceptions and theorizations of and by

victims and the associations that work with them about their experience and its meaning, reviewing public opinion and the work of institutions, organizations, etc. All of this was accomplished using methodologies based on feminist, critical and interdisciplinary theories.

The research has shown the interconnections, nodes, coherences, disfunctions and contradictions (often hypocritical), among the various victimological currents, and I have tried to unify these fundamental issues, searching for the questions that each of these fields (doctrinal, practical, attentional, and activism) raises, or should raise, for the others and pointing out the answers.

My Thesis is structured as follows:

Introduction (Chapter 1)

Part I, "Victimology: Theoretical, scientific and normative discourse", where I analyze first victimological doctrine and then Victims' Rights (Chapters 2 and 3, respectively)

Part II, "Normative developments with special practical applications: State-level programs for economic assistance to victims of violent crime in Spain", where these programs are jointly examined and critically evaluated. (Chapters 4 to 8).

Part III, "Practical or promotional Victimology and victims' reality in Spain: Presenting the assistance models of the Victims' Assistance Offices or Services (SAV / OAV) and the principal problems they face" (Chapter 9); the situation of SAVs in Spain and its Territories (Chapter 10); the work performed by the SAVA in Granada from its founding in 1999 until 2013, based on the available Memoirs; and the actual situation of victims of various, especially significant, types of crimes based on my own work experience.

Recapitulation, final considerations and proposals, in the hope that they might contribute to improve the conditions of victims of crime and, along with them, those of society as a whole.