Making unavailable the address and phone number of victims of crime could be a simple step towards reducing the prevalence of intimidation of victims and witnesses. This intimidation can often keep people from testifying in court with the result that the criminal, not convicted, goes free to cause more crime and more costs to the taxpayers.
In large cities crimes are done on the streets and so are the arrests. This means that initially the criminal often doesn't know where the victim lives. But intimidation ends up taking place because the criminal, out on bail, can find out the victim's address and phone number from the police report, or eventually the criminal's lawyer can do it.
The victim may be only one person and he or she has to sleep and may have a family to protect. The criminal may have friends or fellow gang members. This is not an uncommon situation in the States and some other countries.
My proposal is to make unavailable the address and phone number of the victim to the defence before, during or after the trial in cases like these where the address of the victim is unknown to the criminal at the time of the crime. The address on the police report shall be known only to the police precinct or a central agency along with a code.
Jordan Levenson, PO Box 19606, Los Angeles, CA 90019, USA.
The address of all witnesses have been withheld from the defence for some years in the UK, just as all the names and addresses of rape complainants have been kept from publication since 1976. Blackmail complainants have always been allowed to give evidence without disclosing their names. As with most of these things, there are some exceptions.
The trouble with Jordan Levenson's suggestion is that not all people who claim to be victims of crime are victims, and defendants are presumed to be innocent until they are proved to be guilty. Anything (such as the withholding of relevant and material information) that makes it harder for a defendant properly to prepare his or her case will sometimes lead to injustice to innocent defendants.
If only criminals were defendants I would agree with Jordan Levenson's suggestion, but they are not and I don't.
Desmond Banks, Desmond Banks and Co Solicitors, 25 Powis Terrace, London W11 1JJ (tel 0171 221 1455; fax 0171 229 2414).
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