Crime victims have rights, too
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Should the victims of crime in Pennsylvania have the ability to defend themselves against ongoing attacks by their criminal aggressors?
That’s the basic issue underlying Pennsylvania’s new Revictimization Relief Act.
Prior to the enactment of this new law, victims of crime in Pennsylvania were nearly powerless to stand up to criminals who sought to revictimize them from behind prison bars. I introduced the Revictimization Relief Act to empower the victims of crime in Pennsylvania. This new law allows crime victims to approach a court and ask a judge to prevent a criminal from engaging in ongoing abuse.
Friends of criminals have tried to rename this law the “Silencing Act.” They value the ability of criminals to harass their victims more than the rights of victims to be able to approach the courts for relief. This would be comparable to calling sexual harassment laws “silencing acts” because they affect a male boss’s ability to verbally sexually harass one of his female co-workers.
The Thursday Observer-Reporter editorial argued “hurt feelings, or even ‘severe mental anguish,’ are not sufficient reasons to strip an American citizen of the freedom to speak.”
For decades, men in positions of power made similar arguments to oppose the enactment of sexual harassment laws. The message to women then and crime victims now seems to be, “Stop being so sensitive.” Our society advanced past that outdated mentality to tackle head-on the issue of sexual harassment. Now we are doing it to protect crime victims.
Criminal coddlers have filed a lawsuit seeking to strike down this new law empowering the victims of crime. Before this new law took effect, the scales of justice tilted too far in favor of criminals and against their victims. The Revictimization Relief Act restores balance by recognizing crime victims also have rights.
Mike Vereb
Harrisburg
State Rep. Mike Vereb introduced the Re-Victimization Relief Act (Act 150 of 2014) in the General Assembly. Vereb represents the 150th Legislative District covering part of Montgomery County in southeastern Pennsylvania.