By Dr Mark F. Montebello

I am frequently told by members of the public that, for some unclear reason, I am engrossed in relentlessly defending prisoners without any consideration towards the plaint of their victims. In part this is correct. I am persuaded through and through, yet unable to persuade others fittingly (you see, people are so sturdily determined to give credence to their own daydreams) that much prisoners are amongst the most forsaken, the most hoodwinked, of citizens; at length people set upon by a system too tangled in its own fixations to search its own soul. But this is another story which I am disinclined to relate at the moment. Nevertheless:

Allow me to be abrupt enough to state that that I afford no consideration to the lament of prisoners’ victims is, I think, utterly untrue. Suffice it to say that for well over a year now, acting as member of Mid-Dlam g]ad-Dawl (Daritama), I have been assiduously engaged in establishing an official victim support service with the exclusive design of assisting crime victims. Unfortunately, at the moment the whole project is at risk of wretchedly sinking, not from lack of moral support which it has so copiously received (from high and low alike), but from a shortage of funding.

I would not like to be neither rash nor offensive, yet I am gradually forming a solid conviction that most people care more to champion crime victims than to concern themselves with their predicament. Most people seem to plea strongly for victims of crime not so much as from their love for the offended as from their hate of the offender; not from their sense of justice as from their sense of retaliation; not from any humane desire to reward as from their brutal want of revenge. It repeatedly seems to be the case that the victim is sordidly being used to satisfy the barbaric appetite for vengeance.

Anyway, the commitment to establish Victim Support Malta was not taken in this spirit. I understand that it is absolutely not incompatible to support victims of crime while assisting their offenders. Tenderness for one does not necessarily entail the disgust for the other. Society at large, and the criminal justice system in particular, stand to gain by supporting both with the same repugnance for injustice.

At the dawn of a new century, in a country maturing in its recognition of civil liberties and rights, the duty to assist the excluded and protect the most vulnerable of citizens assumes imposing consequence. The criminal justice system excludes victims of crime by failing to address their vulnerability appropriately. To them, Victim Support Malta directs its entire concern, eager that, through its services, it may soften the unjust pain they suffer, while strengthening their hope for the future.

In contributing to the fight against crime, Victim Support Malta would make economical use of the judicial and penal resources of the country, and offer independent, confidential and impartial services by establishing an information network. Victim Support Malta would advocate the improvement of the judicial, penal and therapeutic services and orientate actual and potential victims of crime within the criminal justice system.

Victim Support Malta has the functions of (1) collecting and managing all information related to criminal and penal justice, (2) aiding in the identification and monitoring of the direct and indirect victims of crime, (3) guiding victims of crime (whether direct, indirect or potential) in their dealings with the judicial system and therapeutic services, (4) studying the degree of effectiveness and efficiency of the judicial system and therapeutic services, (5) helping advise potential victims of their rights and responsibilities, and (6) encouraging and aiding individuals and organizations to undertake professional studies of the criminal justice system and of crime-related issues.

This requires considerable funding, running into thousands. I remain resolute in affirming that we should not offer false hopes to crime victims by launching such a victim service without first ascertaining its financial feasibility. Over the past year, the steering-team responsible for establishing Victim Support Malta has three main concerns: to draw up the legal instruments necessary for founding such an institution, to acquire a set of rooms in Valletta to serve as Victim Support Malta’s central office, and to attract sponsors. The first two were achieved with the aid of the M.E.U. (Management Efficiency Unit) and the government respectively. The third concern unfortunately failed to materialize.

Not that we did not try. We contacted innumerable agencies, such as trade, professional and financial bodies, security companies, accountants and auditors, asking for their sustained support. Only one had the propriety to contact us back, and this in the negative. The rest didn’t even care less!

We also personally met senior officers from A.P.S. Bank, Barclays Premier Banking International, W. & J. Coppini & Co., Collins Exchange Bureau, All Financial Services, Allfreight, Fexco, Midland Bank, the Central Bank, Lombard Bank, B.O.V., Lohombus Bank and Mid-Med Bank. All gave us a sympathetic hearing but only the last four of these deigned themselves to come back to us; and only the last three with a positive response, Lohombus Bank being the most magnanimous. Thomas Cook Financial Services, P.D.K. Financial Services, Cremona Exchange Bureau and the Association of Licensed Foreign Exchange Dealers did not even answer our request for an appointment. So much for victims of crime!

As you would expect, this strenuous exercise was most disappointing. To be honest, we had been promised some help from the Ministry of Finance, but this was much below our expectations. Our financial threshold simply continues to be far out of sight.

You may now understand better why I claim that most people care more to champion crime victims with a full array of worthless inflated words which amount to a world of sheer nothingness than to concern themselves with their condition in concrete terms. Though it may seem rather extraordinary, in Malta tangible relief to victims of crime is incredibly meager.

More than this can in fact be said, but that will probably mislead us here if elaborated. I will state simply that the remarkable counter-productivity of our prisons is so abjectly misunderstood or simply ignored that as a matter of fact it is one of the main factors contributing to the long-term increase of the crime-rate in Malta. Put more simply, our prisons’ thorough inefficiency is, in the long run, rebounding over ourselves by generating criminally better equipped delinquents and thus making us more vulnerable. But, as I said, to explain this would need a full-length article on its own.

Over the past year I have met not one single person, including many experts with notable track records in the criminal justice system, who did not clearly see the positive need of Victim Support Malta. But we simply need more support which is sustainable. In order to take flight the project needs no less than between Lm8,000 and Lm10,000, not to mention other on-going expenses. If these seem to be staggering amounts, think of what criminality costs us in reality. Millions!

It has aptly been said, ‘Better strike a match than curse the darkness’. And so I beseech you: Please, strike a match!