The Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority (Brottsoffermyndigheten)

The Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority is a national and governmental authority, subordinated to the Ministry of Justice. It was established in 1994 and is situated in Umeå, in the north of Sweden. The objective of the authority is to act for the needs and interests of crime victims. The authority has national responsibility for three areas:

• Criminal injuries compensation
• the Crime Victim Fund
• the Centre of Competence

The rights of crime victims to information and to correct treatment are defined as priorities for the authority.

Criminal injuries compensation
Criminal injuries compensation is primarily intended for personal injuries and violation of the personal integrity and is financed by tax revenue. Together with the Supreme Court, the authority governs the jurisprudence of the compensation levels for violation of the personal integrity. The authority’s jurisprudence is published in a report and in a newsletter. The authority examines about 10 000 applications for criminal injuries compensation every year. In 2008, the authority paid about 113 000 000 SEK (about 10 313 000 €) in criminal injuries compensation.

The authority runs a telephone help-line during office hours, where staff gives answers to all kinds of questions about compensation claims, criminal injuries compensation, possibilities of support and assistance, the criminal justice process, and many other issues concerning crime victims. The staff receives about one hundred calls a day from crime victims, personnel in the judicial system as well as from non-governmental organisations.

Reclaim department
In almost all cases where the offender is known, the authority sends demands for reclamation. Over the years, the reclaim department has presented increasing results, in 2008 about 27 700 000 SEK was reclaimed. In many cases the repayment time will be of long duration.

The Crime Victim Fund
The purpose of the Crime Victim Fund is to provide economic support to different
activities aimed at improving the situation for crime victims in general through better knowledge and understanding. Money is channelled twice a year. Around 35 million SEK (about 3 221 000 Euro) each year is distributed through the fund. The fund is financed through a special surcharge of 500 SEK. Everyone convicted for a crime punishable by imprisonment must pay this sum. Non-governmental organisations and researchers are the most frequent applicants for means from the fund. The fund is the biggest financier for The Swedish Association for Victim Support and contributes to all local Victim Support centres. The fund has also played a major role in the establishment of witness support in the courts of Sweden. It has also played an important part in establishing victimology as an academic research field in Sweden.

Centre of Competence
The authority has gained a unique competence through the experiences and knowledge from all the applications for criminal injuries compensation as well as from different projects financed through the Crime Victim Fund. The overall ambition is to reach individual crime victims and to educate public institutions working with problems related to crime victims, and to give the general public a broader understanding of reactions to crime. The authority holds conferences, seminars and arranges training for groups, especially within the criminal justice system, but also for NGOs. The authority publishes a newsletter, a report on its jurisprudence and runs two web-sites. The authority also publishes a range of information material. All material is available on the homepage of the Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority www.brottsoffermyndigheten.se.

Court Introduction
The authority has launched an interactive website called The Court Introduction (Rättegångsskolan), www.courtintroduction.se.  Through animations, speaker voices, films and texts the Court Introduction provides information on the criminal justice process, the court hearing and consequences of being subjected to a crime. The Court Introduction also includes a film, which includes a court hearing. The purpose of the Court Introduction is to give crime victims a better understanding of how and why a trial takes place the way it does and to prepare them for the court hearing. The website has been awarded international prices for excellent E-learning product. Link to the Swedish version: www.rattegangsskolan.se

International activities
The authority has conducted three projects and conferences at an international level, especially within the European Union. In 1999, it published a comparative survey in the systems of legislation, compensation and support to crime victims in the Member States of the European Union, entitled “Crime Victims in the European Union”. Following this study, the authority organised an Expert Meeting on Compensation to Crime Victims in the European Union in 2000, with participants from all Member States. The European Commission was invited to elaborate upon the recommendations made at the meeting in a Green Paper, in order to establish minimum standards on compensation to victims of crime.

The authority has arranged several Nordic conferences on different crime victim issues, such as the possibilities of establishing a Crime Victim Fund in the Nordic countries in 2000. The second conference for researchers and practitioners, “Victims of Violence – our responsibility!” was organised in 2002 and a conference on Witness Support in 2004.

The authority has been represented several times in working groups set up by the Council of Europe. It is also a member of Victim Support Europe and is represented at the World Society of Victimology’s international symposiums.