Developments in the Battle of Victims’ Rights V/s Offenders’ Rights:

The emergence of Baffling Balance Theory in Victimology

-Mr. Sukdeo Ingale

Abstract:
The administration of criminal justice system can be described as a battle
between an offender on one hand and the government, representing law abiding
citizens on the other. There are recent developments in all the jurisdictions
throughout world which paved a way for protection and rehabilitation of victims
of crime. It is now a dominating thought that the involvement of crime victims are
important for the proper functioning of any criminal justice system, and this is
true regardless of the type of criminal justice system that exists in any given
nation. However, our criminal justice system is still an array of loosely-coupled
institutions which only remotely resembles a system and the policies towards
victims remain correspondingly fragmented. Hence it is not much clear in what
ways we shall proceed, especially when too much attention has already been paid
to the legal rights of the offenders/accused/defendants.
Apparently, if not in reality, some of the rights of offender are in direct conflict
with the rights of victim. Against this backdrop, to restore an equitable balance, it
is asserted to divert our basic concern away from the offenders and shift it in the
direction of the victims in such way that the administration of criminal justice
system will work in favour of victim’s rights but not at all against the interest of
offenders. For that purpose our emphasis should be on the areas where interest of
victims and offenders coincide. On this line the author has propounded “Baffling
Balance Theory” to resolve the conflict between rights of victim and interest of
offender.
Key-words: Baffling Balance Theory, Crime Control Model, Due Process Model, Right Based
Approach, Rights of Offenders, Rights of Victims, Service Based Approach, Victimology.

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Student of DES’s Shri. Navalmal Firodia Law College, LL.M. 1st, Sem-II, Roll No. 1, 2017-18.