Paying the Victim

If the brigand be not captured, the man who has been robbed shall, in the presence of God, make an itemized statement of his loss, and the city and the governor shall compensate him. --Code of Hammurabi, circa 2250 B.C.

Is a government responsible for crimes committed against its citizens? Yes, say victims of New York City's recent Negro riots, who by last week had sued the city for $1,500,000 under an old state law making cities liable for riot-incurred property damage on the ground that police failed to keep the peace (TIME, Aug. 7). Yes, says New York's Republican Senator Kenneth Keating, who urged the U.S. to compensate crime victims because "every crime represents, in one sense, a failure by government to provide protection and security to law-abiding citizens."

Making his case, Keating cited a scheme launched by the British government last month to compensate people Who have suffered physical injury at the hands of wrongdoers. From now on, a six-lawyer committee with the forbidding title of Criminal Injuries Compensation Board will pay off Britons who successfully argue that they have been financially undone by perpetrators of a vast array of offenses, from arson to assault, including anyone injured while trying to make a citizen's arrest.

To warrant compensation, an injury must be reported to the police or result in criminal proceedings, and be serious enough to cost three weeks' loss of earnings or lead to a civil judgment of at least $140. The board, whose decisions are not reviewable, examines the victim at a closed hearing. If payment is approved, the sum must not exceed twice the average weekly rate of industrial earnings of people over 21 at the time of the injury.

The state makes its payments exgratia (by favor), and is not automatically liable for failing to protect the victim of each and every crime. Not eligible for benefits: all victims injured before the new plan went into effect, children born of sexual offenses, victims who provoked attack, victims living in the assailant's household, auto victims (unless the car was used as a weapon) and claimants for "loss of expectation of happiness." Payments for dead victims go to spouses or dependents. If the victim successfully sues the criminal, the board gets its money back.

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