Study title

The thesis takes its starting point in the question of how damages for violation of crime is determined. This type of non-pecuniary damages to crime victims has a fundamental uncertainty regarding the computation of damages and what is really meant by “violation” in the meaning of the law. There is also a gliding between the violation and the suffering, as to which the compensation is related. The violation-dimension has a more “objective” connotation as a sanction in the sense of an attack on a protected interest within the rule of law. Whereas the suffering-dimension focuses more on the “subjective”, individualized injury as the object of attack. According to law, damages for violation should be determined such that it reflects the present social norms within society. Therefore, the compensation must be seen in relation to the context of criminal law, levels of punishment, the proportionality of the compensation in relation to the punishment and the crimes’ penal value. Thus before the empirical study, two central suppositions were: (1) if the applicator of the law “succeeds” in this task and (2) if it is possible to say something about if the application of the law, for instance the compensation levels, influences the satisfaction among the victims. The general object of the thesis is: to investigate how the application of the law reflects the sense of justice and how empirical knowledge can contribute to the legal field in question. The study includes two surveys, one involving the public and the other involving crime victims that had received compensation for criminal injuries from the Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority. The surveys consist of vignette questions selected from legal usage and questions about the victims’ experience of the compensation. The legal rule, about a victim’s right to compensation for the violation, opens up for different interpretations and several possible applications because of its vagueness. It is reminiscent of...