(Not worthy of GQ… not sure if this should go to GD… Maybe IMHO…)
So I read a follow-up article about how the Austrian dungeonmaster guy’s wife is divorcing him (as one would hope after finding out he’d kept your daughter locked in the basement for 24 years).
Near the end of the article, was the following:
Not having worked since her early youth, Rosemarie is only entitled to meagre benefits payments amounting to just over 200 pounds.
That seems a little harsh. I suppose it would be hard to reasonably manage some kind of social/government benefit fund for victims of extraordinary crimes, but it seems strangely unfair.
Granted, I understand that she is recuperating in an apartment provided by the state, and is surely getting counselling and all sorts of other services at the moment, but in the long-term, whatcha gonna do with this poor woman and her kids? Disability benefits? (If she is unable to work due to severe psychological trauma and her kids are too messed up to function normally)
That one sentence in the article just unleashed a whole whack of hypothetical questions in my head. It almost feels like there should be some kind of Miracle Compensation Fund for Victims of Extraordinarily Heinous Crimes. But that seems next to impossible to manage. It would be like FEMA for victims of horror. Only called McVec as a press-friendly spin on the acronym MCFVEHC.
I do understand that Rosemarie and her children are being cared for and haven’t just been left high and dry, but that one sentence about the benefits she actually qualifies for left me thinking: “Gosh. What can be done?”
Ideally, I’d wave a magic wand and say: “According to our crystal ball, by now you would have been a middleclass family in a bungalow. So here it is! And you’ll get a monthly ‘salary’ that apporximates the amount our crystal ball says you wyould have if you worked your way through the ranks of a middle-sized company to get to a junior management position. Everything is going to be okay.”
I wonder, though, if it is the government’s place to take care of people like this? Perhaps this should best be left up to private citizens and local churches and the like? I’m sure if a fund were started, more people would come through than you might think!
I wonder if she’s entitled to any of her family’s estate. Apparently, her father (twisted scumbag that he was) did fairly well in business. Of course, her mother (the wife) is still alive and the estate is probably hers, but yet then again, I’m not an attorney, nor am I familiar with Austrian law.
Initially, outrage: “Wha-at? She only entitled to $400 in social assistance? That sucks! Why there oughtta be some kind of compensation fund!”
Followed by: “Wait, how the heck is that supposed to work?.. And are taxpayers responsible for some other dude’s depravity?.. And how the hell is anyone going to evaluate and determine how ‘heinous’ is ‘heinous enough’ to merit ongoing government financial assistance?”
Like, it would be totally impracticable to implement. But the injustice still hits you, so you think there ought to be some magical, bottomless pot of gold for people who’ve been victimized beyond comprehension, so that they’d be set for life.
phall0106, one would hope that now that she is reunited with her innocent siblings and extended family that she’ll have some kind of support network through her family.
In North America, there would be all sorts of civil actions, with courts deciding how reparations are doled out. But even when someone wins a wrongful death suit and is awarded millions, often there’s not much of an actual payout (unless the government is the culprit).
Eg/ In Canada Steven Truscott and his family were awarded 6.5 million because he was wrongfully sent to death row when he was 14. The government will pony up eventually. But if the deranged janitor* of my office building kidnapped my co-worker’s husband and killed him, even if she was award 10 million in a wrongful death suit, she’d never collect from the deranged janitor. He just doesn’t have the assets for it to ever happen.
*Real life janitor is not deranged… That I know of… Maybe he is! :eek:
In such a scenario, it is unlikely that they would waste time suing an indigent janitor. More likely they would sue the building owner for being negligent in hiring the deranged person; or the doctor who discharged him from the mental institution while he was a danger to others, or some other party with deeper pockets on whom they might lay the blame, no matter how tangential that “blame” might be.
Rosemarie is the wife of the creep(and mother of the victim), not the hostage/daughter. I don’t think she was a crime victim, but the mother of a crime victim. BC has Crime Victims Assistance Program that assists victims and immediate family. I don’t think it’s a long term proposition though.
That’s a very American point of view. My understanding is that this is taking place in Europe, where the opposite viewpoint prevails. That is, it is the government’s job to provide the safety net.
My experience being poor in the US says that it is only the very photogenic that get such help - if you aren’t pretty, of the “wrong” ethnicity or religion, or there’s something particularly creepy involved you might be entirely ignored.
This response gives me a lot of food for thought. I’ve never been anything but American (I’ve never been out of the country, even to Canada, and that hardly counts!)
So, does the American system need to change? Does the American outlook need to change? Do we need to just look forward to a time when we are truly one Nation?
I dunno.
But I didn’t sleep well last night, so I doubt it will keep me awake tonight. However, I do have a long drive all by myself tomorrow. I will give this notion some “brain space”.
Really. This is something I need to think on. Thank you for pointing it out to me. Having never lived anywhere else, I need someone to hit me upside the head sometimes, with a clue-by-four.
:smack: :smack: But wouldn’t she still be entitled to a portion of the property she shared while married to her vile husband? Or are Austrian laws not as up to date as far as support for former spouses.
Regardless, it made me realize the vistim, who also hasn’t been employed all this time, would be facing similar circumstances and with dependent (and severely psychologically mixed) children.
Wow, I had no idea that existed! I wonder if Ontario has something similar.
Here, the State has a crime victims’ fund which helps pay for things like burial of murder victims and hospital bills of victims of assault (it paid the part of my son’s hospital bill which the insurance didn’t pay, after he was carjacked and went to the emergency room). It is paid for by fines which are paid by convicted criminals.
I can see the underlying question (should government help victims such as Rosemarie?) being hotly debated.
That’s what I found so interesting by my reaction to the story (er, although I got it a little wrong). My instinctive “That’s so unfair! Someone should DO something!” was an emotional one, but more pragmatically, I think it would be near-impossible to implement any kind of program. But it was that question that I thought was interesting.
Would it be fair for extra-awful crimes to have resources above and beyond the resources offered to say, the guy who gets beat up in a hate crime and whose store was burned down? How would anyone assess each crime or to prescribe some kind of compensation package? It would be like some kind of strange insurance coverage.
Then I think of the kids in the case Elisabeth (the victim, not Rosemarie, her mom. My error, of course) and I think: “Sweet Jeebus, they never had a chance! They’re likely to end up on some kind of social assistance no matter what because they haven’t really been exposed to other people, society, or even the sky!”
So on the one hand I think it’s simply not feasible (at least not in the long-term), and on the other, it seems like their should be some kind of provisions made for people who have been victimized to the point where they practically lose their humanity and won’t likely function well in society.
I know that in Spain there’s cases where the government can be named “secondary civil responsible,” (which translates to “if the culprit doesn’t have the money, Uncle Paco has to pay up”) but, since IANAL, not exactly when. One instance when it seems to come up is when someone has commited a crime while out on parole, which wouldn’t apply in this case.
Fund it from the punitive part of lawsuit settlements. For example, when Jane Doe sues Acme Enterprises because their product gave her a papercut and the jury awards $5M to put things right and $10M in punitive damages, put the latter amount in the special fund.
Of course, a huge bucket of money is a temptation for all kinds of graft and corruption, so the management would be challenging, but at least there is one possible source.
And it removes a portion of the motivation for folks to sue.
Is there less motivation for Europeans to “step up” as it were, to donate or help out someone in need, because they’re more used to the gov’t taking care of everything?
Broomstick, I haven’t found that at all. If the public knows about it, somewhere out there is someone willing to help…it doesn’t matter if you’re “photogenic” or not.
I would definitely be less inclined to donate to private charities if I was already paying through the nose in taxes.
Perhaps other countries don’t have as much bureaucracy as America does, but I also don’t have much confidence that a government sponsored victim fund would be administered efficiently and intelligently.
Some people do face a lot of misfortune in life, but just because bad things happen to some people doesn’t mean it’s up to “the government” (by which we really mean taxpayers, don’t we?) to fix things. I’d rather that private citizens use their own money to decide who needs and deserves help than some clueless government lackey playing with other people’s money.
As for the issue of only photogenic people getting help in America, a lot of the homeless people in America are mentally ill and that has a lot more to do with why they can’t get their lives together than there being no help for them.
I’m not much of a looker, but if I had to pick, I’d certainly rather try my luck being impoverished in America than, say, being impoverished in sub-saharan Africa.
This is a big part of my problem with the idea that the gov’t should step in with instances like this. My hubby is a computer engineer for the dept. of health and human services. He works for the branch that deals with Medicare/Medicaid payments. So I know, from hearing him talk, how freakin’ obscene the spending is on this venture. Now, I’m not saying we don’t need Medicare/Medicaid. I know we do. But the government is so wasteful and inefficient, it makes me cringe to pay my taxes!
I really did think about this issue on my drive down to Baltimore today. I think this would be an excellent cause for some philanthropist to get involved with. They are (painting with a broad brush, here) more efficient than the federal government (not that I’m not grateful for the feds-without them, we wouldn’t have such a nice pay check every two weeks!)
I’ve thought about this before, though more in relation to the daughter than the mother, and think that in really extreme, horrific cases like this, yes there should be some sort of fund. It could work something like Criminal Injuries Compensation in the UK, where you apply and make your case and the amount of money given to you depends on how bad your situation was (it should be much higher though than the paltry amounts given at the moment).
The daughter, and kids, are the real victims here of course, but the mother has also had her life ruined. Give them whatever they want, on the grounds of ‘There but for the grace of God…’