Day 7: South African Crime Research - The Voice of the Victim

The Victim Impact statement

The Victim Impact statement is used within South African law, as a written document by a victim, whom is the person who suffered personal harm (physical, psychological, social and financial) as a direct result of an offense (The South African Law Commission 2002:68). 

A victim impact statement differs from the general victim testimony in court, as it allows the victim to ‘personalize the crime’ and to ‘express their anguish, pain and devastation caused to them, so that the consequences of the crime may be understood by all involved in the law proceedings.

A criminologist compiles the victim impact statement to contribute towards a ‘more balanced view’ between the various components such as the seriousness of the offense, the physical harm, psychological harm, evidence provided, testimonies. Therefore the purpose of the victim impact statement is for those involved in the law proceedings to get a glimpse into the actual experience of the victim, as a means of grasping the seriousness of the crime on the life of a victim. (Criminology and Security Science 2012: 77 – 85) 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing the existence of crime within my world.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing no real solutions to be found for the existence of crime and to instead have to manipulate the jurors and judges through emotions and feelings to find it within them to relate to the victim and punish the perpetrator, without any clear understanding of how and why crime exists.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing the existence of victim impact statements, instead of getting to the direct cause of why people commit crimes and to address the issue directly, equally for all.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing the use of inner conflict within beings to fuel the current situation within the world based on anger and fear towards each other.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to stand firstly for the end of all crime, by ending all crimes against life, as that which I have already manifested as the world systems, which by definition abuses and separates and forces people into abusive lives, which then has the outflow and consequence of further abuse.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing ignorance to exist within me as an idea and opinion that bad people commit crime and should be punished.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that the real evil that exists in this world are those who stand by and enjoy the fruits of the abuse that is done towards the humans, animals and planet earth whom are in positions and whom have no say and have no choice but to survive.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing the capitalistic system, on which we have built this deceitful acceptance of abusing beings on this planet for the profit and greed of a minority while the rest of us as the elite who benefit from capitalist, sit back and pretend ignorance.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing money to be the driving force behind everything I do on this planet, as the driving force of me as survival.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing money to be my life and that which motivates me, instead of me being motivated to live life and to see life equally being lived by all, with no fear and hatred and greed being the driving force of myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing greed to exist in this world and to use that as an excuse for why we can force billions of beings into survival daily where most do not have sufficient needs met, forcing many into survival based abusive practices to feed themselves and their families.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing the period of waiting to see what happens, where the end result is people having to write out emotional letters placing themselves as further victims within the system, instead of priority being given to the welfare of each.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to ignore the effect that our current world system has on the beings that inhabit this planet, and instead of acting to solve the problems, to postpone the inevitable, waiting generation after generation for suffering to compound until it is too late.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself as the victim, the one that waits for somebody else to change my world, to change me and to stand up for the life within me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be the victim, because growing up I believed I was nothing and that some god or man would come and take care of me, through which I abdicated my self-responsibility and my self-will – to stand before the system dependent and without a voice, accepting life without question.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself as the perpetrator – the one that wants to take from others, without considering and applying myself here within practical self-responsibility.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing the existence of the perpetrator within me, the hiding and sulking and blaming others for the decisions I have made in my life.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become the judge and jury who judge others for their actions, without considering my part in this reality and that which I have directly and tacitly agreed to by accepting out current reality as it is.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself as the perpetrator – the one that wants to take from others, without considering and applying myself here within practical self-responsibility.

I commit myself within equality to stop the abuse that I allow in my world in the name of greed and self-interest.

I commit myself through writing to reveal that within my world, within myself which does not serve life on this planet.

I commit myself to reveal to myself the practices and ideologies that are based on lies and deception.

I commit myself to stop emotionally feeding off the suffering of others in the name of self-entertainment.

I commit myself to re-write myself as the living word into a being that can be trusted and who will stand for all life, and to serve life as what is best for all.

I commit myself to stop the crimes against life that I have come to accept as myself – where I live in a world where starvation and abuse is acceptable because we make money from it.

I commit myself to find ways to stop any and all forms of abuse and to not ‘beat around the bush’ about why crime exist, but to directly see and communicate the lies we have come to accept as our society, for all to see and hear.

I commit myself to stop the genocide of life, before it is too late and there is nothing left of us but our ugly nasty entity minds that devour and consume everything round us.

I commit myself to stop participating in the rotten child syndrome, through which we feed of the spoils of the earth, watching countless beings suffer and crying for mercy once it is too late.

I commit myself to see, hear and understand what it is that I am required to do to bring about a dignified life for all.

I commit myself to not accept the existence of crime as normal and to not accept any justification for abuse and crime, as no reason could possibly exist for us to abuse each other, this planet and nature.

I commit myself to stop participating in the energy reactions of listing to someone’s crime story in which I allow my curiosity to have reactions direct me to maintain my world of abuse and torture where I will deliberately turn a blind eye to what is happening in my world because it stimulates my mind.

I commit myself to bring about a world system that is best for all, so that all may have their basics needs met and have equal opportunity to love and express here in dignity and in full expression of life as the physical.

I commit myself to bring about a new economic system that will benefit all who live on this planet and to transform my old ways of living and being as the crime against life into something new – which will be the living manifestation of what is best for all.