Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime, Geraldine Hanna, launched a survey that aims to understand the experience victims have of the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland.

The survey can be accessed by clicking on this link.

The survey asks questions about victims’ experience of the criminal justice system and completing it will help the Commissioner and her team identify key systemic issues that need to be addressed by the relevant criminal justice organizations.

Commissioner Hanna explained: “One of my main roles is to advise our government and criminal justice organisations what victims think and what they need to change to make the system better – in order to do this, it is vital we hear directly from victims themselves.”

“Criminal cases can take a long time to get to court in Northern Ireland, so we would like to hear from anyone who has been a victim of crime and/or reported a crime to the police from 2018 onwards. We will use the responses to inform the work priorities for our office and hope to run this survey on an annual basis to help identify any changes in the experiences of victims of crime.”

The survey is anonymous which means you will not be identified via the survey findings.

The Commissioner added: “We are keen to hear from any victim who wants to complete this survey, including parents or carers of children who have been a victim. If you support someone who has been a victim who would like to respond but can’t do so because of language, age, lack of internet access or other barriers, please feel free to fill in the survey with them (or in the case of children, for them).”

If you would like to request the survey in a different format or if you need assistance to complete this form over the telephone, please contact the Commission for Victims of Crime office at haveyoursay@cvocni.org or call us on 028 9052 6607.

Please note that survey participants can stop participation at any point.

If any victims need support to deal with the impact of the crime they are responding about, please contact one of the support services available whose details can be found here https://www.cvocni.org/useful-organisations