Individuare e riconoscere le vittime di corporate violence

These 'National guidelines for police officers, public prosecutors and judges' are aimed at providing a practical and specific tool for a better implementation, by Italian law enforcement agencies, of Directive 2012/29/EU, with specific respect to victims of corporate crime and corporate violence. Building on a previous theoretical and empirical research (within the framework of a larger research project on 'Victims and Corporations'), these Guidelines provide an overview of the minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime established by the Directive with specific respect to the peculiarities and problems related to corporate violence victimization, i.e. to criminal offences committed by corporations in the course of their legitimate activities, which result in harms to natural persons’ health, integrity or life, and whose victims experience a whole range of distinctive risks of secondary and repeat victimisation, of intimidation and retaliation, as well as of harm to their dignity and private and family life. This particular book chapter addresses the thorny issues concerning the timely identification, and therefore recognition, of victims of corporate crime. In fact, the usually collective dimension of corporate violence victimization, together with the frequently long latency periods which characterize the onset of the harmful effects, and with the recurrence of scientific uncertainty about causal links and, in some cases, about the meaning and relevance of symptoms experienced by victims, all add to the greater difficulty in identifying and recognizing these victims and their status as such, so that specific guidelines are provided with this respect.