Implementazione della Direttiva 2012/29/UE per le vittime di corporate crime e corporate violence. Linee guida nazionali per la polizia giudiziaria, le Procure della Repubblica e i magistrati giudicanti

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 (§ I), 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. An overview of the harms and risks suffered by these victims is therefore indispensible in view of a competent and effective individual assessment of their specific protection needs (§ II). 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 (§ III). Due to the same factors, these victims also present peculiar needs for information (§ IV), as well as for protection from secondary and repeat victimization, from intimidation and from retaliation, including against the risk of emotional or psychological harm (§ V), as well as against risks for their privacy, their personal integrity and personal data (§ VI). Further guidelines are specifically addressed at tackling, as far as possible, the difficulties corporate violence victims experience in getting adequate and economically sustainable legal assistance (§ VII), in accessing criminal justice and in participating, in an informed and effective way, in criminal proceedings, as well as in achieving a decision on compensation from individual and corporate offenders (§ VIII). Corporate violence victims’ possibilities to access specific restorative justice programmes are also addressed (§ IX), together with law enforcement agents’ duties in providing information and advice about available support services, in a country where no specific victim support services have, as yet, been provided for (§ X). The importance of training for police officers, judges and prosecutors is also addressed, with specific attention to the available channels for the implementation of adequate and specific trainings aimed at tackling corporate violence victims’ criticalities and needs (§ XI). Finally, specific attention is paid to possible critical issues, as well as general principles, related to the integration of such an innovative EU discipline within the Italian legal framework (§ XII).