Victim Support Scotland

Victim Support Scotland is the lead voluntary organisation in Scotland helping people affected by crime. It provides emotional support, practical help and essential information to victims, witnesses and others affected by crime. The service is free, confidential and is provided by volunteers through a network of community based victim and youth justice services and court based witness services.

Victim Support works to improve and increase knowledge about victims and witnesses through research studies, projects, appropriate publicity and information materials. The organisation has been instrumental in raising the profile of victims and witnesses in the public, parliamentary and criminal justice arenas. The organisation has become a major player in the criminal justice system, influencing government policy and helping to improve the experience of victims and witnesses of crime.

The Victim Support movement in the UK began in Bristol in 1974, when people from the local community came together to help victims of crime. This was in recognition of the fact that, at that time, the needs of victims of crime were largely unrecognised by the criminal justice system and there was little formal support for victims.

Victim Support Scotland takes an active role in multi-agency working in Local Authority areas across Scotland, developing links with and support for Black and Minority Ethnic people affected by crime.