The Controversial Nature of Victim Participation: Therapeutic Benefits in Victim Impact Statements

Victim Impact Statements in South Australia

Impact Statements (VIS). The new law which took effect in January 1989 requires that VIS material be put before the court by prosecutors so as to inform the judge of any physical or mental harm, any loss or damage to property suffered by a victim as a result of a crime. This article presents the results of evaluation studies of VIS in South Australia and their implications for the role of victi...

THE PREJUDICIAL NATURE OF VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENTS Implications for Capital Sentencing Policy

Victim impact evidence is presented during sentencing hearings to convey the harm experienced by victims and victims’ relatives as a result of a crime. Its use in capital cases is highly controversial. Some argue that the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the admission of victim impact statements (VIS) during capital sentencing proceedings (Payne v. Tennessee, 1991) invites prejudice and judgme...

Why the impact? Negative affective change as a mediator of the effects of victim impact statements.

Victim impact statements (VISs) represent a contentious legal and psychological point of debate. Current knowledge concerning the influence of VISs on jurors' emotional states and views of offenders is unclear. Using a sexual assault case, the present study attempted to disentangle these points of debate in the body of existing literature by (a) examining the direct influences of the presence o...

The Developmental Nature of the Victim-Offender Overlap.

Purpose It is well-established that victims and offenders are often the same people, a phenomenon known as the victim-offender overlap, but the developmental nature of this overlap remains uncertain. In this study, we drew from a developmental theoretical framework to test effects of genetics, individual characteristics, and routine-activity-based risks. Drawing from developmental literature, w...

Participation in Victim–Offender Mediation: Lessons Learned From Observations