To right a wrong, there must be clarity concerning who has been wronged. National Crime Victims’ Rights Week (April 22-28) provides an opportunity to reorient criminal justice policy based on the simple truth: it is the individual victim, not the government, who is primarily wronged when crimes occur against people and property.
Unfortunately, the modern criminal justice system too often prioritizes the prerogatives of government over those of individual crime victims and survivors. It is often said that offenders must “pay their debt to society,” but the paramount debt is to the people they harmed. Nonetheless, restitution to victims is only ordered in one-third of property crime cases and less than half of all court-ordered restitution is ever collected.
In colonial America, victims often brought their own prosecutions, but in the years after the American Revolution, crimes became increasingly viewed as acts against the state. A telling example is the “style” of criminal cases, which are written as “Defendant vs. [The State],” rather than “Defendant vs. [The Victim].”
While prosecutors play a vital role in the modern criminal justice system and concerns of public safety and the rights of the defendant must also be weighed, we have to return victims to prominence in the criminal justice system. Fortunately, there are ways to give victims a voice that also lead to better outcomes for public safety, taxpayers, and offenders.
One proven model is victim-offender conferencing. Typically used for minor property offenses, victim-offender conferencing involves the victim and offender meeting face-to-face with a mediator and reaching a binding, written agreement for restitution and community service. This offers an expedited means of obtaining justice in contrast to protracted pretrial proceedings, jury selection, and appeals.
Conferencing must be chosen by both the victim and the offender, as the offender is required to take responsibility for his or her conduct. Indeed, unlike civil mediation, the purpose of the session is not to resolve who is at fault, but rather for the offender to accept responsibility, apologize, and reach an agreement about what is needed to make the victim whole to the degree possible.
Studies consistently confirm that conferencing produces better results than the traditional court process. In fact, some 89 percent of cases resolved through conferencing result in all restitution payments being fulfilled. Of course, in the handful of cases where the agreement is not performed, the defendant is referred for traditional prosecution.
Moreover, a multi-site study found that 79 percent of victims who participated in conferencing were satisfied. This compares to just 57 percent who went through the traditional court system.
Perhaps most importantly, victims in the U.S. and Canada whose cases were resolved through conferencing were 50 percent less likely to be afraid of re-victimization. It is hard to put a value on a renewed sense of security.
For taxpayers, however, conferencing is a bargain, costing much less than the thousands of dollars often consumed in processing a traditional case.
Victims’ Rights Week also provides an opportunity to debunk the notion that that the harshest penalty for an offender is always best for the victim. For example, restitution payments are rarely made while an offender is incarcerated, since not all inmates earn income. In fact, in Texas, probationers, who are required to either be holding or looking for a job, pay 96 times more restitution to victims than prisoners.
Of course, when dealing with violent and chronic offenders who pose a danger to society, incarceration is necessary, but in states like Texas there are thousands of people locked up for offenses such as writing hot checks and shoplifting. Often, this is neither the best answer for victims nor the best answer for taxpayers.
Right on Crime, a conservative criminal justice reform organization, has made prioritizing victims a centerpiece of its Statement of Principles, which has been endorsed by conservative leaders such as Jeb Bush, Bill Bennett, Ed Meese, and J.C. Watts. In addition to victim-offender conferencing, we recommend other reforms to empower victims, such as: 1) ensuring victims are notified concerning developments in the case, 2) giving victims an opportunity to submit a victim impact statement to the court, and 3) using the amount and share of the restitution a victim collected as a performance measure for probation and parole systems.
Our corrections system was established to right wrongs. Accordingly, victims should be empowered as participants, not just witnesses, in the process of achieving justice.
David Keene is the former chairman of the American Conservative Union and has signed Right on Crime’s Statement of Principles. Anne Seymour is a Washington, D.C.-based national crime victim advocate and Consultant to the Public Safety Performance Project. To learn more, please visit www.RightOnCrime.com.