Victim Impact Statement Summary

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In ‘Whose Statement Is It? An Examination of Victim Impact Statements Delivered in Court’, the researchers looked at several different concepts and questions pertaining to victim impact statements. To help victims alleviate their suffering, victim impact statements are a way that the criminal justice system implemented to allow victims to participate in the case and have a voice. One of the issues with this is that the narratives are regulated which can lead to frustration and anger from the victims. Victims might not be able to express their true emotions and feeling to the offender or to the court. These constraints on the victim impact statements may hinder their healing and neglect their therapeutic purpose. The study’s objective is to …show more content…

First, the respondents wrote a whole array of different things to convey different emotions and feelings to the defendant. This includes: expressing of grief and anger towards the defendant, memorating the victim, defending the victim’s reputation, justifying the sentence, asking unanswered questions, etc. (Englebrecht & Chavez 2014). In order to write these statements, the victims had to go through a tedious process. The victims had to get the statement approved by victim advocates or prosecutors (Englebrecht & Chavez 2014). Mostly, the victim advocates or the prosecutors don’t guide the victim in wirting their statements, but they do want to steer them away from threats against the defendant, obscenely language, or negative views about the ruling or the court (Englebrecht & Chavez 2014). They do monitor the victim statements and has to approve them before it can be said in court (Englebrecht & Chavez 2014). The judge can stop a victim statement at his/ her own discretion (Englebrecht & Chavez 2014). This causes friction between the victims and the criminal justice system as the process is long and have some …show more content…

There should be a few restrictions like no inappropriate language or no threatening the defendant. That is to be respectful in court and would be highly inappropriate. The victims should be able to express their opinions about the court and the ruling. While judges may not like it, they can learn from it and be sympathetic towards the victim. It can help with their healing as they can express all their opinions and their emotions of the case. Also, the time to process case would have to be shorten. This would be extremely difficult as their are multiple cases that need to be trialed and

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