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The role of victims in the criminal justice process has been a neglected area of research. In the past two decades, however, victims of crime have received increased attention, and recently this attention has centered on the involvement of victims in sentencing. This paper addresses the concerns of critics of the involvement of victims in sentencing and assesses the impact of victim participation on sentence outcome using felony crimes in one midwestern county.Analysis reveals thatjiling a victim impact statement has some effect on sentence outcome (probation versus incarceration), although oflense and ofender characteristics are of primary importance. Victim requests for a particular sentence do not influence the choice of sentence. Legal considerations largely explain length of imprisonment, although several of the victim-related variables have explanatory power. The implications of these results for the debate concerning victim participation are discussed.

The study of violence between dating partners is a logical extension of interest in marital violence. However, little of this research tests explanations of intimate violence using multivariate techniques, and only recently have such tests occurred within a theoretical framework. Drawing on a recent social learning model of courtship violence (Riggs & O'leary, 1989), this paper empirically examines constructs hypothesized to be predictive of the use of dating violence and investigates possible gender differences in the underlying causal structure of such violence. Logit analysis indicates that parent-child violence, drug use, and know ledge of use of dating violence by others predict the use of courtship violence by females. Belief that violence between intimates is justifiable, drug use, and parental divorce are related to perpetration of dating aggression by males. Explanations for these results and the importance of a multivariate approach to the problem are discussed.

The costs of crime to victims are well-known and research has described the physical, emotional, and financial injuries sustained by crime victims. To date, however, there has been little empirical work which investigates the correlates of victim distress vis-à-vis victim involvement in the criminal justice process. The present study explores the role played by the criminal justice experience in victim distress level and the relative importance of victim, offense, and system participation variables. Multivariate analysis revealed that the level of distress following the victimization is largely a function of offense type, victim perception of sentence severity, and victim demographic characteristics of sex and age. Investigation of the factors predictive of current victim distress level indicated that receiving restitution and the level of distress following the victimization are most important, in addition to the personal characteristics of race and marital status. The implications of these findings for research on victim participation and for policy concerning crime victims are discussed.

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