Delivering a Victim Impact Statement: Emotionally effective or counter-productive?

Abstract

Although the delivery of a Victim Impact Statement (VIS) in court is assumed to contribute to the healing and recovery process of victims of violent crimes, its effectiveness to facilitate emotional recovery is widely debated. The current longitudinal study is the first to empirically examine the psychological effects of delivering a VIS in terms of the two most important emotional reactions after crime: anger and anxiety. It extends previous findings by showing that the debate concerning the effectiveness of delivering a VIS is not a ‘black and white’ matter. In this article, we argue that the question should not be whether delivering a VIS ‘works’ or ‘doesn’t work’ for the victim, but for whom, and under which conditions. We show that delivering a VIS does not give rise to direct ‘therapeutic’ effects. However, we found that feelings of anger and anxiety decrease for victims who experience more control over their recovery process and higher levels of procedural justice.

Beyond retribution, restoration and procedural justice: the Big Two of communion and agency in victims’ perspectives on justice

“…While participation is only partially attributable to instrumental motives concerning influencing the sentence of the offender, the so-called expressive motives play an equal, if not more important role (see Lens et al, 2013;Lens, Pemberton, Brans, Braeken, & Bogaerts, 2015;Roberts & Erez, 2004). VIS can thus function as a means to influence the sentence of the offender, as a means to retributive justice or even (delegated) revenge (Bilz, 2007;Pemberton, 2012a).…”

“…Initial work establishing this link to justice processes has focused on transitional justice (Karstedt, 2015;Páez, Rimé, Basabe, Wlodarczyk, & Zumeta, 2015;Rime et al, 2011). It also leads to the hypothesis that recounting an emotionally loaded experience in a courtroom can be seen as an attempt to establish a connection with others in that courtroom, while the sense of frustration many victims feel in their attempts to participate can be seen as a function of failure of these attempts (Lens et al, 2015;Pemberton, 2016).…”

Knowing from where to start: a plea for more and better systematic literature reviews about the effectiveness of legal rights for crime victims

“…Victim impact statements allow victims and bereaved family members to tell criminal justice decision makers how the crime has affected their lives, usually with the intention to help them emotionally recover from the act of violence (Erez, 1994). If we would conduct a systematic literature review of studies published in scholarly journals to identify research that examined the achievement of this outcome, only one study would be worth discussing: an effect evaluation by Lens et al (2015). On the basis of this study, we would conclude that victim impact statement delivery does not result in emotional recovery.…”

“…We would yet be able to provide a sound explanation for the findings of the Lens et al (2015) study by extending our systematic literature review to non-English publications and grey literature. That extension would yield two additional but Dutch publications: a research report by Lens et al (2010) and a journal article by myself (Kunst, 2015).…”

“…That extension would yield two additional but Dutch publications: a research report by Lens et al (2010) and a journal article by myself (Kunst, 2015). The first publicationto which we also referred in paragraph 2.1formed the basis for the Lens et al (2015) study and provides insight into the specific context of victim impact statement delivery in the Netherlands and the obstacles crime victims meet when they want to deliver such a statement. In other words, it also includes a process evaluation.…”