The Effect of Victim Participation in Sentencing on Sentence Outcome *

Abstract

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.

Emotional evidence and jurors' judgments: the promise of neuroscience for informing psychology and law

“…The effect of victim impact statements on sentencing has also been demonstrated in the field. Specifically, Erez and Tontodonato (1990) found that among actual trials in one Midwest U.S. county the defendant was more likely to be incarcerated than put on probation if the trial included a victim impact statement (versus not).…”

Offenders Incarcerated for Crimes Against Juveniles

“…Although a substantial amount of research has focused on the determinants of sentencing and possible sentencing inequities (e.g., Erez and Tontodanato, 1990;Levesque, 2000;McCormick et al, 1998;Myers, 1979;Steffensmeier and Motivans, 2000;Steffensmeier, Ulmer, and Kramer, 1998;Steffensmeier and Ulmer, 1995), victim age has never been considered as a possible factor in this literature. It is particularly important that studies examine how victim age affects sentencing for offender populations broader than the one examined in this analysis, which was limited to offenders sentenced to State prisons.…”

“…As described above, offenders against children and teens tend to differ from other offenders, and these differences may affect sentence severity. For example, compared with other offenders, victimizers of juveniles are more likely to be related to their victims, less likely to use weapons, more likely to be employed, and less likely to be recidivists-all of which might ordinarily reduce sentence severity, regardless of the victim's age (Erez and Tontodanato, 1990;Steffensmeier and Motivans, 2000;Steffensmeier, Ulmer, and Kramer, 1998). Data from the Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities offer information on sentence severity that can be used to assess whether offenders against juveniles receive unusually lenient sentences.…”

Victim participation in criminal trials in Japan

“…Some empirical research treats professional judges' sentencing as a dependent variable, while other research treats lay judges' sentencing as a dependent variable. No study has found an impact of VIS on professional judges' prison-term decisions (Davis et al, 1984;Davis and Smith, 1994a;Erez and Tontodonato, 1990;Erez and Roeger, 1995;Walsh, 1986). However, some studies have found that VIS has an impact on professional judges' probation decisions (Erez and Tontodonato, 1990;Walsh, 1986).…”