Victim Impact Statements

Victim impact statements are typically presented before an offender is sentenced, although they may also be requested in advance of decisions to release a prisoner. The following articles and resources concern how and why victims prepare victim impact statements.

Church arsonist doubts God will forgive him: from Alexandra Zabjek's article in the Edmonton Journal: A man who torched two Wetaskiwin churches in what a judge described as a "totally senseless wanton act of destruction" was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison. But he was offered hope by one of the ministers whose church was destroyed. "We have not been abandoned and we don't want you, Peter Terence Jones, to feel abandoned," Wetaskiwin First United Church minister Ruth Lumax told the 24-year-old arsonist in her victim impact statement, which was read in court.
Submission of Victims' Rights: A response prepared by the Restorative Justice Centre at AUT University in New Zealand to the Ministry of Justice's discussion document, "A Focus on Victims of Crime: A Review of Victims' Rights."
Restorative Justice Centre's submission to Ministry of Justice on victims' rights: The Restorative Justice Centre at AUT University in New Zealand has responded to a discussion draft titled "A Focus on Victims of Crime: A Review of Victims' Rights" on how the government might better address the needs of crime victims. Following are excerpts from RJC's response: 9. The central justice needs of victims are submitted to be accountability, vindication, empowerment, information, truth-telling and future safety. Only the first and last of these are addressed (to some degree) by the current legal process, and then only when the offender is convicted. Thus in crimes that go largely unreported, such as sexual offences, there can be no feeling of accountability in the absence of alternative processes, and victims remain unsafe. 10. The remaining four central justice needs are those which Dr Howard Zehr, known to and used by MoJ as a consultant in restorative justice, has said are “especially neglected”. They are next mentioned separately. However they overlap with needs identified by other writers.
. A victim's voice: Victim impact statements in Victoria.: VIS legislation has been in operation since 1994 and it is timely to consider whether the legislative aims are being realised. The Attorney-General, the Honourable Rob Hulls MP, directed the Victims Support Agency (VSA), Department of Justice (DOJ) to undertake research to assess the effectiveness of VISs. In particular, whether VISs: are the appropriate tool to inform the court about the impact of the crime; assist the court in determining sentence; increase victims’ levels of satisfaction and; therefore participation in the criminal justice system. In order to explore these issues in Victoria, the VSA conducted extensive consultations with key stakeholders involved in the VIS process including police, prosecutors, defence counsel, the judiciary and magistracy, victims’ service agencies, witness assistance services and victims of crime. The Report A Victim’s Voice: Victim Impact Statements in Victoria (‘the Report’) discusses key findings in relation to VIS legislation in Victoria. (excerpt)
Booth, Tracey. Homicide, family victims and sentencing: continuing the debate about Victim Impact Statements.: In October 2003, I attended a conference in Canberra -- Innovation: Promising Practices for Victims and Witnesses in the Criminal Justice System organised by the ACT Office of the Victim of Crime Coordinator. Participants addressed a number of issues including therapeutic justice and problem-solving courts, restorative justice (particularly in the context of sexual assault offenses), circle sentencing, criminal injuries compensation and victim involvement at various stages of the criminal justice system. My paper addressed the issue of victim involvement in the process of sentencing and, more specifically, the relevance of victim impact statements (VISs) from family victims in the context of homicide offences. I expressed the view that it is time to shift the debate from a consideration of the VISs as factors in the sentencing equation to a broader perspective of the role of VISs in the process of sentencing in homicide matters. (excerpt)
Burr, Richard. Litigating with victim impact testimony: the serendipity that has come from Payne v. Tennessee.: A lawyer experienced in representing accused individuals facing the death penalty, Richard Burr makes these two observations about victim impact testimony in capital cases: (a) it usually serves the prosecution’s goal of procuring a death sentence; and (b) it does little to address most of the needs of survivors of murder. At best, such testimony provides a momentary opportunity for survivors to voice their loss, thus being heard and felling less isolated. At worst, it exploits the immense pain suffered by survivors to serve as a lever to produce a death sentence. With all of this in mind, he considers the situation in the wake of Payne v. Tennessee (501 U.S. 808 [1991]), a case that made it virtually impossible for defense counsel to exclude or limit victim impact testimony. Now, he argues, defense lawyers must reach out to survivors with genuine compassion. They must learn from survivors which needs can be met within the criminal justice process; and they must do what they can do, consistent with representing the interests of their clients, to ensure that those needs are adequately addresses. Defense lawyers must work for respectful inclusion of survivors in the criminal justice process and not be complicit in exploiting and excluding them.
van der Hoven, Anna. The value of victim impact statements in court: Victim impact statements constitute one of the ways in which victims of crime are participating more significantly in the criminal justice system in recent years. The purpose of a victim impact statement is to present the victim’s perspective to the sentencing authority as part of the sentencing process. In this paper, Anna van der Hoven discusses the status of victim impact statements in the South African criminal justice system. She writes that the use of such statements is still in its infancy and seldom are they submitted. To highlight the situation in South Africa as well as the value of impact statements, she summarizes a particular case in which she assisted a crime victim in preparing and presenting a victim impact statement.
Davidson-Arad, Biha and Leichtentritt, Ronit D.. Construction of the Victim Impact Statement for Sexually Abused Minors: A Dramaturgy Approach: Sexual abuse has a devastating impact on children, yet abused children often have little voice in the legal process. However, write Ronit Leichtentritt and Bilha Davidson-Arad, these victims need to be given a voice and they need to be heard if they are to experience that restoration of power necessary for psychological wholeness. With this in mind, the authors focus on how Israeli social workers made sense of victims’ experiences and constructed them for the court by means of the victim impact statement (VIS), a statement that has legal, social, and therapeutic importance. They pay particular attention to the forms used by Israeli social workers to construct the statements. The background for this study is constructivism, the perspective that human beings actively construct and co-construct meaning out of their own life experiences and those of others. Hence, the work of Israeli social workers with sexually abused children to develop victim impact statements is seen as construction of a narrative or story resulting from the relationship between the social worker and the child.
Myers, Roslyn. Part I: Victims as storytellers: The importance of victim impact testimony in criminal justice proceedings.: One of the ways in which the victims’ rights movement has influenced criminal justice in recent years is the emergence of victim impact statements as part of the court process. Victims have deep and strong needs and desires to tell their story, and what they have to say is crucial to a good criminal justice system. Myers discusses the importance of the victim narrative to prosecution, the modern history of victims’ role in criminal justice, and court rulings on victim impact statements.
. In defense of victim impact statements.: My argument proceeds in four substantive parts. It begins in Part I by briefly tracing the crime victims' rights movement in this country, which, in recent years, has successfully argued for the right of victims to deliver an impact statement at sentencing. Part II then provides a real world example of a victim impact statement-a statement by Sue Antrobus regarding the criminal sale of the handgun used to murder her daughter. Looking at Sue Antrobus's statement will allow the reader to assess the desirability of victim statements with the knowledge of what such a statement actually looks like. Part III then lays out the four main justifications for victim impact statements. First, they provide information to the sentencing judge or jury about the true harm of the crime-information that the sentencer can use to craft an appropriate penalty. Second, they may have therapeutic aspects, helping crime victims recover from crimes committed against them. Third, they help to educate the defendant about the full consequences of his crime, perhaps leading to greater acceptance of responsibility and rehabilitation. And finally, they create a perception of fairness at sentencing, by ensuring that all relevant parties-the State, the defendant, and the victim-are heard. Part IV rebuts the objections that critics have raised to victim impact statements. The claim that victim impact statements do not relate to the purposes of punishment is refuted by the fact that they provide information about the severity of crimes, a salient consideration for judges at sentencing. The claim that the statements are so emotional that they will overwhelm sentencers is disproven by empirical evidence showing little effect from victim statements on sentence severity. The claim that victim impact statements lead to unfair inequality is invalid in view of the need to create fairness within criminal cases by allowing a victim response to allocution from criminal defendants and their families. And finally, the claim that a competition of victimhood arises in mass killing cases, even if true, provides no basis for abolishing the victim impact statements entirely. (excerpt)
. Addressing Victim's Harm: the Role of Impact Reports.: This Article focuses on the sentencing phase in child sexual abuse cases, and, in particular, evaluates the practice of receiving information in the form of a victim impact statement. It then highlights South African courts’ recent reactions to victim impact statements. This Article concludes that a court open to therapeutic jurisprudence principles, such as embracing an ethic of care, can play a vital role in addressing victims’ harm. (excerpt)
. In defense of victim impact statements.: My argument proceeds in four substantive parts. It begins in Part I by briefly tracing the crime victims' rights movement in this country, which, in recent years, has successfully argued for the right of victims to deliver an impact statement at sentencing. Part II then provides a real world example of a victim impact statement-a statement by Sue Antrobus regarding the criminal sale of the handgun used to murder her daughter. Looking at Sue Antrobus's statement will allow the reader to assess the desirability of victim statements with the knowledge of what such a statement actually looks like. Part III then lays out the four main justifications for victim impact statements. First, they provide information to the sentencing judge or jury about the true harm of the crime-information that the sentencer can use to craft an appropriate penalty. Second, they may have therapeutic aspects, helping crime victims recover from crimes committed against them. Third, they help to educate the defendant about the full consequences of his crime, perhaps leading to greater acceptance of responsibility and rehabilitation. And finally, they create a perception of fairness at sentencing, by ensuring that all relevant parties-the State, the defendant, and the victim-are heard. Part IV rebuts the objections that critics have raised to victim impact statements. The claim that victim impact statements do not relate to the purposes of punishment is refuted by the fact that they provide information about the severity of crimes, a salient consideration for judges at sentencing. The claim that the statements are so emotional that they will overwhelm sentencers is disproven by empirical evidence showing little effect from victim statements on sentence severity. The claim that victim impact statements lead to unfair inequality is invalid in view of the need to create fairness within criminal cases by allowing a victim response to allocution from criminal defendants and their families. And finally, the claim that a competition of victimhood arises in mass killing cases, even if true, provides no basis for abolishing the victim impact statements entirely. (excerpt)
Edgar, Allen and Roberts, Julian V. Victim Impact Statements at Sentencing: Perceptions of the Judiciary in Canada: The use of victim impact statements (VIS) at sentencing continues to generate controversy, even in countries such as Canada, where VIS have been in use for many years. While a great deal of research has addressed the use of these statements at sentencing, very little is known about the experience and perceptions of the professional for whom these statements are written: the judge. In this article, we report the findings from a survey of judges in Canada regarding their use of victim impact statements. Some critics of VIS have argued that these statements add nothing to the sentencing process, and simply raise false expectations among victims. The findings from this survey demonstrate that judges find victim impact statements to be a useful source of information at sentencing. Many judges reported that the VIS provided information that was unavailable from any other source. That said, many issues remain to be addressed with respect to victim impact statements in Canada. These findings will be of particular interest to jurisdictions contemplating the introduction of victim impact statements at the sentencing stage of the criminal process. (authors abstract)
Williams, Christopher and Arrigo, Bruce A. Victim Vices, Victim Voices, and Impact Statements: On the Place of Emotion and the Role of Restorative Justice in Capital Sentencing: Victim impact statements are thought of as offering a voice to victims of crime who have been unwilling participants in the process of criminal justice. However, the efficacy and legitimacy of these statements during the penalty phase of capital cases has been questioned. Some argue that the emotional quality of VIS undermines the offender’s chance for a fair and impartial sentence. It has also been argued that such emotionally laden statements undermine a meaningful and restorative justice experience for victims. In order to examine the efficacy and legitimacy of including VIS during the sentencing phase of capital cases, the authors outline the principles of critical restorative justice and explore the legal and empirical limits of VIS. Society’s urge to punish offenders is contrasted to the compassion and forgiveness that are important dimensions of the sentencing process. The authors offer several policy considerations that are consistent with critical restorative justice and that address the need to give voice to victim experiences. Abstract courtesy of National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org.
Long, Katie. Community Input at Sentencing: Victim's Right or Victim's Revenge?: Citing examples of community response to decisions in the criminal justice system, Katie Long asserts that communities are seeking greater influence over the process of criminal justice. One emerging focal point of community activism is criminal sentencing. Across the United States, citizens are pursuing grassroots efforts to affect sentencing policies and practices. Long explores all of this by looking at the expansion of community input in criminal sentencing. In particular she examines community-impact statements at the time of sentencing and the implications of such statements. This involves consideration of the practical and constitutional problems with occasionally allowing or institutionalizing community participation at sentencing. Long’s perspective is that the widespread use of community-impact statements would produce an unacceptable skewing of the criminal justice process in favor of victims.

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Navigation Victim Support Victim Assistance Victim Compensation/Restitution Victims' Role in the Criminal Justice System Victim Impact Statements Victim Impact Panels and Awareness Programmes Victim Participation in Restorative Processes Victim Centred Restorative Justice The Shape of Things to Come: A Framework for Thinking about a Restorative Justice System Restorative Justice and Forgiveness	Info Victim Impact Statements Victim impact statements are typically presented before an offender is sentenced, although they may also be requested in advance of decisions to release a prisoner. The following articles and resources concern how and why victims prepare victim impact statements. Church arsonist doubts God will forgive him from Alexandra Zabjek's article in the Edmonton Journal: A man who torched two Wetaskiwin churches in what a judge described as a "totally senseless wanton act of destruction" was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison. But he was offered hope by one of the ministers whose church was destroyed. "We have not been abandoned and we don't want you, Peter Terence Jones, to feel abandoned," Wetaskiwin First United Church minister Ruth Lumax told the 24-year-old arsonist in her victim impact statement, which was read in court. Submission of Victims' Rights A response prepared by the Restorative Justice Centre at AUT University in New Zealand to the Ministry of Justice's discussion document, "A Focus on Victims of Crime: A Review of Victims' Rights." Restorative Justice Centre's submission to Ministry of Justice on victims' rights The Restorative Justice Centre at AUT University in New Zealand has responded to a discussion draft titled "A Focus on Victims of Crime: A Review of Victims' Rights" on how the government might better address the needs of crime victims. Following are excerpts from RJC's response: 9. The central justice needs of victims are submitted to be accountability, vindication, empowerment, information, truth-telling and future safety. Only the first and last of these are addressed (to some degree) by the current legal process, and then only when the offender is convicted. Thus in crimes that go largely unreported, such as sexual offences, there can be no feeling of accountability in the absence of alternative processes, and victims remain unsafe. 10. The remaining four central justice needs are those which Dr Howard Zehr, known to and used by MoJ as a consultant in restorative justice, has said are “especially neglected”. They are next mentioned separately. However they overlap with needs identified by other writers. . A victim's voice: Victim impact statements in Victoria. VIS legislation has been in operation since 1994 and it is timely to consider whether the legislative aims are being realised. The Attorney-General, the Honourable Rob Hulls MP, directed the Victims Support Agency (VSA), Department of Justice (DOJ) to undertake research to assess the effectiveness of VISs. In particular, whether VISs: are the appropriate tool to inform the court about the impact of the crime; assist the court in determining sentence; increase victims’ levels of satisfaction and; therefore participation in the criminal justice system. In order to explore these issues in Victoria, the VSA conducted extensive consultations with key stakeholders involved in the VIS process including police, prosecutors, defence counsel, the judiciary and magistracy, victims’ service agencies, witness assistance services and victims of crime. The Report A Victim’s Voice: Victim Impact Statements in Victoria (‘the Report’) discusses key findings in relation to VIS legislation in Victoria. (excerpt) Booth, Tracey. Homicide, family victims and sentencing: continuing the debate about Victim Impact Statements. In October 2003, I attended a conference in Canberra -- Innovation: Promising Practices for Victims and Witnesses in the Criminal Justice System organised by the ACT Office of the Victim of Crime Coordinator. Participants addressed a number of issues including therapeutic justice and problem-solving courts, restorative justice (particularly in the context of sexual assault offenses), circle sentencing, criminal injuries compensation and victim involvement at various stages of the criminal justice system. My paper addressed the issue of victim involvement in the process of sentencing and, more specifically, the relevance of victim impact statements (VISs) from family victims in the context of homicide offences. I expressed the view that it is time to shift the debate from a consideration of the VISs as factors in the sentencing equation to a broader perspective of the role of VISs in the process of sentencing in homicide matters. (excerpt) Burr, Richard. Litigating with victim impact testimony: the serendipity that has come from Payne v. Tennessee. A lawyer experienced in representing accused individuals facing the death penalty, Richard Burr makes these two observations about victim impact testimony in capital cases: (a) it usually serves the prosecution’s goal of procuring a death sentence; and (b) it does little to address most of the needs of survivors of murder. At best, such testimony provides a momentary opportunity for survivors to voice their loss, thus being heard and felling less isolated. At worst, it exploits the immense pain suffered by survivors to serve as a lever to produce a death sentence. With all of this in mind, he considers the situation in the wake of Payne v. Tennessee (501 U.S. 808 [1991]), a case that made it virtually impossible for defense counsel to exclude or limit victim impact testimony. Now, he argues, defense lawyers must reach out to survivors with genuine compassion. They must learn from survivors which needs can be met within the criminal justice process; and they must do what they can do, consistent with representing the interests of their clients, to ensure that those needs are adequately addresses. Defense lawyers must work for respectful inclusion of survivors in the criminal justice process and not be complicit in exploiting and excluding them. van der Hoven, Anna. The value of victim impact statements in court Victim impact statements constitute one of the ways in which victims of crime are participating more significantly in the criminal justice system in recent years. The purpose of a victim impact statement is to present the victim’s perspective to the sentencing authority as part of the sentencing process. In this paper, Anna van der Hoven discusses the status of victim impact statements in the South African criminal justice system. She writes that the use of such statements is still in its infancy and seldom are they submitted. To highlight the situation in South Africa as well as the value of impact statements, she summarizes a particular case in which she assisted a crime victim in preparing and presenting a victim impact statement. Davidson-Arad, Biha and Leichtentritt, Ronit D.. Construction of the Victim Impact Statement for Sexually Abused Minors: A Dramaturgy Approach Sexual abuse has a devastating impact on children, yet abused children often have little voice in the legal process. However, write Ronit Leichtentritt and Bilha Davidson-Arad, these victims need to be given a voice and they need to be heard if they are to experience that restoration of power necessary for psychological wholeness. With this in mind, the authors focus on how Israeli social workers made sense of victims’ experiences and constructed them for the court by means of the victim impact statement (VIS), a statement that has legal, social, and therapeutic importance. They pay particular attention to the forms used by Israeli social workers to construct the statements. The background for this study is constructivism, the perspective that human beings actively construct and co-construct meaning out of their own life experiences and those of others. Hence, the work of Israeli social workers with sexually abused children to develop victim impact statements is seen as construction of a narrative or story resulting from the relationship between the social worker and the child. Myers, Roslyn. Part I: Victims as storytellers: The importance of victim impact testimony in criminal justice proceedings. One of the ways in which the victims’ rights movement has influenced criminal justice in recent years is the emergence of victim impact statements as part of the court process. Victims have deep and strong needs and desires to tell their story, and what they have to say is crucial to a good criminal justice system. Myers discusses the importance of the victim narrative to prosecution, the modern history of victims’ role in criminal justice, and court rulings on victim impact statements. . In defense of victim impact statements. My argument proceeds in four substantive parts. It begins in Part I by briefly tracing the crime victims' rights movement in this country, which, in recent years, has successfully argued for the right of victims to deliver an impact statement at sentencing. Part II then provides a real world example of a victim impact statement-a statement by Sue Antrobus regarding the criminal sale of the handgun used to murder her daughter. Looking at Sue Antrobus's statement will allow the reader to assess the desirability of victim statements with the knowledge of what such a statement actually looks like. Part III then lays out the four main justifications for victim impact statements. First, they provide information to the sentencing judge or jury about the true harm of the crime-information that the sentencer can use to craft an appropriate penalty. Second, they may have therapeutic aspects, helping crime victims recover from crimes committed against them. Third, they help to educate the defendant about the full consequences of his crime, perhaps leading to greater acceptance of responsibility and rehabilitation. And finally, they create a perception of fairness at sentencing, by ensuring that all relevant parties-the State, the defendant, and the victim-are heard. Part IV rebuts the objections that critics have raised to victim impact statements. The claim that victim impact statements do not relate to the purposes of punishment is refuted by the fact that they provide information about the severity of crimes, a salient consideration for judges at sentencing. The claim that the statements are so emotional that they will overwhelm sentencers is disproven by empirical evidence showing little effect from victim statements on sentence severity. The claim that victim impact statements lead to unfair inequality is invalid in view of the need to create fairness within criminal cases by allowing a victim response to allocution from criminal defendants and their families. And finally, the claim that a competition of victimhood arises in mass killing cases, even if true, provides no basis for abolishing the victim impact statements entirely. (excerpt) . Addressing Victim's Harm: the Role of Impact Reports. This Article focuses on the sentencing phase in child sexual abuse cases, and, in particular, evaluates the practice of receiving information in the form of a victim impact statement. It then highlights South African courts’ recent reactions to victim impact statements. This Article concludes that a court open to therapeutic jurisprudence principles, such as embracing an ethic of care, can play a vital role in addressing victims’ harm. (excerpt) . In defense of victim impact statements. My argument proceeds in four substantive parts. It begins in Part I by briefly tracing the crime victims' rights movement in this country, which, in recent years, has successfully argued for the right of victims to deliver an impact statement at sentencing. Part II then provides a real world example of a victim impact statement-a statement by Sue Antrobus regarding the criminal sale of the handgun used to murder her daughter. Looking at Sue Antrobus's statement will allow the reader to assess the desirability of victim statements with the knowledge of what such a statement actually looks like. Part III then lays out the four main justifications for victim impact statements. First, they provide information to the sentencing judge or jury about the true harm of the crime-information that the sentencer can use to craft an appropriate penalty. Second, they may have therapeutic aspects, helping crime victims recover from crimes committed against them. Third, they help to educate the defendant about the full consequences of his crime, perhaps leading to greater acceptance of responsibility and rehabilitation. And finally, they create a perception of fairness at sentencing, by ensuring that all relevant parties-the State, the defendant, and the victim-are heard. Part IV rebuts the objections that critics have raised to victim impact statements. The claim that victim impact statements do not relate to the purposes of punishment is refuted by the fact that they provide information about the severity of crimes, a salient consideration for judges at sentencing. The claim that the statements are so emotional that they will overwhelm sentencers is disproven by empirical evidence showing little effect from victim statements on sentence severity. The claim that victim impact statements lead to unfair inequality is invalid in view of the need to create fairness within criminal cases by allowing a victim response to allocution from criminal defendants and their families. And finally, the claim that a competition of victimhood arises in mass killing cases, even if true, provides no basis for abolishing the victim impact statements entirely. (excerpt) Edgar, Allen and Roberts, Julian V. Victim Impact Statements at Sentencing: Perceptions of the Judiciary in Canada The use of victim impact statements (VIS) at sentencing continues to generate controversy, even in countries such as Canada, where VIS have been in use for many years. While a great deal of research has addressed the use of these statements at sentencing, very little is known about the experience and perceptions of the professional for whom these statements are written: the judge. In this article, we report the findings from a survey of judges in Canada regarding their use of victim impact statements. Some critics of VIS have argued that these statements add nothing to the sentencing process, and simply raise false expectations among victims. The findings from this survey demonstrate that judges find victim impact statements to be a useful source of information at sentencing. Many judges reported that the VIS provided information that was unavailable from any other source. That said, many issues remain to be addressed with respect to victim impact statements in Canada. These findings will be of particular interest to jurisdictions contemplating the introduction of victim impact statements at the sentencing stage of the criminal process. (authors abstract) Williams, Christopher and Arrigo, Bruce A. Victim Vices, Victim Voices, and Impact Statements: On the Place of Emotion and the Role of Restorative Justice in Capital Sentencing Victim impact statements are thought of as offering a voice to victims of crime who have been unwilling participants in the process of criminal justice. However, the efficacy and legitimacy of these statements during the penalty phase of capital cases has been questioned. Some argue that the emotional quality of VIS undermines the offender’s chance for a fair and impartial sentence. It has also been argued that such emotionally laden statements undermine a meaningful and restorative justice experience for victims. In order to examine the efficacy and legitimacy of including VIS during the sentencing phase of capital cases, the authors outline the principles of critical restorative justice and explore the legal and empirical limits of VIS. Society’s urge to punish offenders is contrasted to the compassion and forgiveness that are important dimensions of the sentencing process. The authors offer several policy considerations that are consistent with critical restorative justice and that address the need to give voice to victim experiences. Abstract courtesy of National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org. Long, Katie. Community Input at Sentencing: Victim's Right or Victim's Revenge? Citing examples of community response to decisions in the criminal justice system, Katie Long asserts that communities are seeking greater influence over the process of criminal justice. One emerging focal point of community activism is criminal sentencing. Across the United States, citizens are pursuing grassroots efforts to affect sentencing policies and practices. Long explores all of this by looking at the expansion of community input in criminal sentencing. In particular she examines community-impact statements at the time of sentencing and the implications of such statements. This involves consideration of the practical and constitutional problems with occasionally allowing or institutionalizing community participation at sentencing. Long’s perspective is that the widespread use of community-impact statements would produce an unacceptable skewing of the criminal justice process in favor of victims. Document Actions RSS feed Send this Print this	Africa Asia Europe Latin America Middle East North America and Caribbean Pacific Search 9932 publications on restorative justice Recent RJOB Comments Oakland as a RJ city? Jul 29, 2010 Trauma Jul 29, 2010 Psych Reports to BPT board Jul 29, 2010 More… Slide Show: What is Restorative Justice Click to view a slideshow discussing the definition of restorative justice. 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