‘It’s a dead place’: A qualitative exploration of violence survivors’ perceptions of justice architecture

Each year, thousands of victims of violence enter the Canadian criminal justice system and, by extension, justice buildings, such as police stations and courthouses. The architecture and design of these buildings communicate symbolic messages about justice and may influence the emotions, behaviors, and well-being of survivors. This qualitative study explored survivors’ emotional experiences with justice architecture. Findings reveal that survivors experience justice architecture as cold and hard; a facilitator of feelings of insignificance; lacking in privacy and; representative of their raw emotional state. The author discusses implications of these findings for victim engagement in the context of justice spaces.     

Victim age and capital sentencing outcomes in North Carolina (1977–2009)

Age is prominent among theories of criminology and victimology. It is less conspicuous in punishment theory, despite its emphasis in retributive theory and lawmaking. The present study evaluated competing ‘years of life lost’ and ‘vulnerable victim’ hypotheses to examine the influence of victim age in capital sentencing decisions. Using case file data on the population of capital murder trials in the State of North Carolina (1977–2009), our findings produce mixed results. Our quantitative analyses suggest that death sentences are significantly less likely in direct proportion to victim age. Killers of elderly victims are less likely to receive the death penalty; conversely, the odds of a death sentences are slightly greater for killers of child victims. Supplementary qualitative analyses suggest that while many child and elderly victims were not per se ‘vulnerable,’ a substantial subset of each clearly were treated as such. We discuss implications for vulnerable victim research and the role of quasi-legal factors in case outcomes.     

刑事被害人国家补偿制度

刑事被害人国家补偿制度是国家对因遭受犯罪行为侵害而受到严重损失但没有得到充分补偿的被害人及其亲属,通过法律程序给予一定物质补偿的制度。其理论基础在于公平正义理念的彰显、国家基于契约义务所产生的责任的实现和恢复性司法的要求。为化解被害人因获赔不足而引发的一系列社会矛盾,我国应当建立刑事被害人国家补偿制度。     

The Role of Victim-Related Factors in Victim Restitution: A Multi-Method Analysis of Restitution in Pennsylvania

Mandatory statutes do not always produce change, but a 1995 Pennsylvania statutory change making restitution mandatory dramatically increased the proportion of cases in which restitution was imposed. There are three possible reasons for this generally successful implementation: (a) judges agreed with the victim-centered goals of the statute, (b) there were mechanisms in place to implement the goals of assisting victims, and (c) there was a context supportive of victims that made it easier to follow the law. Two studies investigated these possible explanations. First, a statewide survey of trial court judges suggested that they agreed with the statute's goals of compensating victims. Second, hierarchical logistic models of 55,119 statewide restitution-eligible decisions indicated that a victim-related contextual factor, the nature and location of the victim/witness assistance office, was significantly related to the imposition of restitution, although a more general contextual factor relating to funding for victim programs had only small effects.     

刑事附带民事诉讼中被害人权利保护的完善

我国《刑事诉讼法》及其相关司法解释对刑事附带民事诉讼中被害人权利保护的规定过于笼统,存在较多缺陷。应从解决被害人权利保护的从属性、片面性,以及制度的不完善性三个方面着手,重构被害人权利保护机制;特殊情形下民事程序可以优先于刑事程序,确立被害人损害赔偿的全面性原则,建立国家补偿制度。     

Property Crime Victims' Decision to Notify the Police: Social,Cognitive, and Affective Determinants

Previous research suggests that 3 general processes underlie the decision of property crime victims to notify the police: One that is cognitively driven by reward/cost considerations, one that is affectively driven, and another that is socially driven. This study is the first to employ a community sample of crime victims to compare the 3 processes within a single study. Computer-assisted interviews were conducted with 422 property crime victims (n = 129 burglary, n = 293 theft) located via a random digit dialing procedure. Logistic regression analyses showed that each process independently accounted for a significant amount of the variance in victim reporting, and that there were no interactions among the three processes in predicting reporting. Of the 3 processes, social influence was the best predictor of reporting. Analysis of the affect-driven process showed that reporting was primarily a function of the level of fear rather than anger or the level of generalized arousal upon discovering the crime.     

The Question of Evil and Feminist Legal Scholarship

In this article, we argue that feminist legal scholars should engage directly and explicitly with the question of evil. Part I summarises key facts surrounding the prosecution and life-long imprisonment of Myra Hindley, one of a tiny number of women involved in multiple killings of children in recent British history. Part II reviews a range of commentaries on Hindley, noting in particular the repeated use of two narratives: the first of these insists that Hindley is an icon of female evil; the second, less popular one, seeks to position her as a victim. In Part III, the article broadens out and we explain why we think feminist legal scholars should look at the question of evil. In large part, the emphasis is on anticipating the range of possible objections to this argument, and on trying to answer these objections by showing how a focus on evil might benefit feminist legal thinking – specifically in relation to the categories of perpetrator and victim and, more generally, in relation to laws motivated by a desire to secure women’s human rights.     

Punishment Goals of Crime Victims

Research on subjective punishment goals has focused on the perspective of third-party observers of criminal offenses and neglected the perspective of victims. This study investigates punishment goals among 174 adult crime victims (rape and nonsexual assault) for each participant's real criminal case. Scales measuring support for punishment goals are constructed by factor analysis of an 18-item list. Results show that 5 highly supported goals can be distinguished: retaliation, recognition of victim status, confirmation of societal values, victim security, and societal security. Analysis of relations between punishment goal scales and personal variables, situational variables, and demanded punishment severity corroborates the view that the punishment goals revealed can be classified according to the two independent dichotomies of moral versus instrumental goals, and micro versus macro goals.     

When Flood Victims Became State Victims: Tokwe-Mukosi,Zimbabwe

The purpose of this article is to show how victims of the Tokwe-Mukosi floods became state victims instead of being protected and assisted by the state. The research used the qualitative research design and analyzed its material collected from primary and secondary sources and presented in themes. The study benefited from the human rights and victimhood concepts in its theoretical framework. It argues that the rights of the flood victims were violated when the government failed to fulfill its obligation and promises, which included urgently allocating plots and providing financial compensation. Accordingly, the victims were left without a permanent destination, clean water, food, or access to education and health facilities. When the affected people sought redress, the state deployed outright violence, using the police and the military to force the flood victims into compliance. The victims were forced to accept the inadequate one-hectare plots without receiving the monetary compensation the government had promised. Instead of contributing toward ending the challenges faced by the flood victims, some government officials worsened their plight. They engaged in corruption during the allocation of plots and the distribution of relief aid donated by nongovernmental organizations—hence my assertion that the Tokwe-Mukosi flood victims became state victims.     

‘I don‘t know what you people are so concerned about’: homicide survivors’ experience with the Canadian criminal justice system

Victims of crime are often confused and frustrated by the criminal justice process. Those who have lost loved ones to homicide – often called ‘homicide survivors,’ ‘secondary victims,’ or ‘co-victims’ – suffer not only loss and a justice system that seems to have little place for them, but are often also left unaware of the circumstances of their loved one’s death. The current study sought to further our understanding of the experience of homicide survivors in the Canadian justice system. Toward this end, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with five individuals who lost loved ones to homicide. Results showed that receiving information and being treated kindly were far more important than having an influence over the proceedings; additionally, there was a great deal of distrust of the justice system as a whole, regardless of the kindness shown by individual actors in the system. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.