JAMES REILLY, DIRECTOR OF THE VICTIM/WITNESS ASSISTANCE PROJECT OF THE NATIONAL DISTRICT ATTORNEYS’ ASSOCIATION (1981, P. 8)
Crimes that terrorize take many forms, from aggravated assault to petty thievery. But one crime goes largely unno- ticed. It is a crime against which there is no protection. It is committed daily across our nation. It is the painful, wrongful insensitivity of the criminal justice system toward those who are the victims of crime.… The callousness with which the system again victimizes those who have already suffered at the hands of an assailant is tragic.
SENATOR JOHN HEINZ, SPONSOR OF THE OMNIBUS VICTIMS PROTECTION ACT PASSED BY CONGRESS (1982, P. A19)
Without the cooperation of victims and witnesses in reporting and testifying about crime, it is impossible in a free society to hold criminals accountable. When victims come forward to provide this vital service, however, they find little protection. They discover instead that they will be treated as appendages of a system appallingly out of balance. They learn that somewhere along the way the system has lost track of the simple truth that it is supposed to be fair and to protect those who obey the law while punishing those who break it. Somewhere along the way, the system began to serve lawyers and judges and defen- dants, treating the victim with institutionalized disinterest.… The neglect of crime victims is a national disgrace.
LOIS HERRINGTON, CHAIR OF THE PRESIDENT’S TASK FORCE ON VICTIMS OF CRIME (1982, PP. VI–VII)
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a convict also serves as a warning to would-be offenders contemplating the same act, according to the doctrine of general deterrence. (Whether convicts actually learn lessons and whether would- be offenders really think twice and decide not to carry out a crime are subjects of heated debate among criminologists.) Punishment in the form of imprisonment has been promoted as a method of enhancing public safety by incapacitating dangerous predators so that they can no longer roam the streets preying upon innocents. Another rationale for pun- ishment by the government is that it satisfies the thirst for revenge of angry victims and their suppor- ters, who otherwise may harbor an urge to engage in vigilantism and get even on their own. Finally, imposing severely negative sanctions also has been justified on the grounds of “just deserts” as a mor- ally sound practice, regardless of any value it has in deterring or incapacitating criminals. According to this theory of punishment as retribution, it is fair to make offenders suffer in proportion to the misery they inflicted on others. Since biblical times, people have believed in the formula of retaliation in kind: lex talionis, or “an eye for an eye.” According to this point of view, retribution rights a wrong, evens the score, and restores balance to the moral order, as
long as the severity of the punitive sanction is in proportion to the gravity of the offense. Punish- ment in behalf of the victim by criminal justice professionals is touted as the equitable and practical solution to the thirst for payback. In other words, the legal system serves as the official avenger for injured parties by imposing adequate and propor- tional retribution so that wrongdoers get their just deserts.
Despite the current popularity of punishment as the antidote to victimization and the cure for crime, the punitive approach remains controversial. Utilitarian opponents have documented how impractical, expensive, ineffective, and even coun- terproductive high rates of mass imprisonment can be. Civil libertarians have condemned such harsh punishments as a tool of domination and oppression used by tyrants and totalitarian regimes to terrorize their subjects into submission (see for example Menninger, 1968; Wright, 1973; Prison Research, 1976; Pepinsky, 1991; Elias, 1993; Mauer, 1999; Dubber, 2002; and Alexander, 2012).
The quest for vengeance has shaped history. Incorporated into the customs and consciousness of entire groups, classes, and nations, it is expressed in simmering hatreds, longstanding feuds, ongoing
For too long, the rights and needs of crime victims and wit- nesses have been overlooked in the criminal justice system.… we have begun to address this problem [through federal leg- islation passed in 1994 and 1996]. But those important mea- sures are not enough.
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON (1996, P. 1)
[According to a recent survey] victims often feel that they are treated as a piece of evidence, helpful only when they help prove the prosecution’s case and when they help a police officer find the bad guy. But they often feel disre- spected and ignored and that their interests and concerns are irrelevant.