Since the 1970s, a movement has grown around the idea of “Victims’ Rights,” displacing the more traditional concept of “Law and Order” being the basis of criminal law and prosecution. According to this new theory, crimes are committed not so much against a community, but instead just against individuals — and because of this, those individuals need to have a new say in how accused criminals are prosecuted and/or how convicted criminals are sentenced.
A primary basis of this movement is an article of faith, namely that Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s have led to the “coddling” of criminals and excessive leniency in our justice system. Although people agree with the fact that innocent people should be protected by their constitutional rights, they are puzzled by the idea that the guilty should also be protected, and seem to assume that the category of “the guilty” is self-evident, making it easy to decide who does and does not deserve the full protection of the Constitution.
A fundamental error, however, is visible immediately in the name of the movement: Victims’ Rights. The victims of a crime should of course be treated fairly and with sympathy, especially by a justice system which can too often be rather impersonal and imperial. Nevertheless, victims of crimes have no particular rights which others in society don’t already have. They most certainly have no rights over whomever is accused of a crime. It is, instead, the accused who has particular rights by virtue of being put on trial by the powerful state.
Part of the problem here is that Americans show more respect for constitutional rights in theory than they do in practice. For example, Americans are very proud of the fact that everyone has the right to free speech, but surveys shows that less than half think that the majority should not be allowed to ban unpopular opinions. Only a small minority — 18 percent — think that an atheist should be permitted to publicly speak against religion in a civic auditorium.
Another part of the problem is the increasing public support for the principle of revenge. It is ironic that the self-destructive power of revenge has been explored in some of the greatest works of Western literature — think about the Iliad, Hamlet and Moby Dick, for example — but the importance of personal vengeance has become a centerpiece of the Victims’ Rights movement.
One of its principle “gains” has been the inclusion of statements by victims during the sentencing stage of a trial, after someone has been convicted. The idea is that those deciding how a person should be punished would be better off learning first-hand how the criminal’s actions have harmed others, thus leading to a more appropriate punishment.
It is strange that people would come to this conclusion — victims don’t write criminal laws nor do they decide courtroom procedures, so why should they influence the decision of punishment? The way in which such statements lead to unfairness is also grossly obvious.
People are still prosecuted in the name of the state, not in the name of victims. It is the state which assigns a prosecutor and which decides the nature of the charges to be brought. Moreover, the state is supposed to prosecute all crimes equally — a person who robs or kills a rich or famous person must be treated the same as someone who robs or kills a poor, unknown homeless man.
But victims’ statements violate this fundamental principle of impartiality. There is no point to such statements unless they serve to increase punishment — but that means that if the person killed is unknown or unloved, then their murderer will be punished less, and there is no fairness whatsoever in that.
