Victim's Rights and the Constitution: Reflections on a Bicentennial

Abstract

This article examines the unfolding, activities, and successes of the victim's rights movement within the American constitutional framework of the Bill of Rights. It analyzes the general importance of “victims” as an effective political symbol and probes the connection between the victim movement and the powerful conservative forces that have dominated American life and the shaping of the criminal justice agenda during the 1980s.

It focuses in particular on the cooptation of the victim's movement by the proponents of the “crime control” model of criminal justice. It contrasts the liberal and conservative approaches. solutions, and agendas and the clashes between the rights of the accused and those of the victim. It also looks for points of convergence and working agreement. Restitution is utilized as an example of an idea and plan that could bring disparate interests together. The article dedicates considerable space to a consideration of a possible constitutional foundation for victim's rights and concludes by pointing out the inherent dangers and destructive divisiveness that can be generated by an exclusive or excessive or excessive emphasis on “rights.”