No More Rights Without Remedies: An Impact Evaluation of the National Crime Victim Law Institute's Victims' Rights Clinics

Robert C. Davis ; James M. Anderson ; Susan Howley ; Carol Dorris ; Julie Whitman

RAND Corporation

RAND Corporation

关键词: Victims of Crime;    Criminal Justice;    Public Safety Legislation;    Courts;   

ISBN  :  9780833078667
RP-ID  :  TR-1179-NIJ

学科分类：自然科学（综合）

美国|英语

来源: RAND Corporation Published Research

【 摘 要 】

The National Crime Victim Law Institute (NCVLI) victims' rights clinics are an effort to remedy what many perceived as a serious deficit in victims' rights legislation. Although all states have laws protecting victims' rights and many have constitutional amendments establishing rights for victims, the rights of many victims still are not observed. In large measure, this may be because there are no remedies enforceable when victims are denied their rights. The NCVLI clinics were intended to promote awareness, education, and enforcement of crime victims' rights in the criminal justice system. The victims' rights clinics sought to protect and enforce rights for victims in the court process through filing motions in criminal cases in which victims' rights were denied and by seeking appellate decisions that interpreted and reinforced victims' rights statutes. By providing direct representation to individual victims in criminal court, NCVLI hoped not only to increase the observance of rights in those particular cases but also to increase awareness of victims' rights by prosecutors, judges, and police officers in general.