Victim personal statements in England and Wales: Latest (and last) trends from the Witness and Victim Experience Survey
| Author | Julian V Roberts,Marie Manikis |
| Published date | 01 July 2013 |
| Date | 01 July 2013 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1748895812452281 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Criminology & Criminal Justice
13(3) 245 –261
© The Author(s) 2012
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1748895812452281
crj.sagepub.com
Victim personal statements
in England and Wales:
Latest (and last) trends
from the Witness and
Victim Experience Survey
Julian V Roberts and Marie Manikis
University of Oxford, UK
Abstract
Crime victims and victims’ advocates have for many years called for greater input into the criminal
process, and in particular at the stage of sentencing. Today, victims in almost all common law
countries have the opportunity to participate in the sentencing process, usually by providing
information about the impact of the crime. This impact evidence is placed before a sentencing
court in the form of a victim impact statement (VIS) or victim personal statement (VPS) as it is
known in England and Wales. This article reviews findings from the last few years of data from the
Witness and Victim Experience Survey (WAVES) which was conducted by the Ministry of Justice.
We review findings from the last administrations of the survey. In the most recent administration of
the survey (2009–2010), less than half (43%) of victims recalled being offered a statement. Over the
most recent three-year period (2007–2010), a comparable percentage (42%) of the victims recalled
being offered the opportunity to make a VPS; almost half (45%) explicitly responded that they had
not been given an opportunity to make a VPS. In addition, significant variation emerged across local
justice areas. The percentage of victims reporting having been offered a VPS varied from a low of
29 per cent in London to a high of 63 per cent in Northumbria – a range of 34 per cent. These and
other findings suggest that the VPS scheme is being inconsistently implemented across the country.
Keywords
Victim input, victim personal statement, victims, Witnesses and Victims Experience Survey
Crime victims and victims’ advocates have for many years called for greater input into
the criminal process, and in particular at the stage of sentencing. Today, victims in almost
all common law countries have the opportunity to participate in the sentencing process,
Corresponding author:
Julian V Roberts, Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford, Manor Road Building, Manor Road, OX1 3UQ, UK.
Email: Julian.roberts@crim.ox.ac.uk
452281CRJ13310.1177/1748895812452281Criminology & Criminal JusticeRoberts and Manikis
2012
Article
246 Criminology & Criminal Justice 13(3)
usually by providing information about the impact of the crime. This impact evidence is
placed before a sentencing court in the form of a victim impact statement (VIS) or victim
personal statement (VPS) as it is known in England and Wales.
The first victim impact statement was deposed in a criminal proceeding in California in
1976 and all US states now accord victims the right to be heard at sentencing. Other com-
mon law jurisdictions soon followed the US example: victim impact statements at sentenc-
ing were implemented in New Zealand in 1987 (Church et al., 1995) and in Canada in 1988
(Roberts, 2003). After a trial period, victim personal statements were introduced nationally
in England and Wales in 2001. It is surprising, to say the least, that a decade after the intro-
duction of victim personal statements in England and Wales no systematic evaluation of the
scheme has been conducted. The only research1 explored the early implementation of the
scheme in a limited number of pilot areas (see Hoyle et al., 1998). (For further academic
writings on the role of the victim at sentencing and in particular the victim impact state-
ment, see Booth and Carrington, 2007; Edwards, 2009; Roberts and Erez, 2010.)
Recent Developments
This is an opportune time to explore the latest data relevant to the VPS scheme. The
Government’s 2011 Green Paper, Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation,
and Sentencing of Offenders (Ministry of Justice, 2011a, 2011b) identified the need to
improve the VPS scheme – a move endorsed by a number of agencies in their responses. For
example, the victims’ agency Victim Support called for the greater use of VPS and sug-
gested a number of reforms to the way that VPS are collected and used within the criminal
justice system (see Victim Support, 2011). The Victims’ Commissioner for England and
Wales also responded to the Green Paper and stressed the importance of VPS (Commissioner
for Victims and Witnesses, 2010). Further, the Judiciary of England and Wales has expressed
a desire to look again at the use of victim personal statements (Judiciary of England and
Wales, 2011: 4). Finally, the Magistrates’ Association which represents approximately three-
quarters of the 27,000 Magistrates in England and Wales has also noted the need for more
victim personal statements at sentencing (Magistrates’ Association, 2012).
In January 2012, the Government announced a further consultation to ensure that the
opportunity to make a victim personal statement is ‘routinely offered to victims’ and to
increase the uptake of the VPS (Ministry of Justice, 2012a: 40). As yet, it is unclear how the
Government proposes to achieve this objective, although clarification will presumably fol-
low in the Government’s response to the consultation. The Government proposes to restruc-
ture the Victim’s Code and one of the guiding principles will be that ‘victims who want to
complete a VPS are to have the opportunity to do so and can expect it to be considered by
the court’ (Ministry of Justice, 2012a: 40). Other jurisdictions in the United Kingdom are
also taking steps to re-examine the issue: for example, the Northern Ireland Department of
Justice has just completed a consultation with a view to improving the provision of victim
statements in that jurisdiction (Northern Ireland Department of Justice, 2011).2
Overview of Ar ticle
A decade ago Walklate (2002: 150) observed with respect to the VPS that ‘it remains to
be seen how effective the scheme proves to be’. This statement remains true today. This
To continue reading
Request your trial