2. Victims in the criminal justice system: Between anecdotes and a hard place Antony Pemberton and Inge Vanfraechem

3. I know nothing

4. Outline Victims rights in criminal justice systems across Europe: variety and limited portability Victims involvement in criminal justice: witness, compensation and participation The evidence base for the effects of victim involvement in criminal justice

5. Victims are different In their experience And its impact - Co-victims of homicide and victims of property crimes In their background In their psychological characteristics In their relationship with the offender And in many other ways

6. Victims are different In their set-up - Compensation and/ or participation - Judicial review - Private prosecutor - Auxiliary prosecutor - Victim impact statement - Adhesion procedure - Compensation order In their implementation - Rights matter when they can be accessed in practice In their political, judicial and organizational priority

7. Criminal justice systems are different Adverserial versus inquisitorial Organisation - Role of different criminal justice actors Penal culture - Permissive, welfare oriented - Punitive

8. European Union Member States are different Variety in relevant cultural features - Gender equality - Punishment attitudes Variety in relevant organizational and administrative features - Administrative capacity - Influence of EU legislation

9. Victims rights in justice processes: and their rational Witness: - Preventing secondary victimisation Compensation - Preventing secondary victimisation - Contributing to material outcomes - Contributing to well-being Participation - Preventing secondary victimisation - Contributing to preferred outcomes of process - Contributing to well-being

10. Secondary victimisation? Which outcome? - Dissatisfaction, experience of disrespect, re-traumatisation? - Often confused: although they are very different and often do not co-occur Largely based upon studies in the experience of victims of sexual and domestic violence in the United States and the United Kingdom - The ‘Second Rape’ - Particular forms of questioning in adverserial systems Lack of knowledge about the effects of different participa- tory modes and actors, beyond the negative effects of intrusive questioning

11. Compensation? Which outcome? - Satisfaction? But what does that mean? - Material benefit? But is that its only focus? - (Emotional) well-being? But what - Often confused: although they are very different and often do not co-occur

12. Compensation? Almost complete lack of research into the effects of compensation (Mulder, 2013) To what extent is achieving compensation through different participation successful? When it is successful what benefits? - Symbolic value of compensation When it is not successful, does it lead to secondary victimisation? - The taboo trade-off

13. Participation? Which outcome? - Impact on outcome? - Satisfaction? - (Emotional) well-being - Often confused: although they are very different

14. Participation? Review of research into satisfaction (Laxminarayan and colleagues, 2014): 13 eligible studies worldwide Solely Anglo-Saxon and Dutch studies Impossible to connect to particular participatory modes - With the possible exception of research into Victim Impact Statements (Roberts, 2009, Lens, 2014) Impossible to connect satisfaction and emotional well-being (Kunst et al, 2014)

15. So It is still unclear what the impact of victims rights in criminal justice should be We only have a very small evidence base for certain groups of victims in certain countries We do not know how ‘portable’ this evidence base is to other contexts

16. The limits of victims rights in criminal justice Victims rights instruments accompanied by high aspirations No evidence for these aspirations, while high aspirations may lead to deep disappointments Working on the evidence base can help us move from unrealistic aspirations to realistic hopes

17. We know nothing?

18. More optimistic

19. We know what we do not know And we know what we need to know to advance understanding in the position of victims in criminal justice systems