Victim Participation in the Criminal Process.

Source: (2005) Journal of Law and Policy. 13: 229-247.

In general, victims have been largely ignored in the legal academy, despite their inescapable presence for crime and consequent legal proceedings. Only recently, notes Erin Ann O’Hara, has criminal law scholarship begun to cast its attention on victims of crime. Still, in the legal academy there is significant skepticism toward and downright opposition to arguments and initiatives in favor of direct or even indirect participation of victims in criminal and legal proceedings. Against these perspectives, O’Hara contends that victim involvement, as a positive matter, is becoming and will to continue to become a reality of the criminal justice process.