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When a person is the victim of a crime, he or she suffers a number of losses, most of which cannot be quantified. For many victims, having financial losses (such as destroyed property and lost income) repaid through restitution represents a means of repairing one aspect of the damage wrought by the crime. In addition to reimbursing victims for their financial losses, restitution demonstrates that the person who committed the crime is assuming responsibility for his or her actions.
hide full overview
When a person is the victim of a crime, he or she suffers a number of losses, most of which cannot be quantified. For many victims, having financial losses (such as destroyed property and lost income) repaid through restitution represents a means of repairing one aspect of the damage wrought by the crime. In addition to reimbursing victims for their financial losses, restitution demonstrates that the person who committed the crime is assuming responsibility for his or her actions.
Over the past 20 years, legislatures have increasingly recognized the right of victims to financial restitution. Legislatures in every state have mandated through laws or state constitutional amendments that courts order people convicted of crimes to pay monetary restitution to victims in all cases where a loss can be documented.1 They have also created victim compensation funds to ensure that victims of crime receive assistance with the costs associated with their losses, such as medical care and
counseling.2
Despite the value and emphasis lawmakers have placed on restitution, it is not always ordered or enforced.3 This happens for multiple reasons: the victim may not know his or her rights; law enforcement personnel may not collect information about a victim’s financial losses; the prosecutor may not seek restitution; the judge may not order restitution; or the agency responsible for collections may not pursue restitution. The recommendations that follow detail a number of methods for ensuring that victims receive the compensation to which they are entitled. This includes educating criminal justice staff, victims, and people who owe restitution about the process of restitution and its importance, pursuing civil remedies for outstanding payments, and garnishing taxes and wages.
1 Office for Victims of Crime, New Directions from the Field.
2 National Association of Crime Victim Compensation Boards, “Crime Victim Compensation: An Overview,” retrieved at www.nacvcb.org/articles/Overview
_prn.html, October 20, 2006.
3 U.S. Sentencing Commission, Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Sentencing Commission, 2004). Cynthia Kempinen, “A Multi-Method Evaluation of Economic Sanctions in Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing: Research Bulletin 5, no. 1 (2006).
