Discuss the history of victims’ rights and the related attempts to encourage vi

Thanks to a grassroots resurgence of concern for the plight of victims that began in this country in the early 1970s, the sentencing process now frequently includes consideration of the needs of victims and their survivors. 62 In times past, although victims might testify at trial, the criminal justice system frequently downplayed a victim’s experience, including the psychological trauma engendered both by having been a victim and by having to endure the criminal proceedings that bring the criminal to justice. That changed in 1982, when the President’s Task Force on Victims of Crime gave focus to a burgeoning victims’ rights movement and urged the widespread expansion of victims’ assistance programs during what was then their formative period. In 2004, the U.S. Senate passed the Crime Victims’ Rights Act 73 as part of the Justice for All Act. Some saw the legislation as at least a partial statutory alternative to a constitutional victims’ rights amendment. The Crime Victims’ Rights Act establishes
statutory rights for victims of federal crimes and gives them the necessary legal authority to assert those rights in federal court. The act grants the 8 specific rights to victims of federal crimes.