ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 presents our first research findings. It analyses the sentencing remarks in 100 sexual offence cases from 4 Australian jurisdictions, supplemented by key findings from interviews with victims and professionals who work with victims. It examines the benefits of judicial acknowledgement of victims, to both the victims themselves and others. The chapter then critically evaluates judicial sentencing practice in relation to the use of, and reference to, victims and their impact statements. Our findings indicate that the judge referred to the harm to the victim in 95 of the 100 cases examined. We identify examples of minimal reference to victim harm, victim satisfaction, and appropriate acknowledgement, unsatisfactory victim acknowledgement, and cases with no impact statement. We also consider instances of judicial reference to impact statements’ instrumental and expressive purposes. We highlight the importance of educating judges on the therapeutic outcomes of acknowledging victims at sentencing. To this end, we recommend the introduction of a victim-focused benchbook and pre-sentence hearings, which would assist judges in developing an understanding of how best to acknowledge victims, while still balancing the other requirements of sentencing. We end the chapter with a vignette about Jessica, one of the victims we interviewed.
