Purposing and Repurposing Harms

Abstract

The purpose of the victim impact statement (VIS) is to inform judges of victims' crime-related physical, psychological, and financial harms. Findings from interviews with Canadian sexual assault victims, advocates, victim services workers, and prosecutors (N = 37) demonstrated that harm descriptions were manipulated by victims and others in keeping with, and contrary to, VIS design. Victims and prosecutors purposed the VIS to inform court outcomes through harms claims and struggles over those claims. The repurposing of harms claims occurred through practices of strategic disclosure, intended to effect changes in others' behaviors, and harm peddling, the circulation of the VIS in nonsentencing arenas. Victims, adversaries, and criminal justice professionals engaged in harm peddling to obtain compensation, child custody, and parole delay. Implications of purposing and repurposing harms claims include novel opportunities and legal pitfalls for victims, varied responses by judges, and an expansion of social control over victims and offenders.

“The women, they maltreat them… therefore, we cannot assure that the future society will be good”: Male perspectives on gender-based violence: A focus group study with young men in Haiti

“…Our results echo the need for further political and legal changes to prevent VAW (Antai, 2011; Miller, 2013). The importance of educating and empowering women was supported by the men in our study, consistent with other studies (Taghdisi et al, 2014; Abramsky et al, 2014).…”

Framing Sympathy-Worthiness: Informal Support and the Use of Disclosure Myths

“…For others, when no signs of impact were available, past behavior and demeanor were reinterpreted as symptoms of trauma. Such findings expand our understanding of how victims' disclosures and statements are taken up and mobilized by others to various ends (Miller, 2013). While disclosure myths could lead to positive outcomes like offering sympathy, they could also encourage paternalism and heightened surveillance of victims.…”

Prosecuting and Propagating Emotional Harm: The Criminalisation of HIV Nondisclosure in Canada

“…Indeed, the legal arena limits victims' emotional expression in relation to the harms they have experienced (Bandes 2016;Miller 2013), and victim impact statements have been shown to "offend human dignity-the victim's as well as the defendant's" (Bandes 1996, 366). The harm claims of victims that are allowed in court are often manipulated by legal actors for strategic purposes (Miller 2013), and a victim's emotions and beliefs about forgiveness and justice often change throughout the legal process, especially if they are pressured to support punitive sentences or the death penalty (Bandes 1996;2016). Victims experience what McGlynn and Westmarland (2019, 186) term kaleidoscopic justice: "justice is complex, nuanced and a difficult to (pre)determine feeling.…”