Violent crime and victim compensation: implications for social justice

Abstract

Restorative justice offers several innovative methods designed to heal the injury that the offender may have caused to the victim. One of these innovative methods is victim compensation, a form of income redistribution designed to redistribute wealth from offenders to victims of crime. Restitution, particularly through the Victim of Crime Act (VOCA), is a needs-based form of justice designed to assist the most needy victims of violent crime. Recent studies suggest that while state-level compensation programs may target poor, young, African American men, compensation at the national level tends to be received more by older, White women who experienced domestic violence. The author suggests that this disparity between state and local resource distribution in the allocation of victim compensation is a reflection of the ideological differences between the established theoretical frameworks of liberalism and radical feminism.