Victim personal statements in England and Wales: Latest (and last) trends from the Witness and Victim Experience Survey

Abstract

Crime victims and victims’ advocates have for many years called for greater input into the criminal process, and in particular at the stage of sentencing. Today, victims in almost all common law countries have the opportunity to participate in the sentencing process, usually by providing information about the impact of the crime. This impact evidence is placed before a sentencing court in the form of a victim impact statement (VIS) or victim personal statement (VPS) as it is known in England and Wales. This article reviews findings from the last few years of data from the Witness and Victim Experience Survey (WAVES) which was conducted by the Ministry of Justice. We review findings from the last administrations of the survey. In the most recent administration of the survey (2009–2010), less than half (43%) of victims recalled being offered a statement. Over the most recent three-year period (2007–2010), a comparable percentage (42%) of the victims recalled being offered the opportunity to make a VPS; almost half (45%) explicitly responded that they had not been given an opportunity to make a VPS. In addition, significant variation emerged across local justice areas. The percentage of victims reporting having been offered a VPS varied from a low of 29 per cent in London to a high of 63 per cent in Northumbria – a range of 34 per cent. These and other findings suggest that the VPS scheme is being inconsistently implemented across the country.

Keywords

Victim input victim personal statement victims Witnesses and Victims Experience Survey

The first victim impact statement was deposed in a criminal proceeding in California in 1976 and all US states now accord victims the right to be heard at sentencing. Other common law jurisdictions soon followed the US example: victim impact statements at sentencing were implemented in New Zealand in 1987 (Church et al., 1995) and in Canada in 1988 (Roberts, 2003). After a trial period, victim personal statements were introduced nationally in England and Wales in 2001. It is surprising, to say the least, that a decade after the introduction of victim personal statements in England and Wales no systematic evaluation of the scheme has been conducted. The only research¹ explored the early implementation of the scheme in a limited number of pilot areas (see Hoyle et al., 1998). (For further academic writings on the role of the victim at sentencing and in particular the victim impact statement, see Booth and Carrington, 2007; Edwards, 2009; Roberts and Erez, 2010.)

Recent Developments

This is an opportune time to explore the latest data relevant to the VPS scheme. The Government’s 2011 Green Paper, Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation, and Sentencing of Offenders (Ministry of Justice, 2011a, 2011b) identified the need to improve the VPS scheme – a move endorsed by a number of agencies in their responses. For example, the victims’ agency Victim Support called for the greater use of VPS and suggested a number of reforms to the way that VPS are collected and used within the criminal justice system (see Victim Support, 2011). The Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales also responded to the Green Paper and stressed the importance of VPS (Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses, 2010). Further, the Judiciary of England and Wales has expressed a desire to look again at the use of victim personal statements (Judiciary of England and Wales, 2011: 4). Finally, the Magistrates’ Association which represents approximately three-quarters of the 27,000 Magistrates in England and Wales has also noted the need for more victim personal statements at sentencing (Magistrates’ Association, 2012).

In January 2012, the Government announced a further consultation to ensure that the opportunity to make a victim personal statement is ‘routinely offered to victims’ and to increase the uptake of the VPS (Ministry of Justice, 2012a: 40). As yet, it is unclear how the Government proposes to achieve this objective, although clarification will presumably follow in the Government’s response to the consultation. The Government proposes to restructure the Victim’s Code and one of the guiding principles will be that ‘victims who want to complete a VPS are to have the opportunity to do so and can expect it to be considered by the court’ (Ministry of Justice, 2012a: 40). Other jurisdictions in the United Kingdom are also taking steps to re-examine the issue: for example, the Northern Ireland Department of Justice has just completed a consultation with a view to improving the provision of victim statements in that jurisdiction (Northern Ireland Department of Justice, 2011).²

Overview of Article

A decade ago Walklate (2002: 150) observed with respect to the VPS that ‘it remains to be seen how effective the scheme proves to be’. This statement remains true today. This article reviews findings from the last few years of data from the Witness and Victim Experience Survey (WAVES; Ministry of Justice, 2012b) which was conducted by the Ministry of Justice. At some future point the Ministry will release the database to researchers, permitting more detailed historical analyses. For the present, the analyses address the following critical questions:

To what extent are crime victims being offered the opportunity to submit a VPS?

How variable are participation rates across local justice areas and across offence categories?

What proportion of victims submits a VPS for consideration by the justice system?

To what degree do victims believe that their statement was considered fully by the criminal justice system?

We begin by summarizing the origins and scope of the VPS scheme in England and Wales before describing the WAVES data. Then we review the latest trends from the survey before drawing conclusions and making suggestions for future research.

Origins and Scope of VPS Scheme in England and Wales

The victim personal statement (VPS) scheme in England and Wales first emerged from commitments under the Victims’ Charter introduced by the Home Office in 1996. Under this Charter, victims were given the opportunity by means of the VPS to ‘explain how the crime has affected [them], and [to have their] interests to be taken into account’ (Home Office, 1996: 3). This information was meant to serve broader aims, namely informing decisions taken by the police, CPS, magistrates and judges at various stages of the criminal process. The Victims’ Charter was replaced in 2006 by the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime (hereafter Code), but the provisions on VPS were not subsequently integrated in the Code.

Victim personal statements in England and Wales provide an account of the impact of the offence from the perspective of the crime victim. In addition to describing the harm they have sustained, victims can express their concerns regarding bail, and voice any fears of intimidation or vulnerability arising from racial, cultural or disability issues. Thus, VPS are meant to be made early in the case to inform all criminal justice agencies, including the police and CPS, of any special needs or sensitivities about which they should be aware. Victims can also include in the VPS whether or not they wish to be informed by criminal justice agencies about various aspects of their case, receive assistance from organizations, as well as express their desire to apply for compensation or protective measures if the case goes to court.

Distinguishing the English VPS from VIS in other jurisdictions

The VPS regime in England and Wales is different from victim input schemes in other common law countries such as New Zealand and Canada. In England and Wales, the scope of the VPS is much wider than in other jurisdictions. As noted, in England and Wales the VPS is meant to be used at various stages of the criminal process, including during the decision by the CPS whether or not to prosecute, the decision to grant bail and so on. In contrast, VIS regimes in other common law jurisdictions are used only during the sentencing process to assess the extent of harm caused to the victim. For instance, section 722(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada specifically states that VIS should be used ‘for the purpose of determining the sentence to be imposed on an offender’.

Further, important differences exist between England and Wales and most common law jurisdictions with regards to the administration and delivery of VPS. While in most other countries VIS are completed by victims, in England and Wales the statement is taken down in writing by the police. Finally, in England and Wales VPS can only be made in writing, as opposed to most common law jurisdictions where victims are given the choice to read their statement aloud in court at the sentencing hearing. Some jurisdictions like the Australian state of Victoria also allow victims to include expressive accounts of harm at sentencing by including photographs, drawings or poems as part of the VIS.

Witness and Victims’ Experience Survey

Although it was discontinued in 2011, the Witness and Victim Experience Survey provides the most systematic data relating to the use of the VPS across England and Wales. WAVES was a national, quarterly survey of victims and witnesses which ran from 2004–2005 to 2009–2010. Respondents were individuals involved in incidents resulting in a criminal charge and which have been closed through the determination of verdict or discontinued prosecution. The WAVES data provide important insight into VPS usage in this country – subject to certain limitations (see below). The most recent data refer to cases which were closed in 2009–2010, and derive from interviews taking place between September 2009 and July 2010. Until a new survey of victims is launched, WAVES remains the best source of information about the use of the VPS in England and Wales. The survey contains three questions relating to the VPS (described later). Despite its importance as a source of information about victims’ experiences, the two research reports which have drawn upon the database describe findings from a single year.³

Limitations on WAVES data as a source of Information about VPS

Before discussing data trends, it is important to note the limitations on WAVES.

Sample restrictions

First, the WAVES sample may not be representative of all crime victims. For example, victims whose case did not result in a charge are excluded, as are victims deemed particularly vulnerable. This latter category includes victims of domestic violence as well as victims in cases involving a fatality. The survey sample includes victims of violence; robbery; burglary, criminal damage and theft and handling stolen goods (Ministry of Justice, 2012a). Second, during the period covered by this article the lower age limit of the survey was 18 years – younger victims are therefore excluded. These restrictions aside, victim self-selection does not appear to be a problem. Franklyn (2012) compared samples of participating and non-participating victims and found them to be generally comparable.

Victim recall biases

Second, WAVES measures victims’ recall of their experiences, rather than a file-based analysis. If victims report not having been offered a VPS, this may not mean that they were not offered the opportunity, just that they had no recall of the offer being made. Similarly, some victims may have completed a VPS, only to later forget they had done so. The participation rates noted in the data tables in this article may therefore underestimate the extent to which VPS were actually offered to victims or the extent to which victims completed a VPS. The VPS is usually offered to victims and taken down by police at the same time and on the same form as the witness evidence statement, with the result that some victims may not have realized they were being offered a VPS when in fact they were given the opportunity.

It is hard to estimate the percentage of such cases. However, three reasons suggest that the underestimation due to memory lapses is small. First, it seems unlikely that many victims would be offered the opportunity to make a VPS, only to later forget whether the offer had been made. It is even less likely that a crime victim would actually complete a VPS and then fail to recall having done so – although there is some evidence in the international research of this happening (see Erez and Roberts, 2009). Failure to recall the statement may result from the nature of the form in countries where the VPS may easily be confused with various other administrative forms, whereas the VPS form in England and Wales is more clearly labelled as such. Second, the percentages of victims in different local areas who recalled having been offered a VPS vary considerably (see later discussion), and this suggests that the low proportions of victims who remember having been offered a VPS reflect something other than recall failure, which presumably does not vary across areas. Third, participants who responded that they had not been offered a VPS clearly declined to choose the ‘don’t know’ response offered by the survey, suggesting they had some confidence in the accuracy of their recall.

If significant numbers of victims were offered the opportunity to complete a VPS and yet failed to recall this fact it suggests that the justice system needs to make a much greater effort to distinguish between the witness statement and the victim personal statement. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, it is impossible to determine without additional research, whether victims reporting that no offer was made are reflecting lack of an offer or a failure to recall the offer.

Findings

Victim participation rates

Participation rates in previous research

Research conducted in this and other common law jurisdictions with comparable victim input schemes reveals that, for a variety of reasons, only a minority of victims elect to submit an impact statement. Victim participation rates include 23 per cent in Canada (Department of Justice Canada, 1990) and 14 per cent in New Zealand (Church et al., 1995). In the United States, Hall (1991) and Tobolowsky (1999) found that approximately one-quarter of a sample of victims across five states submitted an impact statement. Research in Victoria found that only 7 per cent of sentencing hearings included a victim impact statement (Victoria Victims’ Support Agency, 2009). These low participation rates are confirmed by the results of surveys and interviews involving practitioners: judges in Canada and elsewhere report encountering an impact statement in only a small minority of cases. A sample of Canadian judges reported seeing victim impact statements in approximately one sentencing hearing in 10 (Roberts and Edgar, 2006: 1; see also Roberts, 2009; Victoria Victims’ Support Agency, 2009 for discussion).

Participation rates in England and Wales

Previous research in this jurisdiction sheds little light on the proportion of crime victims who submit a VPS. As Leverick et al. (2007: 18) noted, to date information on response rates has been ‘rather patchy’. However, several clear trends emerge from previous research. First, only a small proportion of victims reported submitting a statement. The rates of participation reported in previous research have ranged from 15 per cent in the most recent study to date (conducted in Scotland, see Chalmers et al., 2007; Leverick et al., 2007), to 42 per cent of a much more select sample of domestic violence victims (Tapley, 2005). Hoyle et al. (1998) reported a VPS response rate of 30 per cent in a broader sample of victims in England and Wales. These statistics are all based on samples of victims who were offered a statement: the denominator of the equation is the total number of victims given the opportunity, the numerator the number electing to participate. As will be seen, the WAVES data provide insight into the percentage of victims offered a statement as well as the proportion who subsequently participate. Not surprisingly, victims of the most serious crimes are more likely to submit a statement. This finding is confirmed by all empirical studies to date (e.g. Leverick et al., 2007; Mastrocinque, 2010; Victoria Victims’ Support Agency, 2009).

Aggregate trends regarding recall of the VPS offer

1. Percentage of victims reporting having received an offer

The survey asked victims the following question:

Since October 2001, victims of crime have had an opportunity to explain to the police about how the crime affected them financially, physically or emotionally. This is called a victim personal statement. It could either have been an addition to your written statement or taken as a separate statement after someone has been charged. Were you given this opportunity? (yes/no; don’t know)

In the most recent (and last) administration of the survey (2009/2010), less than half (43%) of victims recalled being offered a statement. Over the most recent three-year period 2007–2010, a comparable percentage (42%) of the victims recalled being offered the opportunity to make a VPS; almost half (45%) explicitly responded that they had not been given an opportunity to make a VPS while 13 per cent responded ‘don’t know’ (see Table 1). As can be seen in Table 1, the proportion of victims recalling the VPS offer rose from 36 per cent in 2005–2006 to 43 per cent in the most recent year. The increase in the percentage reporting an offer from 2007/2008 to 2009/2010 is statistically significant. As can be seen in Table 1, the rise in the percentage recalling having been informed about the VPS was mirrored by a decline in the percentage who recalled that they had not been informed (from 47 per cent in 2007/2008 to 44 per cent in 2009/2010). Even allowing for recall errors by some victims, it seems reasonable to assume that more than half the sample had not been offered a statement.

Table 1.

Victim responses to VPS questions, all crime victims, 2005/2006–2009/2010.

	2005/2006	2007/2008	2008/2009	2009/2010	Most recent three-year average
Were you offered a VPS?(total sample)
Yes	36%	40%	41%	43%	42%
No	53%	47%	46%	44%	45%
Don’t know	11%	13%	13%	12%	13%
		100%	100%	100%	100%
Unweighted base	10,883	18,593	19,447	19,032	57,072
Did you make a VPS? (Of those who recalled being offered a VPS)
Yes	54%	55%	54%	55%	55%
No	n/a	39%	40%	40%	39%
Don’t know	n/a	6%	5%	6%	5%
		100%	100%	100%	100%
Unweighted base	3898	7582	8109	8417	24,108
Was the VPS taken into account?(Of those who made a VPS)
Yes – ‘fully’ or ‘to some extent’	61%	65%	68%	68%	66%
No	21%	19%	17%	18%	18%
Don’t know	18%	16%	15%	14%	15%
		100%	100%	100%	100%
Unweighted base	2109	4194	4468	4693	13,355

Source: WAVES (Ministry of Justice, 2012b); 2005/2006 data drawn from Moore and Blakeborough (2008); n/a – data not provided in report.

These are troubling statistics for a scheme of universal application and which has been in place for a decade. They are sustained by the other principal source of information about crime victims: the British Crime Survey (BCS). Franklyn (2012) notes that an even lower percentage of BCS respondents recalled being offered a VPS. She suggests that victims whose cases proceed to court may be more likely to recall the VPS offer. It is also possible that the relationship functions in the opposite direction: if police fail to make the offer to a victim, this may reduce the likelihood of a charge being laid.

2. Percentage of victims making a VPS

Victims who recalled being offered a statement were subsequently asked ‘Did you make a Victim Personal Statement? (yes/ no; don’t know)’. The trends relating to statement submission (and perceptions of whether the statement was considered) are more positive than the recall data. As can be seen in Table 1, of those victims who recalled having been offered a VPS, just over half (55%) in the most recent year (2009–2010) also recalled actually making a statement. Over the three-year period, there was no change in the proportion of victims who recalled having been offered a statement and who stated they had made a statement (stable at 55 per cent of those who recalled being offered a statement).⁴ This statistic was also unchanged from the first year of data (see Moore and Blakeborough, 2008).

Explaining rates of participation in the VPS scheme

What conclusions may be drawn about these aggregate participation rates? The data from WAVES suggest that the system could do a better job of informing victims about the VPS scheme. While we cannot be sure that all those victims who failed to recall being offered a statement were accurate in their recall, it seems unlikely, as noted, that many victims would be offered a statement only to forget this offer within a few months. We do not know, on the basis of the WAVES data, why approximately half the victims who recalled having been offered a statement declined to make one. As with the decision to report a crime to the police, victims will have a range of reasons for wishing to submit a statement. Additional research is necessary to determine how many victims fail to submit a statement simply because they were not offered the opportunity. We need to know why, having been offered the opportunity to submit a statement, such a high percentage of victims declined the offer to participate.

One explanation for the low participation rate is that some crime victims may wish to minimize their engagement with the criminal justice system. Unlike non-reporting of crimes – where some victims fail to report to the police out of a lack of confidence or apprehension about poor treatment – non-participation in victim input schemes may reflect the victim’s perception that the seriousness of the crime did not warrant this level of engagement with the criminal process. For example, Leverick et al. (2007: 84) found that in Scotland the most frequent reason for not submitting a statement was ‘simply that the crime was not perceived as serious’. However, the participation rate is also likely to be affected by the attitudes of criminal justice professionals to victim input schemes at sentencing, and the existence of any mandatory requirement to inform victims about participation schemes such as the VPS. We shall return to the issue of compliance requirements in the conclusion of this article.

3. Victims’ perceptions of the extent to which the VPS was considered

Victim input schemes are designed to promote victim satisfaction with the criminal justice system. The international literature on victim impact statements suggests that most – but by no means all – victims who submit statements expressed satisfaction at having done so; for example, most victims across a range of studies in different jurisdictions reported an intention to submit a statement again in the event of further victimization (see Roberts, 2009: Table 1). How do victims in England and Wales react? Victims’ level of satisfaction with the statement is likely to be influenced by their opinion about the extent to which they believed that their VPS was considered by the justice system. WAVES contains the following question measuring victims’ perceptions of this issue: ‘Do you feel that your views as set out in the victim personal statement were taken into account during the criminal justice system? (yes, fully; yes, to some extent; no, not really; no, not at all; don’t know).’

The question is ambiguous in the sense that unlike victim input regimes in other jurisdictions, the VPS in England and Wales is not explicitly linked to the sentencing stage; it could refer to any stage of the criminal justice process. In addition, this question asks whether victims’ views were considered – which implies opinions rather than factual information about the effect of the crime.⁵ In response, in the most recent year less than half (40%) felt that the VPS had been ‘fully taken into account’ and 28% believed it had been considered ‘to some extent’. Thus, just over two-thirds (68%) of victims believed that their statement had been considered fully, or to some degree. A further 8 per cent chose ‘did not really feel the VPS was taken into account’, while one in 10 responded that it had not been taken into account at all. It is significant that fully 14 per cent responded ‘don’t know’. There was a modest but statistically significant increase in the proportion of people who felt the views expressed in the VPS ‘had been taken into account’, from 65 per cent in 2007–2008 to 68 per cent in 2009–2010 (see Table 1). On balance then, victims seem more positive than negative about the statement.

The WAVES data discussed so far are aggregate in nature and mask considerable variation between categories of crime victims and areas of the country. At this point we explore some of the variability across forms of offending and between local justice areas.

Variation across categories of crime

WAVES included victims in one of four offence categories: (1) criminal damage; (2) theft/ handling of stolen goods; (3) burglary; and (4) crimes of violence.⁶ Table 2 reveals that in 2009/2010, victims of burglary and violence were more likely both to report having been offered a VPS and to recall having made a statement. Thus 46 per cent of burglary and victims of violent crime recalled having been offered a VPS, compared to 37 per cent of theft victims and 40 per cent of criminal damage victims. International trends also reveal that victims of the more serious forms of offending are more likely to participate in victim input schemes (e.g. Mastrocinque, 2010). It is nevertheless surprising that even victims of violence were more likely to state that they had not been offered the opportunity to complete a statement. The most positive trend is found in the fact that approximately two-thirds of all victims held the view that their VPS had been taken into account to some degree. There was also less variation between crime categories in response to this question.

Table 2.

Recall of VPS offer: Trends by crime category, 2009/2010.

	Criminal damage	Theft/handling stolen goods	Burglary	Crimes of violence
% of victims recalling being offered a VPS	40	37	46	46
% of victims recalling being offered a VPS also making a VPS	52	47	56	58
% of victims who made a VPS and who felt that VPS was taken into account ‘fully’ or ‘to some extent’	67	67	63	69

Source: WAVES (Ministry of Justice, 2012b); see text for exact wording of questions.

Table 3 provides a more detailed breakdown of responses in 2009–2010 to the question exploring perceptions of whether the statement had been taken into account. As noted, victims could choose one of several response options. This table reveals a relatively consistent pattern of responses across different categories. For all categories of offending, the percentage of victims who felt that their statement had been fully taken into account was under 50 per cent. Perhaps the most important lesson to be drawn from this table is the relatively high percentages of victims who did not feel that their statement had been taken into account or could not recall whether their statement had been taken into account: almost one-third of victims of violent crimes and approximately one-third of all victims combined.⁷

Table 3.

Victims’ perceptions of whether VPS was considered, by crime category, 2009/2010.

	Criminal damage	Theft/handling stolen goods	Burglary	Crimes of violence	Total
% who felt VPS fully taken into account	39	38	37	41	39
% who felt VPS taken in account ‘to some extent’	28	29	26	28	28
% who did not feel the VPS was taken into account	8	8	7	9	8
% who felt VPS not taken into account at all	11	10	9	10	10
% responding ‘Don’t know’	14	15	20	12	14
	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

Source: WAVES (Ministry of Justice, 2012b); see text for exact wording of questions.

Variation across local criminal justice board areas

1. Recall of an offer to make a VPS

Table 4 summarizes local area variation in the proportion of victims recalling being offered a VPS during the latest administration of WAVES (2009/2010) across 42 local justice board areas. This table illustrates the geographic variation by presenting the five local justice areas with the lowest and highest rates of victim-based recall of having been offered a VPS. The aggregate statistic was that 43 per cent of the sampled victims across all local justice areas in England and Wales recalled having been offered a VPS. As can be seen in Table 4, the variation in responses is significant: the percentage of victims reporting having been offered a VPS varied from a low of 29 per cent in London to a high of 63 per cent in Northumbria – a range of 34 per cent. The degree of variation seen in Table 4 suggests that efforts to reach victims are not equally effective across the country.

Table 4.

Local area variation: Highest and lowest rates of recall of VPS offer, all crime categories, 2009/2010.

	% of victims recalling being offered a VPS
Northumbria	63
Staffordshire	58
Warwickshire/Gloucestershire	56
Humberside	55
England and Wales	43
West Midlands/Nottinghamshire	34
Gwent/South Wales	33
London	29

Source: WAVES (Ministry of Justice, 2012b).

One alternative explanation for the variation in recall of offer is that it reflects a different mix of crime victims rather than variability in the likelihood that different police forces bring the VPS to the victim’s attention. For example, victims of more serious crimes might be more interested in participating in the prosecution of the offender and therefore more likely to pay attention to, and later recall, documentation offered to them by the police (including, possibly, the VPS). If some areas had a higher percentage of ‘high recall’ offences (such as burglary or violence) this would explain some of the variation in the data seen in Table 4.

However, this explanation does not appear to account for the variation. If we focus on victims of burglary and violence (the offence categories with the highest recall rates), we can see that the mix of victims in different areas does not affect the percentage recalling being offered a VPS. Thus there was a comparable degree of variation between the areas with the highest and lowest rates of burglary and violence victims recalling having been offered a VPS – from 30 per cent in London to 65 per cent in Staffordshire, a range of 35 per cent. This finding suggests that the differential rates of victims recalling the offer to make a VPS reflect variation in the effectiveness of the police to communicate the offer.

Another possible explanation returns us to the question of the accuracy of victims’ recall of an offer. It is possible that in the capital (or other busy urban centres) the procedure is more rushed and police may have less time to explain the VPS to the victim. This could affect the likelihood that victims in these locations subsequently recall being offered a statement by the police. While caseload may play a role in influencing the effectiveness of the police making the offer, this cannot be the whole story, however. High recall of offer rates was not restricted to rural areas: Greater Manchester and Merseyside recorded high recall of offer rates, of 51 per cent and 49 per cent respectively in 2009/2010. Similarly, some rural areas such as Norfolk reported relatively low rates of recall.

Local area variation in participation rates

Table 5 lists the five local justice areas with the highest and lowest rates of victim-recalled participation. The percentage of victims who recalled having made a VPS in 2009/2010 varied from 41 per cent (in Cumbria) to 71 per cent in Cambridgeshire, for a range of 30 per cent. Again, the range is comparable once we control for the category of victim: isolating victims of burglary or violence generates a range of 30 per cent from the area with the lowest to the highest rates of recalling having made a statement (from 41 per cent in Cumbria to 71 per cent in Cambridgeshire). Taken together these statistics suggest variability across the country in the effectiveness of police to provide the VPS to crime victims.

Table 5.

Local area variation: Highest and lowest percentages of participation, all victim categories (2009–2010).

	% of victims recalling having made a VPS
Cambridgeshire	71
Humberside	65
South Yorkshire	65
Gloucestershire	64
Gwent/Greater Manchester	63
England and Wales	55
Lancashire/Wiltshire	48
Suffolk/West Yorkshire	46
Cumbria	41

Source: WAVES (Ministry of Justice, 2012b).

2. Whether victims believed the VPS had been taken into account

The final table (Table 6) identifies the areas where the highest and lowest percentages of victims perceived that their statement had been taken into account. There is significantly less regional variation in responses to this question. The range was only 18 per cent, from 59 per cent in Bedfordshire and Warwickshire to 77 per cent in Avon and Somerset. The degree of variability is once again comparable when we extract only the burglary and violent crime victims. The percentage of victims who felt that their VPS had been taken into account varied from 55 per cent in Staffordshire to 78 per cent in Cleveland, a range of 23 per cent.

Table 6.

Local area variation: Highest and lowest percentages of victims reporting that VPS was taken into account,^a all victims (2009–2010).

	% of victims reporting that their statement was taken into account
Avon and Somerset	77
Cleveland	75
Wiltshire	74
Hertfordshire/West Midlands	73
England and Wales	68
Cambridgeshire/Northamptonshire/South Yorkshire	62
Leicestershire	61
Essex	60
Bedfordshire/Warwickshire	59

Note: ^aPercentage of victims stating that VPS was taken into account ‘fully’ or ‘to some extent’.

Source: WAVES (Ministry of Justice, 2012b).

Discussion and Conclusions

The data summarized in this article suggest that substantial proportions of crime victims in England and Wales are not informed of the VPS programme – or are informed in a way that meant that they subsequently forget the offer. For example, in the capital only approximately one-quarter of victims interviewed for the survey recalled having been offered a VPS. Of the victims who did recall being offered a statement, only half actually made one; in short, only 15 per cent of all victims surveyed in London submitted a victim personal statement, either because they did not receive an offer or because they declined to make a statement.

Having rolled out the VPS scheme nationally a decade ago, the Government did not conduct any process or outcome evaluation of the scheme, although two research reports have been released (Franklyn, 2012; Moore and Blakeborough, 2008). Moreover, with a few exceptions, the VPS scheme has been largely overlooked by researchers in the field. The nation-wide data reported here suggest that implementation of the VPS scheme has not been uniform; crime victims in different parts of the country appear to be differentially served by the scheme. The WAVES trends reveal low and highly variable rates of participation across the country. Of course, only some victims will decide to submit a statement, and not all of those who do submit a statement will ultimately consider the experience to have been worthwhile. What factors may explain why more victims do not submit a statement?

Barriers to participation

Lack of public awareness

One potential barrier to participation is lack of awareness on the part of victims – a finding emerging from surveys of the general public. A 2009 poll by the Victims Commissioner of England and Wales asked a sample of the general public to state how familiar they were with a number of victims’ rights such as the right to submit a VPS. This survey found that less than one respondent in five (19%) was fully aware of the right to give a VPS. A further 19 per cent were ‘aware but not in detail’ while 50 per cent described themselves as ‘not at all aware’ of the right to make a VPS (Ipsos MORI, 2009). The consequence is that upon victimization, unless informed about their ability to complete a VPS, most victims would be unaware of the programme. Survey respondents who had been victimized were more somewhat likely to report being aware of the right to give a VPS: 31 per cent of victims compared to 18 per cent of non-victims stated that they were fully aware of the right to make a VPS. Recent research in other jurisdictions confirms these trends regarding public knowledge of victim services and victims’ rights. For example, a nationwide survey conducted in Canada in 2011 found that almost three-quarters of the respondents reported having ‘only a little’ or no knowledge at all of victim impact statements and approximately half the sample reported no awareness at all (McDonald and Scrim, 2011). Promoting public awareness of the VPS scheme will presumably enhance participation rates.

Response of professionals

A second barrier to more widespread use of the VPS involves the criminal justice professionals who provide – or are charged with providing – the service. Poor understanding of the VPS may lead to inconsistent implementation across the country. The Joint Thematic Review of 2009 (Criminal Justice Joint Inspection, 2009: 10) found considerable variation in knowledge and understanding of the scheme on the part of police officers. This may explain the inconsistent rates of participation. Shapland and Hall (2010: 178) summarize the research on implementation of the VPS initiative as ‘very patchy’. In addition, there is no statutory duty in England and Wales on police, prosecutors or any other justice professionals to inform victims of the VPS scheme. Elsewhere, however, there is a clear duty on legal professionals to ensure that victims are apprised of the victim statement scheme. For example, in Canada a provision in the Criminal Code makes it mandatory for a sentencing court to inquire of the prosecution whether the crime victim has been advised of the opportunity to prepare a victim impact statement⁸ (see Manikis 2012; Roberts and Manikis, 2011). In addition, the prosecutor, the victim or someone representing the victim may apply for an adjournment to permit the victim to prepare the statement.⁹ Legal requirements of this kind may encourage a more diligent attitude to informing victims of their rights. As Shapland et al. (2004) have argued, the absence of consequences for non-compliance can undermine the effective implementation of new initiatives.

Research priorities

Why do VPS rates vary so much across the country? This question can only be answered by further, more detailed, quantitative research which explores both the ways that police advise victims of the VPS scheme, and victims’ reactions to the offer. As with any national scheme, it is important to reduce local variation in the extent to which victims in different areas are informed about the VPS. A clear research priority involves understanding how police administer the statement and why rates of recall and use of the VPS are both low and variable. With respect to victims we need to know why some decline to submit a statement when provided with the offer to do so. Such research would help to determine whether victims fail to participate because they do not receive or fully understand the nature of the offer or whether they are merely exercising their discretion not to participate.¹⁰

Finally, we endorse the view of Hall (2009) that guidelines regarding the administration of the VPS are a priority. Clear protocols and information sheets regarding the nature and purpose of the victim personal statement scheme would increase the proportion of victims submitting a statement and also reduce the variation in participation rates across the country. If the Government decides to launch an evidence-based review of the VPS scheme – as is the case in Northern Ireland – it would be worth considering whether the VPS may be relabelled ‘victim impact statement’. The latter phrase is far more common and more accurately describes the purpose of the statement, namely to provide the criminal justice system with an account of the impact of the crime upon the victim.

We end on a positive note. The trends on victims’ perceptions of statement usage with which we began this article are clearly more positive than negative. Although only a minority of victims completed a statement, those who did were more likely than not to express the view that their views had been considered. In addition, the limited international and domestic research suggests that victims who participate in a victim input scheme express higher levels of satisfaction with the criminal justice system, and report benefitting from completing a VPS (e.g. Graham et al., 2004; Victoria Victims’ Support Agency, 2009).¹¹ The optimistic conclusion we draw is that greater participation in the VPS programme would increase overall victim welfare in this country. This will only come about if a greater effort is made to inform crime victims of the opportunity to depose a statement in the first place.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Ramona Franklyn from the Ministry of Justice for providing data from WAVES and the journal’s anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on a previous draft of the article.

Notes

Author biographies

Julian V Roberts is Professor of Criminology at the University of Oxford. His research interests include all aspects of sentencing law, policy and practice.

Marie Manikis is completing her DPhil in Law at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral dissertation compares some enforcement mechanisms available for victims of crime in England and Wales and the United States when their rights are breached.

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