Criminal Justice Reform for All, Including Victims

 
Thanks to the presidential campaigns, criminal justice reform has been a topic in debates and policy papers. As a trauma psychologist and lawyer, we applaud the national focus on inequities in the criminal justice system and the costs of mass incarceration, particularly to communities of color. Crime victims share concerns about mass incarceration. Though people have rarely asked victims what they want and need from criminal justice reform, one study shows that a small majority of victims want investments in things like education and rehabilitation rather than prisons. However, even this study does not help us understand why this majority want these things or why the minority do not. Is it that the victims would always want these things or is it that the system, as structured, is not affording them an outcome they want? To get criminal justice reform right, we urgently need to expand the conversation to include three key issues facing victims and survivors.