Victim Participation in the New Juvenile Court: Tracking Judicial Attitudes Toward Restorative Justice Reforms

Abstract

Although victims’ rights legislation is now challenging juvenile justice professionals to give crime victims a role in decision making, juvenile courts have traditionally focused primarily on the individual needs and risks of young offenders. Recently, the restorative justice focus on repairing harm has helped to link victim involvement to a broader juvenile court mission that includes victims, as well as offenders and communities, as stake-holders in the justice process. Based on a national survey of U.S. juvenile court judges, as well as qualitative data from focus groups in four states, this article examines attitudes toward crime victim participation at several levels of the juvenile justice system. The impact of individual experience, organizational environment, and professional ideology on these attitudes is examined using multivariate analyses to explain differences in support for the focus on victim involvement as one component of restorative justice. Implications for implementation of restorative justice policy and practice, as well as for future research, are considered.