Victims and the Criminal Trial

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxvii

   PDF

2. Victims and the Criminal Trial Process

   • Tyrone Kirchengast

   Pages 1-46

3. Pre-Trial Processes: Arrest, Bail, Discovery and Prosecution Decision-Making

   • Tyrone Kirchengast

   Pages 47-83

4. Alternative Pathways: Restoration, Intervention and Community Justice

   • Tyrone Kirchengast

   Pages 85-123

5. Trial by Jury

   • Tyrone Kirchengast

   Pages 125-169

6. Sentencing

   • Tyrone Kirchengast

   Pages 171-204

7. Appeals, Punishment and Parole

   • Tyrone Kirchengast

   Pages 205-233

8. Compensation and Victim Assistance

   • Tyrone Kirchengast

   Pages 235-265

9. Extra-Curial Rights, Declarations and the Rise of the Commissioner of Victim Rights

   • Tyrone Kirchengast

   Pages 267-290

10. Victims and Substantive and Procedural Justice

    • Tyrone Kirchengast

    Pages 291-307

11. Back Matter

    Pages 309-339

    PDF

This book addresses the idea that victims remain contested and controversial participants of justice in the twenty-first century adversarial criminal trial. Victims are increasingly participating in all phases of the criminal trial, with new substantive and procedural rights, many of which may be enforced against the state or defendant. This movement to substantive rights has been contentious, and evidences a contested terrain between lawyers, defendants, policy-makers and even victims themselves. 


Bringing together substantial source materials from law and policy, this book sets out the rights and powers of the victim throughout the phases of the modern adversarial criminal trial. It examines the role of the victim in pre-trial processes, alternative pathways and restorative intervention, the jury trial, sentencing, appeal and parole. Preventative detention, victim registers, criminal injuries compensation and victim assistance, restitution and reparations, and extra-curial rights and declarations are examined to set out the rights of victims as they impact upon and constitute aspects of the modern criminal trial process. The adversarial criminal trial is also assessed in the context of the increased rights of victims in international law and procedure, and with reference to policy transfer between civil and common law jurisdictions. This timely and comprehensive book will be of great interest to scholars of criminology, criminal law and socio-legal studies.

• Criminology
• Socio-legal studies
• Law and Society
• Victimology
• Criminal justice
• Criminal Procedure
• Adversarial Justice
• International Law
• Criminal Law
• extra-curial rights
• restitution
• Preventative detention
• victim registers
• reparations
• victim assistance
• compensation

“In an era where the archetypal organisation of the criminal trial is increasingly subject to question, Tyrone Kirchengast provides an illuminated and thought-provoking analysis of the various ways in which victims have come to exercise participatory rights within hitherto exclusionary systems of justice. Cogently argued, rigorously researched, and highly readable, this book is undoubtedly a 'must read' for policymakers, legal practitioners and academics in the field of criminal justice.” (Jonathan Doak, Professor of Law, Durham University, UK)

• Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

  Tyrone Kirchengast

Tyrone Kirchengast is Senior Lecturer in Criminal Law at the University of New South Wales, Australia. His research focuses on criminal law and justice, with particular interest in victims of crime, comparative criminal justice, and the development of institutions of criminal law and justice. He has published widely on the integration of victims in the criminal trial and is the author of The Victim in Criminal Law and Justice (2006), The Criminal Trial in Law and Discourse (2010) and Criminal Law in Australia (with L. Finlay, 2014).

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