Victim Impact Statements and the Changing Role of the Victim

The role of the victim in the Criminal Process became a huge debate in recent times .It has been questioned whether the victim plays an important enough role in the Criminal process despite the fact that he is the initiator. In this thesis, I set out to investigate this. I decided to research the Irish situation and so I looked at all the available data to discover that this was very limited. I then undertook some qualitative research of my own .I decided to speak to all the relevant actors in the field so as to get to the heart of the matter. All of these people had "hands on " experience of either dealing with victims of crime or engaging with policy that related to this area. I questioned them also on the use of the Victim Impact Statement and I tried to get to the bottom of the question relating to these statements through a series of meetings and interviews. I then looked to other jurisdictions in an attempt to build up an accurate picture. The results were very interesting. I finally looked to the future of the rights of victims here and what part ,if any, Victim Impact Statements could make to those rights. Brid Ni Raghallaigh is from Galway and began by studying for a B.ed. degree. She then went on to study for a degree in Law at the National University of Ireland ,Galway and finally a Masters in Public Law at the same College.She has always been interested in the law and in the area of rights.She writes in both English and Irish .