Piloting an Innovative Use of Victim Impact: Listen & Learn with Women in Jail

• In Event: Victims’ Experiences in the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

Education on victims and victimization has the potential to facilitate cognitive empathy and behavioral change among people accused or convicted of crimes. Victim Impact: Listen & Learn is a13-unit curriculum designed to incorporate research and victims’ experiences to facilitate the modification of offender thinking and behavior. This paper reports on the preliminary findings of a mixed-method pilot study on an innovative use of the curriculum with a cohort of women in jail who self-identified as both offenders and survivors of sexual and/or intimate partner violence. Pre- and post-program testing identified improvements in knowledge of victims’ rights, knowledge of victim-related facts, sensitivity to victims’ plight, victim blaming, and willingness to assume accountability. A thematic analysis of a supplemental reflection assignment revealed that participants learned about the direct and indirect harm they caused to other people, their own experiences with sexual and intimate partner violence, and what accountability looks like and why it is so difficult. These preliminary findings suggest the curriculum might be useful in terms of enhancing both offender and victim understanding of the effects of crime and the pre- and post-tests should expand the test questions to assess change on constructs related to understanding the experience of victimization.

Author

• Jennifer Lanterman, University of Nevada, Reno