The Role of the Victim Within the Criminal Justice System: A Three-Tiered Concept

Abstract

The social reality of the criminal justice system occurs on three levels. The first level is the system’s attempt to prevent socially harmful actions by prohibiting them under the threat of punishment. The deterrent effect of the sanction of threat as such seems to derive from two different sources. First, the threatened sanction increases the costs to the actor. An individual who calculates rationally and egoistically will forego an action when the costs to him are higher than the expected benefits. This mechanism is at the core of the law and economics debate. Second, the threat of punishment is also a means of communication to express that a certain action is morally reprehensible. An individual with normal socialization and internalization of social norms does not want to appear to be a despicable person, either to society or (above all) to himself. He will instinctively forego actions that are generally considered detestable without rationally reflecting on the costs and benefits of his choice. As Professor Kahan has shown, in order to communicate moral reprehensibility, the threatened sanctions must express some form of contempt. Or, in other words, the