Victim impact panels are forums for crime victims to explain the real-world impact of crime to offenders. Unlike group conferences, victim impact panels do not involve direct personal contact between the offender and his/her victim. Instead, victim impact panels generally use surrogate victims, or family and friends of victims of similar experiences. The purpose of the panel is to help offenders individualize and humanize the consequences of their crimes on victims and the community (Immarigeon, 1999).

Today, there is a small but growing trend in the use of victim impact panels as a sentencing option for a variety of offenses such as property crimes, physical assault, domestic violence, child abuse, and elder abuse. Panels have been used in prison and jail settings, with parolees, and in treatment programs, defensive driving schools, and youth education programs. Offender participation in these panels is generally court ordered. Panels typically involve three or four victim speakers, each of whom spends about 15 minutes communicating his or her story in a nonjudgmental manner. Victim service organizations generally either implement the program for the court or work in collaboration with justice personnel. They provide services such as screening potential panel members, moderating the panels, and record keeping.

Research on victim impact panels is relatively limited and contradictory, but promising. Fors and Rojeck (1999) compared the rearrest rates of 834 DUI offenders who attended a victim impact panel as part of their sentence to those who did not. The authors found that rearrest rates were lower for individuals who participated in the victim impact panels. Moreover, the authors argue that the panels can be a cost effective way of reducing the probability of arrest in DUI offenders. On the other hand, Polacsek et al., (2001) conducted a randomized field experiment with 813 DWI offenders in new Mexico and measured their progress through the stages of pretest, posttest, one-year follow-up and two-year follow-up. The participants were randomly assigned to a DWI school or a DWI school plus a MADD victim impact panel. The authors found no difference in recidivism between the groups. Research on victim impact panels also suggest that they are promising in terms of victim satisfaction. One evaluation of victim panelists speaking to convicted drunk drivers collected 1,784 individuals who either participated in a victim impact panel or did not. The study found that panelists scored similar to nonvictims on measures of self esteem, locus of control, hostility, and well-being. Moreover, the panelists were less angry at the offender compared with nonpanelists. These results suggest that panelists benefit from participation (Mercer et al., 1994).

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