In 2004, the United States Congress passed, and the President signed into law, the Scott Campbell, Stephanie Roper, Wendy Preston, Louarna Gillis, and Nila Lynn Crime Victims' Rights Act (the "CVRA"), codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3771—effective October 30, 2004. Today, twenty years later, it is interesting to read Senator Kyl's law review article about the CVRA, written shortly after the Act went into effect. Along with Steven Twist and Stephen Higgins, Senator Kyl described the law as part of a "civil rights movement" designed to reform criminal justice culture:
The CVRA is the latest enactment in a forty-year civil rights movement. The victims' rights movement seeks to end the unjust treatment of crime victims by reforming the culture of the criminal justice system in the federal government and the states. Before the victims' movement gained momentum in the 1970s and 1980s, this country's criminal justice system had come to treat all crimes as acts committed only against the community, and consequently gave the direct victims of crime little, if any, recognition. Believing that crimes are committed against individuals just as much as they are against the community, the crime victims' rights movement has sought to guarantee rights to crime victims through the state and federal legislative process. The movement has secured federal and state statutory reforms and even state constitutional amendments to ensure that innocent victims of crime are respected by the justice system. These efforts have had only mixed success in securing enforceable rights for crime victims.
Sen. Jon Kyl et al., On the Wings of Their Angels: The Scott Campbell, Stephanie Roper, Wendy Preston, Louarna Gillis, and Nila Lynn Crime Victims' Rights Act, 9 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 581 (2005).
