Number: RS22518
Title: Crime Victims' Rights Act: A Sketch of 18 U.S.C. 3771
Authors: Charles Doyle, American Law Division 
Abstract: Section 3771 is the product of a decades-long effort to afford greater deference to victims in the criminal justice process. It is akin to the victims' bill of rights provisions found in the laws of the various states and augments a fairly wide variety of pre-existing federal victims' rights legislation. Its enactment followed closely on the heels of discontinued efforts to pass a victims' rights amendment to the United States Constitution.
Pages: 5
Date: September 29, 2006