>>>Involving the victim in sentencing and parole changes it from one based on the rule of law to one where the rules of man, namely emotion and vengence, are considered. Picture lady justice taking a peek beneath her blindfold.
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>>Over here victims have the option to enter the process as co-plaintiff at own cost in non-civil cases to make sure some overworked DA does not push the case aside. As they are not involved in sentencing, in my view Justitias blindfold is still in place - telling her in detail is not wrong, as wax in ear was proscribed for Odysseus and for a different situation. Parole in my definition is not based on rule of law, so yes, include the victim.
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>That actually sounds like a practical approach which makes sense....therefor it would never be adopted here..hahaha. The DA's here are indeed overworked, the public defenders - well there is no words to describe how over-worked they are. I saw a report just last week that showed that 95% of the cases handled by public defenders never even make it to court - they just take some sort of plea agreement. Part of the problem here is that a huge number of our "criminals" don't actually have a victim. Best example of that of course is the drug arrests.....if you have an average of one arrest every 42 seconds for marijuana then yeah the system is going to get clogged up pretty damn quick. with supposed "criminals". Heck if we had to let the victim talk here we'd be hard pressed to actually find one over half the time!

It clearly is partly band-aid to ensure victim is heard and creates partial unequality, even if it is subsidized for the really pennyless - those in the very low middle or "upper lower" probably won't take it, as the cost is greater in percentile of earnings/acc. wealth. But justice needs to represent the victims or they will seek other methods - and clogging up the system with victimless crimes or grievances against the state needs to be balanced as well.