The prosecutor's office sits at the fulcrum of American criminal justice. It decides who faces charges, what crimes they're accused of, and whether cases proceed to trial or dissolve into plea bargains. This power—prosecutorial discretion—shapes outcomes for defendants, communities, and the victims whose harm ostensibly justifies the entire enterprise.

Yet the metrics that govern prosecutorial success rarely center victim interests. Conviction rates, case clearance numbers, and electoral viability drive decisions in ways that may diverge sharply from what crime victims actually need. A prosecutor might decline a difficult-to-prove sexual assault case to protect their win rate, or accept a plea deal that closes the file but leaves the victim feeling unheard and unsafe. The system optimizes for institutional outcomes, not healing or justice as victims experience it.

This misalignment isn't simply a matter of individual prosecutors making poor choices. It reflects structural incentives embedded in how we've designed prosecutorial accountability. Understanding these dynamics—and exploring how victim perspectives might be meaningfully integrated into charging decisions—requires examining the architecture of prosecutorial power itself. The question isn't whether prosecutors should maintain discretion, but whether that discretion can be exercised in ways that honor the people whose victimization brought the case into being.

Prosecutorial success in America is measured through proxies that bear little relationship to victim satisfaction or recovery. Conviction rates remain the most visible metric—the percentage of cases that result in guilty verdicts or pleas. This creates powerful incentives to decline cases with evidentiary challenges, regardless of victim needs. A sexual assault case with a credible victim but limited physical evidence becomes a liability rather than a priority.

Resource constraints compound this dynamic. Prosecutors' offices are chronically underfunded relative to their caseloads, forcing triage decisions that prioritize efficiency over thoroughness. Cases requiring extensive investigation, expert testimony, or extended victim support strain limited budgets. The path of least resistance often means pursuing cases that resolve quickly and cheaply—criteria that may conflict with what victims require for meaningful participation in justice processes.

Electoral considerations add another layer of misalignment. In jurisdictions where prosecutors are elected, they must cultivate public images of toughness and competence. This can translate into prioritizing high-profile cases with media appeal, pursuing harsh sentences that play well politically, or avoiding cases where outcomes are uncertain. Victim interests become subordinate to prosecutorial brand-building.

The plea bargaining system exemplifies these tensions. Approximately 95% of criminal convictions result from negotiated pleas rather than trials. These negotiations occur between prosecutors and defense attorneys, with victims relegated to observer status. Deals that serve institutional interests—clearing dockets, securing convictions without trial risk—may bear little resemblance to what victims want. A reduced charge that minimizes the gravity of harm, or a sentence that fails to address victim safety concerns, can feel like secondary victimization.

Performance evaluation systems rarely include victim satisfaction metrics. Prosecutors advance professionally by demonstrating case management efficiency and favorable conviction statistics, not by ensuring victims feel heard, informed, or supported. The incentive structure produces what it measures: closed cases and conviction tallies, regardless of whether justice—as victims experience it—has been served.

Takeaway

Prosecutorial systems optimize for what they measure. Until victim experience becomes a meaningful metric of success, charging decisions will continue to reflect institutional priorities rather than the interests of those harmed by crime.

Victim rights legislation has expanded dramatically over the past four decades. Every state now guarantees victims some form of notification about case proceedings, and many provide rights to be present at hearings and submit impact statements at sentencing. These represent genuine advances from an era when victims were treated as mere witnesses—sources of evidence rather than stakeholders in justice.

Yet these rights remain largely peripheral to the decisions that matter most. Charging decisions—whether to prosecute, what charges to file, whether to pursue the case aggressively—occur before victims gain meaningful access to the process. By the time notification rights kick in, the fundamental trajectory of the case has been set. Victims may learn what charges were filed, but they rarely participate in determining them.

Plea negotiations represent the most consequential exclusion. These discussions shape the vast majority of case outcomes, yet they occur in prosecutor-defense attorney exchanges from which victims are typically absent. Some jurisdictions require victim consultation before plea acceptance, but this often amounts to informing victims of decisions already made rather than incorporating their preferences into the negotiation itself.

The timing of victim input systematically diminishes its influence. Impact statements, delivered at sentencing, come after guilt has been established and the basic parameters of punishment determined. Victims speak when the meaningful decisions have concluded. Their voices become performative rather than consequential—therapeutic perhaps, but not genuinely participatory.

Information asymmetries further limit meaningful participation. Victims often lack access to evidence, legal strategy considerations, and realistic assessments of case outcomes. They cannot advocate effectively for their interests without understanding the constraints and possibilities prosecutors navigate. This knowledge gap keeps victim input superficial even when it's formally solicited. The result is a system that has expanded victim rights rhetorically while maintaining their exclusion from the decisions that actually determine justice outcomes.

Takeaway

Rights to notification and presence are not the same as rights to influence. Victims remain excluded from charging and plea decisions precisely because those are the decisions that determine whether their interests are served.

Integrating victim perspectives into prosecutorial decision-making requires structural mechanisms, not merely goodwill. Several models have emerged from restorative justice practice and victim advocacy movements that offer frameworks for genuine participation while preserving appropriate prosecutorial discretion.

Victim-prosecutor conferencing creates formal opportunities for structured dialogue at key decision points. Before charging decisions are finalized, prosecutors meet with victims to understand their priorities, concerns, and desired outcomes. These aren't consultations in the weak sense—prosecutors informing victims of decisions made—but genuine exchanges where victim perspectives can shape case strategy. The prosecutor retains ultimate authority but exercises it with fuller understanding of victim interests.

Victim impact input statements—distinct from traditional impact statements delivered at sentencing—allow victims to articulate their needs and preferences early in the process. These documents might address questions rarely considered: What outcome would help you feel safe? What do you need to understand about what happened? What would accountability look like from your perspective? Such input reframes prosecutorial discretion around victim-defined goals rather than institutional metrics.

Victim advisory panels in prosecutors' offices provide ongoing input into office policies and practices affecting crime victims. These panels—composed of victim advocates, survivors, and service providers—can identify systemic gaps in victim consultation and propose protocols for meaningful participation. They shift victim input from case-by-case advocacy to structural influence on prosecutorial culture.

Some jurisdictions have experimented with victim-initiated prosecution models for certain offense categories, allowing victims greater control over whether cases proceed. While controversial and limited in application, these approaches recognize that victim agency in charging decisions may itself be therapeutic. The challenge is designing such models without burdening victims with responsibility for outcomes they cannot control. Each framework requires implementation resources—victim liaisons, training for prosecutors, time built into case management—that acknowledge meaningful participation as institutional priority rather than afterthought.

Takeaway

Victim participation in prosecutorial decisions requires structural mechanisms that create space for influence at the moments when consequential choices are made—not just opportunities to speak after those choices are final.

Prosecutorial discretion will remain central to criminal justice. The question is whether that discretion can be exercised in ways that genuinely account for victim interests—not as rhetorical justification for state power, but as meaningful input into how power is deployed.

The mechanisms exist. Victim-prosecutor conferencing, early-stage impact input, and advisory structures can integrate victim perspectives into charging and plea decisions without eliminating prosecutorial judgment. What's required is recognition that victim participation represents a legitimate criterion of prosecutorial success, worthy of resources and institutional commitment.

This reorientation serves not only victims but the legitimacy of prosecution itself. A system that pursues cases in victims' names while excluding them from meaningful participation cannot claim to deliver justice on their behalf. Aligning prosecutorial incentives with victim interests isn't a constraint on effective prosecution—it's a precondition for it.