Issue 9: April 2026

Victim Impact Statements (VIS) are conventionally understood as a mechanism through which victims may articulate the consequences of criminal offending, ensuring their experiences are acknowledged within the sentencing process. In New South Wales, their use is governed by Part 3 Division 2 of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW), framing VIS as vital in informing the court of physical, psychological, and emotional harm. While this function is characterised in terms of empowerment and participatory justice, such an account risks obscuring the significant emotional burden of the preparation and delivery of a VIS.

For victims with cognitive disabilities, the emotional and practical demands associated with VIS are significantly intensified. According to the Vanderbilt Kennedy Centre, cognitive disabilities affect a victim’s capacity to recall, process, or communicate traumatic events. In this context, the preparation of VIS necessitate a degree of emotional engagement with experiences that may be fragmented, inaccessible, or psychologically unsafe to reconstruct for those already struggling psychologically. 

Moreover, the expectation that a victim produces a clear and coherent narrative of harm compels the translation of subjective personal suffering into a structured legal form, operating as a source of secondary distress, particularly where trauma remains unresolved. Accordingly, there is a prioritisation of the statement’s evidentiary and procedural utility in the Australian body politic, where emotional labour inherent in producing VIS remain insufficiently acknowledged.

Further, where the offence itself has resulted in the onset or exacerbation of a disability, VIS become a vehicle through which victims must articulate not only past harm, but the ongoing transformation of their identity, autonomy, and lived experience. Detailing permanent or long-term impairment compels victims to confront the enduring consequences of the offence in a manner that is confronting. In this respect, VIS are constitutive of an ongoing engagement with loss. While broader protections exist under instruments such as the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth), where people are able to file complaints, issues of accessibility, support, and procedural accommodation are not addressed, highlighting the harsh reality of VIS as offering limited recognition of the heightened burden experienced by victims with cognitive disabilities. 

Therefore, while VIS may facilitate aspects of the sentencing process, the heightened strain experienced by victims with cognitive disabilities remains insufficiently acknowledged. In order to address the evolving recognition of disability rights within Australian legal frameworks, VIS need to meaningfully address distinct structural and emotional burdens their preparation imposes on individuals with cognitive impairments.