Federal Restitution Law Fails Everyone

Criminal restitution is intended to have dual goals: victim compensation and offender punishment

The way criminal restitution operates in practice gives short shrift to compensating the average victim, focusing instead on ensuring the person ordered to pay restitution fully experiences its punitive effects. This report recommends several changes to help ensure that criminal restitution does a better job of compensating non-governmental and non-corporate victims and ensuring that defendants are not overly punished through their restitution orders.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) released a new report titled “Empty Pockets and Empty Promises: How Federal Restitution Law Fails Everyone.” Written by Professor Cortney Lollar of Georgia State University College of Law, the report finds that federal restitution prioritizes punishing defendants over compensating victims, saddling individuals in lifelong debt and collateral consequences with little benefit for those it claims to help.

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