MADD,
New Hampshire needs you. Our survival and our success
in helping victims and their families, as well trying
to prevent the crashes that make these people victims,
depend on your assistance. Please complete the following
form indicating how you can help us, before we need to
help you.
You want to start a Victim
Impact Panel. Or you want to make sure your pane is
effective as it can be. Regardless of your
circumstances, or whether you're a MADD chapter, victim
rights organization, probation department, traffic safety
agency, Safe Community program, DUI school, court, or some
other interested entity, the following will be useful as
you begin putting your panel program together.
This how-to is designed to
give you basic information up front, with important panel
principles highlighted on each page. Detailed
information, research,, handouts, and other supplemental
materials are contained in the appendices. Each
section of the how-to lists the relevant appendices for
easy reference.
Victim impact panels
A victim Impact Panel is a
group of three or four victims who speak briefly about an
impaired driving crash in which they were injured, or in
which a loved one was killed or injured, and how it
impacted their lives. They do no blame or judge
those who listen. They simply tell their stories,
describing how their lives and the lives of their families
and friends were affected by the crash.
The purpose of the panels
is to individualize and humanize the consequences of
impaired driving, to change attitudes and behaviors, and
to deter impaired driving recidivism. Panels also
give victims a healing opportunity to share their stories
in a meaningful way.
BENEFIT to the community
and the offender
If the victim's stories are
told first-hand and from the heart, in neither a blaming
nor accusatory tone, MADD believes they can:
- allow offenders, perhaps
for the first time, to consider the pain and suffering
impaired driving can cause other people;
- help offenders move
beyond being "stuck" in focusing in their
own "bad luck."
