Victims often do not feel that state officials validate their experiences and value what they have to say. In addition, victims are frequently unsatisfied with how little control they have over the institutional response that follows their crimes. Although the conventional criminal process fails victims in obvious and significant ways, it nevertheless remains the preferred mode for dealing with crimes. Alternative schemes, such as restorative justice conferences, are limited to low-level offenses and, therefore, are not available for all victims. Against this backdrop, this dissertation explores the normative grounds political communities have for shifting towards a victim-oriented response to crimes. In other words, the dissertation offers a justification for why political communities should re-orient the primary response that follows crimes from concerns about the public interest to concerns about direct victims. This shift has two key implications. First, it puts victims’ experiences and needs at the center of the response that follows crimes. Second, it affords victims meaningful control over the type of response to be implemented in the aftermath of crimes. Taken together, this dissertation highlights the relevance the response that follows crimes has for victims on two fronts. I argue that this shift gives victims the possibility to participate as full partners in the formal or informal proceedings that follow their crimes. More tellingly, I contend that being able to choose the response to pursue is instrumental for victims to overcome or better deal with the effects of crimes and, consequently, to regain their status as full and undominated members of society.