Book Review: Reparation and Victim-Focused Social Work
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Despite the title, this useful collection also includes critiques of the criminal justice system's response to victims. Compensation for victims is reviewed by Jo Goodey, with some European comparisons; she shows that the partie civille procedure offers more false hope than promised, but does not mention that in victim/offender mediation many victims find that the process means more to them than the money. Susan Moody outlines the difficulties of offering a service to victims in rural areas; apart from the distances, one problem is that people often know each other, and may be aware that some victims do not have blameless pasts themselves.
Victim impact statements are intended to help victims in the criminal justice process. Sandra Walkate summarizes the arguments, including the lack of clarity about what victims are supposed to gain; or are they, she wonders, being used for political expediency- not for the first time? similarity with the inclusion of victims' concerns in pre-sentence reports, as Jane Dominey shows: often probation officers cannot use files from the Crown Prosecution Service, because they arrive late. the information can however be used not only by the court but by probation officers working with the offender later, for example by asking the offender to think of his own experience of being a victim (but Barbara Tudor, in her chapter (p. 136), considers that these statements 'will not necessarily contain information useful in terms of restoration as such').
A Case where working with offenders can be of most direct benefit to victims is domestic violence; David Morran and colleagues describe the Domestic Violence Probation Project, which consults and supports women at all stages using their information to focus on the violent man as a perpetrator, not as a misunderstood victim himself. To maintain minimum standards for ethical practice, a UK- wide practitioners' network has been developed.
Victims of racist abuse and violence have received shameful treatment, as Charlotte Knight and Karen Chouhan show: police may pursue a black petty thief rather than white suspects of the murder of a black person; or even arrest the victim, for defending himself, rather than his attacker. Even Victim Support has low contact rates with victims from ethnic minorities. the authors usefully list strategies for remedying this disgraceful situation.
Four chapters survey aspects of restorative justice. Jo-Anne Wemmers reports research suggesting that mediation works best when the interests of the parties are not too strongly opposed; otherwise they often prefer that a third party should arbitrate. she might have mentioned that the restorative justice process of dialogue can have more value for victims that any outcome to which it might lead. Looking at family group conferencing' models. Despite a poor response from victims in the early days, they can attract a higher rate of attendance than victim/offender mediation; the main reasons for dissatisfaction are not the process itself, but inconvenient arrangements and poor preparation. describing early resear5ch on the pilot reparation order projects, Jim Dignan assessed the pro's and con's of services provided in-house (few staff have the skills- or, he might have added the restorative approach), out sourced (teething problems, which should be resolvable, in building relationships with the system), or in a 'mixed economy' (where the problems encountered were local rather than systemic). he describes how reparation orders were introduced with inadequate preparation: training for magistrates was 'variable' to say the least, so that one pilot area contributed 60 percent of the reparation orders in the pilot period, and another only 6 percent. Some courts would adjourn for consultations, others would not. The Data Protection Act 1998 created problems in contacting victims, and this was compounded by some youth justice workers' cultural resistance' or even open refusal to address victims' needs. Statistics for the new orders were not kept separately, making research difficult. Dignan concludes that the new measures are still shaped by criminal justice attitudes: a retributive/ restorative hybrid.
Probation work with victims encountered similar ambivalence, as Barbara Tudor relates: she concludes that when "face to face or indirect communication….between victim and the offender is always available… to meet the needs of the victim and the offender' when required, then 'it might be appropriate to speak of "restorative justice". Currently we are on the very remote fringe of such a possibility' (p. 132). People have still been thinking of 'more effective ways of punishing offenders', so that practice is often 'very much isolated from the feelings, needs and problems of their victims' (p 133). Victim contact work (before offenders' release from prison) may bring more demand from restorative work, but there is no guarantee of adequate resources. Tudor thinks that 'possibly' there will be more restorative work in the probation service, but does not explore whether, like Victim Support, it should primarily involve voluntary organizations and members of the community.
*This review will appear in a forthcoming edition of the International Review of Victimology. It is reprinted here with permission.
Last modified 2005-06-02 07:19
