Edited by Carolyn Hoyle and Richard Young. Oxford, England and Portland, Or: Hart Publishing 2002. ISBN 1-84113-280-2

Review by Martin Wright

The ‘ideal victim’, the blameless middle-aged woman on a visit to her ill mother described by Nils Christie, still survives in popular and political debate, but criminologists have recognized that reality is not so simple, and this book takes the analysis further.  It looks both at victims who do not fit the stereotype, and at the way in which victims are treated in the criminal justice process.  

The first chapter, ‘On becoming a victim’, is a comprehensive review by Paul Rock of growing awareness of victims.  Victimization is the result of the actions of others, but also of the person’s definition of him or herself as a victim; a bully may regard his behaviour as a bit of ‘fun’, but the person bullied feels victimized.  Some populations are heavily victimized, and of course victims and offenders are overlapping categories, not the ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ of political rhetoric; Rock suggests that if the ‘estranging moral contrasts of the adversarial system’ were diminished, there might be a greater readiness to move towards restorative justice. 

Three chapters describe victims who do not fit the stereotype.  Stephanie Allen has studied male victims of rape and how the crime affected them, such as gay or heterosexual victims, and those who felt overpowered or intimidated.  Allen describes ways in which they protect themselves against the threat to their sense of masculinity.  In another chapter Ann Grady makes a well-argued case that the amount of domestic violence committed against men is much greater than is usually assumed.  As far as possible from the ‘ideal victim’ is Rose West, serving ten life sentences for the sadistic murders of young females; yet Jo Winter shows from the trial transcript how her defence tried to mitigate her guilt by portraying her as a victim (of childhood abuse and of her husband) and by showing that her victims fell short of the ideal stereotypes as victims and as females.  The prosecution, on the other hand, idealized the dead victims, tending to perpetuate the idea that only ‘ideal victims’ deserve the jury’s sympathy.  Polarizing victims and offenders, Winter suggests, may undermine both claims of offenders’ innocence (with ideal victims) and allegations of guilt (with non-ideal victims). 

Another example of mixed victim/offender status is explored by Heather Hamill:  the ‘hoods’ in Northern Ireland who are victims of punishment attacks by paramilitaries.  The hoods present an all-too-familiar picture of solvent abuse, exclusion from school and other deprivation, leading to all kinds of street crime;  the paramilitaries see themselves as law-enforcers, not law breakers.  Hamill shows that their crude and violent deterrence is no more effective than the usually more sanitized kind used by the criminal justice system, and suggests why. 

Helen Reeves, the CEO of Victim Support, has often called for research into the victims who choose not to participate in victim/offender mediation, and Carolyn Hoyle addresses this on the basis of the ‘restorative cautioning’ diversion programme in the Thames Valley police area.  In this form of conferencing the facilitator uses a script, which is not everyone’s favoured model of restorative justice;  even so, Hoyle found, it offers victims clear therapeutic benefits, reducing anger or fear.  It also offers greater understanding through the challenging of stereotypes of offenders, and makes it harder for offenders to ‘neutralize’ the effects of their actions.  Finally there is the possibility of reparation:  compliance is more likely if a victim attends a restorative session.  In her sample nearly 60 per cent of reparation was completed, and nearly 30 per cent partly completed.  Symbolic reparation may be acceptable if the offender is unable to repay the full amount – but not if the victim’s expectations had been unduly raised.  

She found that some victims simply didn’t want to take part, and some feared repeat victimization; others however would have accepted indirect mediation had it been offered.  Some facilitators give a misleading idea of R J, don’t tell victims that they can invite supporters, nor mention the possibility of indirect mediation, all of which helps to account for the very low level of victim participation (14 per cent in Thames Valley, and even less nationwide).  There was no evidence to support Reeves’s concern that victims feel anxious at being asked to decide whether to take part.  

The highest victim satisfaction was found after full participation in a conference; but when facilitation was well done, even non-participating victims scored higher than in the One-Stop Shops or Victim Statement experiments (see below), because with feedback they can receive information as well as give it.  

Hoyle argues that there should be a requirement to explain the procedure fully and to make follow-up contact with victims after the session, rather than leave these to good practice guidelines as at present.  In this way R J could be empowering for victims. 

Corporate victims also do not fit the stereotype, and Richard Young considers how they can be treated restoratively.  Businesses are people too, and even in large enterprises individual staff members do have anxieties.  Some representatives, however, do not enter into the restorative spirit and use the session to give the offender a dressing-down; at least one facilitator was observed taking part in this.  

Young concludes that inclusionary R J won’t work while companies and government are still thinking on exclusionary lines, for example banning offenders from shopping malls;  he gives an example in which a group of youths met retailers, both sides expressed their concerns, and agreed to change their behaviour to produce a win/win solution.  He suggests that ‘there are structural limits, created by the nature of capitalism itself, to the scope for restorative justice processes to operate as intended’; nonetheless social structures can be reconfigured. 

Andrew Sanders picks up Elias’s argument (1993) that victims are manipulated to suit political purposes rather than their own interests;  they are used in the service of  severity and system efficiency.  Punitive segregation of offenders, and community sanctions, are claimed to be on behalf of victims but do nothing for them.  They serve only to reinforce the exclusionary division between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’.  He points out that to give victims the right to a role in judicial decision-making would be incompatible with due process and crime control;  it would either need to be combined with restorative justice or limited to non-punitive measures.  A socially inclusive victim policy would recognize that victims, offenders and ‘We’ are all similar;  the interests of victims and offenders can be pursued together using a ‘freedom model’ to maximize the freedom of both victims and offenders (this echoes Braithwaite and Pettit’s (1990) idea of ‘dominion’ or autonomy).  Restorative justice does this, but tends to assume that the opinions, rights and interests of victims and offenders are always reconcilable.  

Some forms of harm are not treated as criminal:  there is no prosecution, and they are dealt with by non-police agencies by a ‘compliance approach’ (comparable to Braithwaite’s (2002) ‘responsive regulation’). 

Sanders criticizes victim impact statements and their English equivalent, recently introduced despite evidence of considerable victim dissatisfaction – largely due to raised and unfulfilled expectations.  For many victims, he says, ‘being asked to contribute, but then having their contribution ignored, is insulting’ – a reaction epitomized by the Clotworthy case in which a judge overrode a victim/offender agreement on compensation and imposed a prison sentence (Braithwaite 2002: 147).  He argues for a participative, inclusionary victim policy which would include other harms, and suggests that restorative justice, ‘for all its problems’, is an advance over conventional justice processes, because it gives victims the chance to meet offenders and discuss their offences with them.  The inquisitorial system in Continental European countries also allows victim participation.  Either method should reduce the secondary re-victimization too often inflicted by the system, and would help to include both victims and offenders in the process. 

This is a stimulating and well-presented book, marred only by the lack of an index.

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 REFERENCES 

Braithwaite, John (2002)  Restorative justice and responsive regulation.  New York:  Oxford University Press.  

Braithwaite, John, and PhilipPettit (1990)  Not just deserts:  a republican theory of criminal justice.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press.  

Elias, R (1993)  Victims still:  the political manipulation of crime victims.  Newbury Park, CA:  Sage.

February 2002