Book Review: Crime, Victims, and Justice: Essays on Principles and Practice.

by: Hendrik Kaptein and Majike Malsch, eds. 2004.Hampshire, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
 
Reviewed by Gregory Strong


This collection of essays has its origins in a conference called “Restorative Justice: Criminal Justice for Victims?” The conference was held in Amsterdam on 1 December 2000. Representing various fields – including law, psychiatry, philosophy, and the social sciences – the speakers at the conference were prominent scholars from Canada, the United Kingdom, and The Netherlands.

This book contains updated editions of key papers from the conference, along with additional essays written specifically for inclusion in this volume. The central topics of the conference and the book are restorative justice, its relationships to current criminal justice systems, and its possible benefits for victims and offenders. More specifically, essays deal with a number of issues concerning victims of crime

• victims’ rights and needs
  

• satisfaction for victims
  

• compensation for victims
  

• open justice,
  

• punishment and retribution in relation to reparation.

The contributors span a range from strong proponents of restorative justice to those who find the introduction of restorative justice into criminal justice processes problematical in significant ways.

 
Chapter Summaries:

Doubts on the upsurge of the victim’s role in criminal law

Gearing justice action to victim satisfaction – Contrasting two justice philosophies: retribution and redress

Compensation for victims of crime

Victims’ rights and restorative justice: Piecemeal reform of the criminal justice system or a change of paradigm?

Against the pain of punishment: Retribution as reparation through penal servitude

Victims on view: Are victims served by the principle of open justice?

Victims and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

The rights and needs of victims in the criminal justice process

 

 

 
May 2005