By: Brian Williams. London:  Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2005.  176 pp. ISBN-13:  978-1-84310-195-6 (pbk) £16.95 / US$ 28.95

The British government is saying that it wants to ‘rebalance the criminal justice system in favour of victims’.  It is trying to do so within the conventional system, although some would argue that the best way would be to shift towards more informal, community justice.  Not that that is always ideal – it needs safeguards – but it has great potential if it is restorative.

Brian Williams provides a useful summary of what has been happening in this field in the United Kingdom, and he has included a welcome perspective on developments in Europe (unusually for a British criminologist, he cites some references in French).  He is sceptical of government initiatives like the Victims’ Charter, introduced without consultation or preparation in 1990.  He casts a critical eye over compensation (from the state and from offenders), and describes improved care for witnesses in the UK and North America, with special reference to a Canadian family violence court – whose effectiveness depends on the availability of support programmes.  

There is a useful discussion of community justice;  it needs to be fair and accountable, but could be dominated by interest groups and/or authoritarian.  Some programmes have little direct involvement of victims, like the reparative boards in Vermont, USA the community justice centre in Liverpool, and (for understandable reasons) the circles of support and accountability which support sexual ex-offenders rather than shunning them.  There is more community involvement in the peace committees in South Africa, which seem to be one of the most promising developments on the current scene.  Williams also describes some of the numerous recent British innovations such as ‘community safety partnerships’, and the ‘febrile’ way some pilot projects were ‘rolled out’ before research results were known.  

A chapter is devoted to restorative justice and its implications for victims.  Williams warns against well known pitfalls, such as legitimizing criminal justice rather than replacing it and using the term itself loosely, but he quotes Walgrave’s neat encapsulation of the essential difference between a communitarian and restorative society, based upon trust, respect, participation, responsibility, solidarity and mutual support, and one (which he does not label but might be described as authoritarian), based upon threat, coercion or fear (p. 63).  

Restorative justice does however raise potential problems, especially in its current implementation, such as being paternalistic or not genuinely voluntary;  these may be the price paid for moving some restorative values to the centre of the justice system.  Some programmes involve police, which does not fit the original aim of reducing state involvement.  But there have been successful innovations, such as family group conferences and the South African peace committees;  Williams mentions examples from Denmark (but it is no longer running) and Austria, which works with domestic violence cases (but, like much English practice, it has no community involvement, which, given his title, one might have expected the author to mention).  

Considering how to improve the position of victims, Williams spells out how many victims are not especially punitive, but are used by politicians ‘in the service of severity’.  Some details are omitted, for example the benefits trap (large compensation awards count as ‘capital’ and victims therefore lose their means-tested state welfare benefits), and courts’ failure to give compensation orders priority over fines as the law requires; he states that ‘nowhere in Europe’ is there a system for paying compensation up-front to victims, to be paid back to the fund in instalments (pp. 94-8), but the ‘resocialization funds’ in Germany and elsewhere do just that.  Elsewhere however he shows that he writes from practical, not just theoretical, knowledge, for example about the way victim contact work was foisted on the probation service with no extra resources (pp. 107-8).  He gives examples of ‘real improvements’ in the treatment of victims, including cases of domestic violence.  

Williams concludes that some changes ostensibly to meet victims’ needs were made for political reasons, such as victim statements.  Victims of some crimes are ignored, such as corporate crimes;  he is sceptical of regulatory approaches, which he says did little for thalidomide victims, for example;  ignoring regulations can have fatal results, as with the corrupt flouting of building regulations when there is an earthquake (in Turkey), or the exploitation of Chinese cockle-pickers (in England).  He makes the point that since women trafficked for prostitution are having sex against their will, their clients are rapists and should be treated as such.  Williams ends with a challenging list of subjects needing reform, or at least research, and calls on victim support organizations to press for them.  

This book is useful not only as an introduction to the subject, with an account of the development of victim services in the last three decades, but also as a review of the current state of assistance to victims in the United Kingdom, with some welcome comparisons from abroad.  Practitioners will find some helpful suggestions and information, and it should certainly be read by policy makers and those who advise politicians.  


Martin Wright
November 2006