Daniel W. Van Ness analyzes the problems that make our criminal justice system ineffective, expensive and unjust. And he offers a concrete proposal for reform to benefit both offenders and victims. Foreword by Chuck Colson.

Criminals and Victims presents an economic analysis of decisions made by criminals and victims of crime before, during, and after a crime or victimization occurs. Its main purpose is to illustrate how the application of analytical tools from economics can help us to understand the causes and consequences of criminal and victim choices, aiding efforts to deter or reduce the consequences of crime. By examining these decisions along a logical timeline over which crimes take place, we can begin to think more clearly about how policy effects change when it is targeted at specific decisions within the body of a crime. This book differs from others by recognizing the timeline of a crime, paying particular attention to victim decisions, and examining each step in the crime cycle at the micro-level. It demonstrates that criminals plan their crimes in systematic, economically logical ways; that deterring the destruction of criminal evidence may deter crime in general; and that white-collar criminals exhibit recidivism patterns not unlike those of street criminals. It further shows that the degree of criminality in a society motivates a variety of self-protection behaviors by potential victims; that not all victim resistance makes matters worse (and some may help); and that victims who report their crimes do not receive high returns for going to the police, helping to explain why some crimes ultimately go unreported.

This book analyses the rights of crime victims within a human rights paradigm, and describes the inconsistencies resulting from attempts to introduce the procedural rights of victims within a criminal justice system that views crime as a matter between the state and the offender, and not as one involving the victim. To remedy this problem, the book calls for abandoning the concept of crime as an infringement of a state’s criminal laws and instead reinterpreting it as a violation of human rights. The state’s right to punish the offender would then be replaced by the rights of victims to see those responsible for violating their human rights convicted and punished and by the rights of offenders to be treated as accountable agents.

Most discourses on victims in international criminal justice take the subject of victims for granted, as an identity and category existing exogenously to the judicial process. This book takes a different approach. Through a close reading of the institutional practices of one particular court, it demonstrates how court practices produce the subjectivity of the victim, a subjectivity that is profoundly of law and endogenous to the enterprise of international criminal justice. Furthermore, by situating these figurations within the larger aspirations of the court, the book shows how victims have come to constitute and represent the link between international criminal law and the enterprise of transitional justice. The book takes as its primary example the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), or the Khmer Rouge Tribunal as it is also called. Focusing on the representation of victims in crimes against humanity, victim participation and photographic images, the book engages with a range of debates and scholarship in law, feminist theory and cultural legal theory. Furthermore, by paying attention to a broader range of institutional practices, Figuring Victims makes an innovative scholarly contribution to the debates on the roles and purposes of international criminal justice.

A critical examination of the dramatic changes in criminal justice over the last two decades and the first full-length study of the law and politics of criminal justice in the era of the Charter and victims? rights.

This book examines a victim-offender dialogue program that offers victims of severe violence an opportunity to meet face-to-face with their incarcerated offenders. Using interview data, it follows the harrowing stories of crime and violence, ultimately moving beyond story-telling to provide both an accessible analysis of restorative justice and evidence that the program has significantly helped the victims. It also looks at how the program has impacted offenders, many of whom have also experienced positive changes in their lives in terms of creating greater accountability and greater victim empathy.

This edition includes newly contributed and updated articles utilizing the latest research and studies in the areas of violence, abuse, and victims' rights from experts in the field. It has a stronger focus on emerging issues and policies in the field of victimology than other comparable texts. It utilizes the latest research and studies in the areas of violence, abuse, and victims, rights. It focuses on the emerging issues and policies in the fields of victim rights and crime prevention. New 3 Part organization with the more common victimizing crimes first, followed by responses to victimizations, and then newer issues and types of victimizations in Part 3. There is a new chapters on human trafficking and cyber crime. There is a major expansion of the human services response and school victimizations. It is updated throughout with new data and research.

'Focusing on key issues, themes and concepts within victimology, this edited collection provides an accessible and comprehensive critical analysis of crucial areas within victimisation. The main theories are related to, and integrated with, empirical research in an engaging style.' - Dr Anette Ballinger, Keele University 'This book achieves the rare feat of helping its readers without patronising them. The aids to the reader - tables, boxes, glossaries, questions, and suggestions for further reading - will prove genuinely helpful to students and their teachers, but they appear within a text that is theoretically informed as well as comprehensive and up to date in its coverage. It deserves to be widely read and used in the teaching of criminology, victimology, and criminal justice' - Professor David Smith, University of Lancaster, UK. Organized around the intersecting social divisions of class, race, age and gender, the book provides an engaging and authoritative overview of the nature of victimisation in society. In addition to a review of the major theoretical developments in relation to understanding aspects of victimization in society, individual chapters explore the political and social context of victimisation and the historical, comparative and contemporary research and scholarly work on it. Each chapter includes the following: - Background and glossary - Theory, research and policy review - `Thinking critically about...' sections - Reflections and future research directions - Summary and conclusions - Annotated bibliography Victims, Crime and Society is the essential text on victims for students of criminology, criminal justice, community safety, youth justice and related areas.

"Don't blame the victim" is a cornerstone maxim of Anglo-American jurisprudence, but should the law generally ignore a victim's behavior in determining a defendant's liability? Victims' Rights and Victims' Wrongs criticizes the current criminal law approach and outlines a more fair, coherent, and efficient set of rules to recognize that victims sometimes co-author their own losses or injuries. Evaluating a number of controversial cases involving euthanasia, sadomasochism, date rape, battered wives, and "innocent" aggressors, Vera Bergelson builds a theoretical foundation for reform. Her approach to comparative criminal liability takes into account the actions of both the perpetrator and the victim and offers a unitary explanation for consent, self-defense, and provocation. This innovative book supplies a practical and coherent mechanism for evaluating the impact of a victim's conduct on a perpetrator's liability in a variety of circumstances, including those that are now artificially excluded from comparative analysis.