New Visions of Crime Victims (PDF)

This innovative collection presents original theoretical analyses and previously unpublished empirical research on criminal victimisation. Following an overview of the development and deficiencies of victimology,subsequent chapters present more detailed challenges to stereotypical conceptions of victimisation through their focus on: male victims of domestic violence; victims of male-on-male rape; corporate victims; and the 'victim-offenders' who are the recipients of IRA punishment beatings. The second half of the book considers criminal justice responses to victimisation, focusing in particular on the potential of, and limits to, restorative justice, the social (and gendered) construction of the victim within contested trials and the exclusionary nature of current 'victim-centred' initiatives. This important book will further the debate on how we conceptualise victims as well as their appropriate role within the criminal justice system.

New Visions of Crime Victims will be of interest to academics, students, criminal justice practitioners and policy-makers. It has particular implications for scholarship in the fields of victimology, restorative justice and feminist approaches to criminology and criminal justice. The integration of work by established criminologists, such as Carolyn Hoyle, Paul Rock, Andrew Sanders and Richard Young with that of young, previously unpublished scholars, makes for an interesting and stimulating book. As well as being a valuable addition to the literature, it can be used to support undergraduate and postgraduate courses in criminal justice and criminology.