Towards a Critical Victimology

Towards a Critical Victimology offers a serious challenge to the law and order perspective on victims' rights and the false contest that is usually created between those rights and the rights of offenders. It sheds light on the way victim initiatives emerged, the timing of those initiatives, their seemingly ulterior motives, and the political interests they are meant to serve.

Acknowledgements - List of Contributors - Preface - Prologue: The Need for a Critical Victimology; E.A.Fattah - PART 1: CRITICAL VIEWS ON VICTIMOLOGY AND VICTIM POLICY - Victims and Victimology: The Facts and the Rhetoric; E.A.Fattah - Research Implications of Conflicting Conceptions of Victimology; D.R.Cressey - Which Victim Movement? The Politics of Victim Policy; R.Elias - The Wrongs of Victim's Rights; L.N.Henderson - PART 2: CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE VICTIM'S ROLE IN THE JUSTICE PROCESS - The Victim's Role in the Penal Process: A Theoretical Orientation; L.Sebba - The Victim's Role in the Penal Process: Recent Developments in California; D.R.Ranish & D.Shichor - Victim Particpation in Sentencing Proceedings; H.C.Rubel - The Alleged Molestation Victim, The Rules of Evidence, and the Constitution: Should Children Really be Seen not Heard?; T.L.Feher - PART 3: INITIATIVES TO HELP VICTIMS OF CRIME: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL - Placebo Justice: Victim Recommendations and Offender Sentences in Sexual Assault Cases; A.Walsh - The Victim/Offender Reconciliation Program: A Message to Correctional Reformers; T.Dittenhoffer & R.V.Ericson - Restitution as Innovation or Unfilled Promise?; B.Galaway - Community Control, Criminal Justice and Victim Services; R.Elias - Epilogue: The United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power: A Constructive Critique - Index