Are victims of crime destined to have the rest of their lives shaped by the crimes they've experienced? ("What happened to the road map for living the rest of my life?" asks a woman whose mother was murdered.) Will victims of crime always be bystanders in the justice system? ("We're having a problem forgiving the judge and the system," says the father of a young man killed in prison.) Is it possible for anyone to transcend such a comprehensively destructive, identity altering occurrence? ("I thought, I'm going to run until I'm not angry anymore," expresses a woman who was assaulted.) Howard Zehr presents the portraits and the courageous stories of 39 victims of violent crime in Transcending: Reflections of Crime Victims. Many of these people were twice-wounded: once at the hands of an assailant; the second time by the courts, where there is no legal provision for a victim's participation. "My hope," says Zehr, "is that this book might hand down a rope to others who have experienced such tragedies and traumas, and that it might allow all who read it to live on the healing edge."

This book explores victims’ views of plea negotiations and the level of input that they desire. It draws on the empirical findings of the first in-depth study of victims and plea negotiations conducted in Australia. Over the last 50 years, the criminal justice system has seen major changes in both the role that victims play in the justice process and in how the vast majority of criminal cases are finalised. Guilty pleas have become the norm, and many of these result from negotiations between the prosecutor and the defence. The extent to which the victim is one of the participating parties in plea negotiations however, is a question of law and of practice. Drawing from focus groups and surveys with victims of crime, Victims and Plea Negotiations seeks to privilege victims’ voices and lived experiences of plea negotiations, to present their perspectives on five options for enhanced participation in this legal process. This book appeals to academics and students in the areas of law, criminology, sociology, victimology and legal studies, those who practice in the criminal justice system generally, those who work with victims, and policy makers.

Restorative justice occupies an important place in criminological literature and criminal justice policies and is about facilitating communication between victims, offenders and communities in search of conciliation. Research shows that victims of crime are generally highly satisfied with their participation in a restorative intervention, such as victim-offender mediation, family group conferencing and victim-offender encounters. In order to maintain good restorative practice, the reasons why restorative justice is appreciated need to be clearly understood. In this book, Tinneke Van Camp identifies and explores the factors that contribute to victims’ appreciation of restorative practices in order to advance insight into why restorative justice works for victims. Based on original research and qualitative interviews with victims of violent crime, this book draws on procedural justice theory and socio-psychological studies and analyses how victims value restorative interventions. The findings shed a light on the factors that contribute to victim satisfaction with restorative interventions and show how they relate to procedural fairness, as well as allow an exploration of how the timing of the restorative intervention in the criminal justice proceedings affects victim appreciation. With its use of in-depth interviews and case descriptions, this book will be of interest to academics, practitioners and students alike. It will be of particular interest to those engaged in the study of victims and victim concerns, restorative justice and procedural justice.