Understanding Victims and Restorative Justice; Understanding Homicide
Abstract
Joint Review J. Dignan Understanding Victims and Restorative Justice Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2005, no price stated hbk, no price stated pbk (ISBN: 0 335 20979 3), 238 pp. F. Brookman Understanding Homicide London: Sage Publications, 2005, no price stated hbk, no price stated pbk (ISBN: 0 7619 4755 8), x+358 pp. Reviewed by Nicoletta Policek, Centre for Genocide and Conflict, Edinburgh In recent years there has been a considerable broadening of the academic discourse in relation to the emergence of a victim-focused agenda within contemporary crim- inal justice policies. Also, the emergence of a fairly distinctive set of practices known as 'restorative justice', means that it is much more straightforward to make value judgments about the nature of the conventional criminal justice system. This is in summary the topic discussed by Dignan's Understanding Victims and Restorative Justice (2005). The term 'restorative justice', however, as the author superbly argues, encom- passes a certain degree of confusion in relation to its definition. Most scholars would agree that the term applies to practices such as victimoffender mediation, various forms of conferencing and circle sentencing; however, the term has also been applied to a variety of other practices by both followers