New Visions of Crime Victims
This innovative collection presents original theoretical analyses and previously unpublished empirical research on criminal victimisation.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 Edited by Carolyn Hoyle and Richard Young
Centre for Criminological Research University of Oxford
HART PUBLISHING OXFORD AND PORTLAND, OREGON 2002
Published in North America (US and Canada) by Hart Publishing c/o International Specialized Book Services 5804 NE Hassalo Street Portland, Oregon 97213–3644 USA Distributed in Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg by Intersentia, Churchillaan 108 B2900 Schoten Antwerpen Belgium © The editors and contributors jointly and severally 2002 The editors and contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work. Hart Publishing is a specialist legal publisher based in Oxford, England. To order further copies of this book or to request a list of other publications please write to: Hart Publishing, Salters Boatyard, Folly Bridge, Abingdon Rd, Oxford, OX1 4LB Telephone: 44 (0)1865 245533 Fax: 44 (0) 1865 794882 email:
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Preface The idea for this book stemmed from the development of new insights into the phenomenon of criminal victimisation by postgraduate students at the universities of Oxford (Heather Hamill, Stephanie Allen), Birmingham (Ann Grady) and Bristol (Jo Winter). Whilst the data collected through their doctoral research was fascinating in its own right, this body of work also interrogated standard concepts and theories used in talking about, or analysing, crime victims. We saw the book as providing an outlet for these ‘new voices’. In addition, we wanted to include some more explicitly theoretical challenges to stereotypical representations of crime victims. The two most established academics in this volume (Paul Rock and Andrew Sanders) have a long-time inter