Ideal Victims, Offenders and Communities

This presentation explores how the main crime stakeholders (victim, offender and community) are represented within policy and legal statutes on restorative justice, with a  focus on England and Wales. The paper starts by sketching out the most recurrent normative representations of the victim, offender and community, and unearthing their theoretical underpinnings. The goal is to identify a range of typified features and to assemble them together by profiling the ‘ideal stakeholders’ of restorative justice. The next step consists of a comparison between the ‘ideal’ victim, offender and community, pinpointing any overlaps and differences. Finally, the paper tentatively interrogates the cultural context within which these representations have emerged historically, influencing policy and laws. By way of reconstructing and discussing what actually gets articulated in legal/policy documents on restorative justice (versus debating what we want restorative justice to be), the aim of this work is to foster critical reflection on the normative dimension of a popular development of western penal policies.

Giuseppe has a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Florence, as well as professional certificates in Mediation, Conflict Management and Restorative Justice awarded by a number of institutions (NCRCUniv. of Bologna; IPSI & The John Hopkins University (SAIS); Humboldt Universitat of Berlin). He has carried out socio-legal research on RJ, prison and welfare state, urban security and intercultural conflict management, and is currently a lecturer in at Napier University, Edinburgh.