How can we best help offenders desist from crime, as well as help victims heal? This book engages with this question by offering its readers a comprehensive review of positive criminology in theory, research and practice. Positive criminology is a concept - a perspective - that places emphasis on forces of integration and social inclusion that are experienced positively by target individual and groups, and may contribute to a reduction in negative emotions, desistance from crime and overcoming the traumatic experience of victimization. In essence, positive criminology holds a more holistic view, which acknowledges that thriving and disengagement from distress, addiction, mental illness, crime, deviance or victimization might be fostered more effectively by enhancing positive emotions and experiences, rather than focusing on reducing negative attributes.

Each chapter in this book is written by key scholars in the related fields of criminology, victimology and addiction and, thus, assembles varied and extensive approaches to rehabilitation and treatment. These approaches share in common a positive criminology view, thereby enriching our understanding of the concept and other strength-based approaches to dealing with offenders and victims.

This edited book elaborates on positive criminology core ideas and assumptions; discusses related theories and innovations; and presents various benefits that this perspective can promote in the field of rehabilitation. For this reason, this book will be essential reading for those engaged in the study of criminology, criminal justice and victimology and may also assist scholars and professionals to help offenders desist from crime and improve victims' well-being.

About the Author

Natti Ronel is the Head of the Department of Criminology at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Natti is a clinical criminologist who incorporates clinical experience with research to develop theories on crime (criminal spin), recovery (Grace Therapy) and criminal justice. Natti introduced the Positive Criminology and Victimology perspectives, and is currently developing the Spiritual Criminology concept.

Dana Segev is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Criminology, Bar-Ilan University. She has published papers on parole within a communicative sentencing framework and on Therapeutic Jurisprudence. Segev holds a MSc from the University of Oxford, where she wrote her dissertation on desistance.

Reviews

'Criminology emphasises when to exclude more than how to include. This collection explores in an evocative way the alternatives of growth by caring, of picking strengths and expanding them rather than picking weaknesses and fixing them. Rich essays give helpful glimpses of how it is possible to expand capacities in ways that transform incapacities like criminal predation on others. It is a generative process and this is a generative book about obstacles becoming opportunities that grow resilience. We learn that the more important thing about "wounded healers" is not that they are wounded (the negative) but that they heal (the positive).' - John Braithwaite, Distinguished Professor, Australian National University, Australia

'This book provides fascinating reading for professionals who aspire to promote human dignity in the framework of criminal justice. The editors have succeeded in presenting a collection of essays convincingly explaining why the concept of positive criminology can contribute to that goal.' - Dr. Marc Groenhuijsen, President, World Society of Victimology

'What if criminology and criminal justice systems moved away from an obsession with punishment, retribution, social isolation, and shaming and focused instead on compassion, strengths, and reconciliation? Would not such a system be transformative? This groundbreaking book, Positive Criminology, in fact, is transformative itself; it is a must-read for criminologists, addictions counsellors, social workers, and researchers in the field.

Positive Criminology turns our attention away from the negative in criminology and victimology and provides a new way of thinking about crime, victimization, and criminal justice. Editors Natti Ronel and Dana Segev have assembled in this fascinating volume the most innovative theorists and practitioners from across the globe and in diverse professions to show the power of goodness and a restorative-strengths orientation as applied to people in trouble with the law and to criminal justice institutions. This is the book, that, without even realizing it, I have been waiting for. Other sociologists and criminologists, no doubt, will say this is the book they have been waiting for too.' - Katherine van Wormer, Professor of Social Work, University of Northern Iowa, USA

Book Information
ISBN 9781138288454
Author Natti Ronel
Format Paperback
Page Count 380
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 544g