Why have many victim-centred policy initiatives met with so little success? How have those initiatives unfolded differently in different global jurisdictions over different periods of time? This book aims to address these questions.

Building on a major research project exploring victims' access to justice over time and place, Victims' Access to Justice considers the potentialities for victims' participation in criminal justice systems and in victim programmes both in historical and comparative context. It considers a range of topics: ways of identifying and accommodating victims' needs and senses of justice; the impacts for criminal justice systems of seeking to accommodate these; and the ways in which adversarial criminal justice systems, in particular, may enable or inhibit victim participation.

This is essential reading for all those engaged in understanding and working with victims of crime.

About the Author

Pamela Cox is Professor in Sociology at the University of Essex, UK.

Sandra Walklate is Eleanor Rathbone Chair of Sociology at the University of Liverpool, UK.

Reviews

Victims' Access to Justice: Historical and Comparative Perspectives provides an important and valuable contribution to our understanding of victim participation in criminal justice mechanisms across a wide range of jurisdictions with varied legal systems and political and social traditions. A key strength of this book is its comparative historical and contemporary view of the politicisation of and State responses to crime victims against a background of wars, terrorism, settler colonial violence, and gender violence. This excellent collection draws on perspectives of diverse cultural, geographical and historical contexts to analyse the different trajectories of [some] victims' access to justice as well as the factors that inhibit victim participation. In doing so, this book opens up problems and possibilities for scrutiny and reflection, enhancing the potential for improved policy responses to victims of crime more generally.

Tracey Booth, Professor in Law Health Justice, University of Technology, Sydney

This instructive collection of essays explores how crime victims' responses to the measures that different jurisdictions employ in response to their experience may vary over and through time, and according to their scope. Anyone with an interest in the impact of such measures will find much of value here.

Emeritus Professor David Miers, University of Cardiff

Book Information
ISBN 9780367750435
Author Pamela Cox
Format Paperback
Page Count 234
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 458g