Understanding victims and restorative justice.

Source: (2006) Criminal Justice and Behavior. 33(3): 411-414.

Restorative justice has received a great deal of attention from scholars in
recent years, and there has been a spate of books published on the subject.
Some of them have been edited compilations of conference proceedings
or collections of papers by authors covering various aspects of the field.
James Dignan’s book is a particularly important contribution to this literature
because it approaches restorative justice from the perspective of victims.
Given the concerns that restorative justice has been driven more by
the needs of offenders than victims, Dignan’s book is a very useful exploration
of the potential contribution of restorative justice to victims. As the
author correctly notes at the outset, developments in victimology and
restorative justice have proceeded largely in parallel with little understanding
of the relationship between them. This volume seeks to rectify this
shortcoming and succeeds admirably. (Excerpt).