Imagining Justice

This book approaches political demands for reconciliation from the perspective of postcolonial literary criticism and theory, demonstrating that reading can have potentially radical social and political effects.--From book jacket.

Imagining Justice seeks to move away from normative thinking about justice, particularly in the area of justice education, suggesting that what is needed today is a way to think about the enterprise of justice that will capture its full potential. By providing an introduction to the intellectual potential of the field of justice, we can acknowledge that the field is wider than formerly recognized, and ultimately imagine the full richness that justice can encompass. Outstanding Book Award Winner of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. The author leads the reader on a fascinating excursion through the literatures of mainstream criminology and criminal justice, but more importantly he weaves into the discussion insights from anthropology, history, philosophy, organization studies, multiculturalism, feminism, and much more.

"The situation in Syria poses an acute-some might say existential-challenge to the international community's commitment to justice and accountability. It also marks the abject failure of the international system of peace and security erected in the post-World War II period. The Security Council has been almost entirely incapacitated by the propensity of Russia to wield its veto against nearly every coercive measure of any consequence, including legal accountability, that might be imposed on the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. As a result, other actors, within and outside of the United Nations, have endeavored to find inventive ways around this geopolitical impasse. This forced creativity has generated a number of innovative institutions, legal arguments, and investigative techniques aimed at advancing justice and accountability for Syria, wherever possible. This book catalogues the many obstacles to this pursuit of justice for Syria and analyzes ways today's justice entrepreneurs have worked to find paths around them. The book's subtitle-Water Always Finds Its Way-reflects this idea that the quest for justice is inexorable. Just as water eventually finds its way through cracks and around obstacles, even if at a trickle, so too will justice. Virtually every international crime that forms part of the international penal code-a mélange of customary international law and treaty provisions-has been committed in and around Syria. The Syrian people have witnessed and been subjected to deliberate, indiscriminate, and disproportionate attacks; the misuse of conventional, unconventional, and improvised weapon systems; industrial-grade custodial abuses in a vast network of formal and informal prisons; unrelenting siege warfare; the denial of humanitarian aid and what appears to be the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war; sexual violence, including the sexual enslavement of Yezidi women and girls trafficked from Iraq and the sexual torture of detained men and boys; and the intentional destruction of irreplaceable cultural property. Thousands of Syrians are missing, many of them victims of enforced disappearances. Even children are not spared. The long-standing taboo against the use of chemical weapons has been repeatedly flouted in ways that constitute a double violation of IHL: the use of a prohibited weapon to target civilians. And, the sectarian nature of the violence has raised the specter of genocide against ethno-religious minorities. Indeed, then-Secretary of State John Kerry announced in 2016 that ISIL was committing genocide against a number of minority groups in Syria and Iraq. Violence in the region has contributed to the biggest exodus of refugees since World War II"--

Even for violent crime, justice should mean more than punishment. By paying close attention to the relational harms suffered by victims, this book develops a concept of relational justice for survivors, offenders and community. Relational justice looks beyond traditional rules of legal responsibility to include the social and emotional dimensions of human experience, opening the way for a more compassionate, effective and just response to crime. The book’s chapters follow a journey from victim experiences of violence to community healing from violence. Early chapters examine the relational harms inflicted by the worst wrongs, the moral responsibility of wrongdoers and common mistakes made in judging wrongdoing. Particular attention is paid here to sexual violence. The book then moves to questions of just punishment: proper sentencing by judges, mandatory sentences approved by the public, and the realities of contemporary incarceration, focusing particularly on solitary confinement and sexual violence. In its remaining chapters, the book looks at changes brought by the victims' rights movement and victim needs that current law does not, and perhaps cannot meet. It then addresses possibilities for offender change and challenges for majority America in addressing race discrimination in criminal justice. The book concludes with a look at how individuals might live out the ideals of a greater—relational—justice. Chapter 10 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Imagining Justice seeks to move away from normative thinking about justice, particularly in the area of justice education, suggesting that what is needed today is a way to think about the enterprise of justice that will capture its full potential. By providing an introduction to the intellectual potential of the field of justice, we can acknowledge that the field is wider than formerly recognized, and ultimately imagine the full richness that justice can encompass.

Drawing on critical and theoretical material by thinkers as diverse as Jacques Derrida, Frantz Fanon, Mahatma Ghandi, and Julia Kristeva, Julie McGonegal supplements indigenous models and approaches with those produced within Euro American discourse. In the process, she develops an understanding of forgiveness and reconciliation based on the interventive power of literature. Through insightful readings of four novels, McGonegal demonstrates the ways in which literature can create the conditions that make processes of postcolonial reconciliation possible.

Presents a collection of essays and practical advice, including lesson plans and activities, to promote writing in all aspects of the curriculum.