Informal Justice

The Politics of Informal Justice

Informal forms of justice such as mediation have been greeted enthusiastically as progress from the punishment model of justice -- and criticised as broadening rather than narrowing the reach of the criminal justice system. Here the contributors assess the evidence and re-appraise the theory of informalism.

Informal Justice in Divided Societies examines the ways in which paramilitary and vigilante activity are linked with controlling community crime in both Northern Ireland and South Africa. Drawing upon original research, Colin Knox and Rachel Monaghan analyze the agents of informal justice, its victims and why communities endorse this form of retribution. They conclude the book with a wider debate of the abuse of human rights suffered by many victims of community crime and tentatively highlight future policy implications.

Informal Reckonings is a critical examination of mediation, restorative justice and reparations and how they reinforce yet potentially transform the formal justice system.

This title was first published in 2002: This volume explores conceptual debates and provides contemporary research in the field of informal criminal justice, including chapters on paramilitary "punishment" and post-cease-fire restorative justice schemes in Northern Ireland, post-apartheid vigilantism in South Africa, and informal crime management in England.

How do ordinary people experience and make sense of the informal justice system? Drawing on original data with British and German users of Ombudsmen— an important institution of informal justice, Naomi Creutzfeldt offers a nuanced comparative answer to this question. In so doing, she takes current debates on procedural justice and legal consciousness forward. This book explores consciousness around ‘alternatives’ to formal legality and asks how situated assumptions about law and fairness guide people's understandings of the informal justice system. Creutzfeldt shows that the everyday relationship that people have with the informal justice system is shaped by their experiences and expectations of the formal legal system and its agents. This book is an innovative theoretical and empirical statement about the future prospects for informal justice in Europe.