Vengeful Victims

This book is about a group of older apartment dwellers whose lives are all about to be turned upside down in a matter of weeks. The trouble starts when a much younger crowd begin harassing the old folks on Archer lane. Every single day brings more problems as the young punks cross paths with all of the elderly victims in this modern day novel! The police just can`t seem to do a thing, so now all of the old retirees must all come together just to try and beat these thugs at their own game. Follow all of the twists and turns as each old couple plan their next move on this crazy roller coaster ride. In the end, who will prevail? Will it be the young hoodlums from down the road, or all of the old people just trying to find some peace and quiet in the short time that they still have left?

The most unlikely group of people become vigilantes after they are pushed to the breaking point.

Knowing Victims explores the theme of victimhood in contemporary feminism and politics. It focuses on popular and scholarly constructions of feminism as ‘victim feminism’ – an ideology of passive victimhood that denies women’s agency – and provides the first comprehensive analysis of the debate about this ideology which has unfolded among feminists since the 1980s. The book critically examines a movement away from the language of victimhood across a wide array of discourses, and the neoliberal replacement of the concept of structural oppression with the concept of personal responsibility. In derogating the notion of ‘victim,’ neoliberalism promotes a conception of victimization as subjective rather than social, a state of mind, rather than a worldly situation. Drawing upon Nietzsche, Lyotard, rape crisis feminism and feminist philosophy, Stringer situates feminist politicizations of rape, interpersonal violence, economic inequality and welfare reform as key sites of resistance to the victim-blaming logic of neoliberalism. She suggests that although recent feminist critiques of ‘victim feminism’ have critically diagnosed the anti-victim movement, they have not positively defended victim politics. Stringer argues that a conception of the victim as an agentic bearer of knowledge, and an understanding of resentment as a generative force for social change, provides a potent counter to the negative construction of victimhood characteristic of the neoliberal era. This accessible and insightful analysis of feminism, neoliberalism and the social construction of victimhood will be of great interest to researchers and students in the disciplines of gender and women’s studies, psychology, sociology, politics and philosophy.

Justice for Victims brings together the world’s leading scholars in the fields of study surrounding victimization in a pioneering international collection. This book focuses on the current study of victims of crime, combining both legal and social-scientific perspectives, articulating both in new directions and questioning whether victims really do have more rights in our modern world. This book offers an interdisciplinary approach, covering large-scale (political) victimization, terrorist victimization, sexual victimization and routine victimization. Split into three sections, this book provides in-depth coverage of: victims' rights, transitional justice and victims' perspectives, and trauma, resilience and justice. Victims' rights are conceptualised in the human rights framework and discussed in relation to supranational, international and regional policies. The transitional justice section covers victims of war from those caught between peace and justice, as well as post-conflict justice. The final section focuses on post-traumatic stress, connecting psychological and anthropological perceptions in analysing collective violence, mass victimization and trauma. This book addresses challenging and new issues in the field of victimology and the study of transitional and restorative justice. As such, it will be of interest to researchers, practitioners and students interested in the fields of victimology, transitional justice, restorative justice and trauma work.

'Debating Law' is a new, exciting series that gives scholarly experts the opportunity to offer contrasting perspectives on significant topics of contemporary, general interest. In this first volume of the series Carolyn Hoyle argues that communities and the state should be more restorative in responding to harms caused by crimes, antisocial behaviour and other incivilities. She supports the exclusive use of restorative justice for many non-serious offences, and favours approaches that, by integrating restorative and retributive philosophies, take restorative practices into the 'deep end' of criminal justice. While acknowledging that restorative justice appears to have much to offer in terms of criminal justice reform, Chris Cunneen offers a different account, contending that the theoretical cogency of restorative ideas is limited by their lack of a coherent analysis of social and political power. He goes on to argue that after several decades of experimentation, restorative justice has not produced significant change in the criminal justice system and that the attempt to establish it as a feasible alternative to dominant practices of criminal justice has failed. This lively and valuable debate will be of great interest to everyone interested in the criminal justice system.

In recent decades there has been a vast increase in the use of imprisonment and penal supervision, and to many this development appears to be qualitatively as well as quantitatively different. The causes of this development, its consequences and future course form the main point of departure for the contributors to this volume, who consider the changes that have contributed to these apparently fundamental shifts in the use of punishment. In this major new book contributors from a range of disciplines provide an integrated approach to a range of questions surrounding the use of punishment: In what ways have broader social institutions and processes contributed to penal expansion? This book is the principal outcome of the Guggenheim Punishment Project which aimed for a truly interdisciplinary account of thinking about punishment, and an outcome which was general and reflective rather than specific and policy oriented, and accessible to the generalist as well as those with a specialist interest in the field.

The author of this text aims to show that revenge is a required form of justice that should be incorporated into the criminal justice system. He argues that the current system disempowers those who are victims of crime, the accused, and their respective communities.