The Victim in Criminal Law and Justice

Utilizing Foucault's genealogical method, this book traces the development of the victim from feudal law, arguing that the historical power of the victim to police, prosecute and punish offenders informed the modern criminal law and justice system. This book advocates the victim as an agent of change, a new perspective for today's justice system.

'Confronting superficial accounts that regard the victim as coming to be excluded from modern criminal justice, Kirchengast argues that the victim has always participated in power relations that form criminal justice as we know it. This work directly challenges taken for granted assumptions about the state as the author of what we now recognize as criminal justice, and reveals the genealogical process through which the victim became the constitutive ghost in the machine. The implications of this for understanding criminal justice in the present are far reaching .' - Dr Pat O'Malley, Carleton University, Canada

'...the book is written in an engaging and accessible style. Certainly, the author is to be commended in putting forward a powerful and original analysis in his application of Foucault's 'genealogical method' to the history of the crime victim.' - Jonathan Doak, British Journal of Criminology, Vol 48, no 1, January 2008

'By retracing the role of the victim in the story of criminal justice Kirchengast offers us something admirably ambitious.' - Stephen Riley, Internet Law Book Reviews

Auteur
TYRONE KIRCHENGAST is a Solicitor and Barrister and an Associate Lecturer in Law, Macquarie University, Australia. His research focuses on various facets of criminal justice, including victims of crime, law and governance, and the development of institutions of criminal law and justice.

Texte du rabat

Utilizing Foucault's genealogical method, this book traces the development of the victim from feudal law, arguing that the historical power of the victim to police, prosecute and punish offenders informed the modern criminal law and justice system. This book advocates the victim as an agent of change, a new perspective for today's justice system.

Contenu
The Victim as Concept Private Prosecution Public Prosecution Police Prisons, Penalty and Punishment The Erosion of the Victim and the Rise of State Power from 1600 Emergence of the Victim Rights Movement Relocating the Victim in Common Law and Statute The Victim as an Agent of Criminal Law and Justice Notes