Victims and Criminal Justice: A History

Victims and Criminal Justice is the first study to examine the origins and impacts of legal, procedural, and institutional changes in England and Wales to encourage and govern prosecution. It explores how crime victims' experiences of and engagement with the process of criminal justice changed between the late seventeenth and late twentieth centuries, from driving the system to being firmly displaced by the state.

Format: Hardback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 07 September 2023
Publisher: Oxford University Press

Victims and Criminal Justice is a groundbreaking study that delves into the origins and consequences of significant legal, procedural, and institutional transformations introduced in England and Wales to foster and regulate prosecution. This comprehensive work explores how the experiences of crime victims and their engagement with the criminal justice system underwent a dramatic transformation between the late seventeenth and late twentieth centuries. Initially, victims played a central role in the English criminal justice system, actively participating as complainants, prosecutors, witnesses, and even offering personal rewards for the recovery of lost goods or securing convictions. However, by the end of this period, victims had been effectively marginalized as the state assumed virtually full responsibility for the prosecution process.

To unravel the complexities of this shift, the authors employ a combination of qualitative analysis of various textual sources and quantitative analysis of extensive datasets encompassing over 200,000 criminal prosecutions. Through this rigorous approach, they shed light on how victims were defined in law, the legal provisions that allowed and encouraged their involvement, their social and economic backgrounds, their participation in the criminal justice system, the factors that hindered or prevented their engagement, and the reasons behind some victims' advocacy for specific rights.

By placing current policy debates within a critical historical context, Victims and Criminal Justice provides valuable insights into the evolution of victim participation in criminal trials. It underscores the importance of understanding the historical roots of these developments to inform contemporary policy decisions and ensure that the rights and interests of crime victims are adequately protected and promoted. This study is a significant contribution to the field of criminal justice and will be of interest to scholars, policymakers, and practitioners alike.

Weight: 492g
Dimension: 147 x 223 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780192846488