Book Review: Victims in the War on crime: The use and abuse of victims’ rights
| Author | Jennifer L. Culbert |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| DOI | 10.1177/146247450500700117 |
| Published date | 01 January 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Chen translate Western thought through their own creative process one learns about
both the Chinese world view and the collective assumptions of the West. We see what
Chinese who were running prisons were reading. Demonstrating the reality of the
circumstances of the people who were there, working within the system, is a very effec-
tive method.
Criminology can be a dangerous game. As the person at Harvard Law School who,
upon the death of Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, was asked to deal with the collections
of research compiled by this famous couple, I became familiar with how a scholarly
pursuit once viewed as central to the research enterprise, in the Gluecks’s case the
identification of criminals through the study of physical characteristics, can pass not
only out of the mainstream of scholarship but right out of social acceptability. Wrestling
with the meaning of criminality, the role of punishment and the reality of prisons is a
subject loaded at each step. By moving these assumptions through the periods covered
by late Q’ing China right up until 1949, one sees a panoply of theories and actions.
Instead of making matters hopelessly complex, China’s wild swings seem to bring ideas
into sharper focus. The book was quite satisfying.
Professor Dikotter also writes clear, readable prose. While readability is hardly a
requirement for a powerful research effort, it is much appreciated. The range of his
scholarship also impresses. The array of areas covered by author far outstrips my ability
to judge the whole but whenever he wandered into an area where I had real knowledge
of what he was discussing he showed strength and insight. His careful footnoting and
his wide variety of source materials are equally impressive.
The book also has an extensive bibliography, a good index and a very helpful char-
acter index. It is a well-built vehicle for a journey through tumultuous times and thorny
topics. I recommend it highly for anyone interested in any of its four themes.
Robert C. Berring
Boalt Hall School of Law
University of California, Berkeley, USA
Victims in the war on crime: The use and abuse of victims’ rights, Markus Dirk Dubber.
New York: New York University Press, 2002. 397 pp. $50. ISBN 0814719287 (hbk).
In Victims in the war on crime, law professor Markus Dubber criticizes the role of victims
in the existing criminal justice system and argues that the victims’ rights movement has
played into the hands of a rapacious state concerned with nothing more than the expan-
sion of its own power. At the same time, Dubber is sympathetic to victims’ claims and
proposes nothing less than a revision of US criminal law so that these claims may take
their proper place at the center of the criminal justice system. As he elaborates, Dubber
critiques the war on crime and challenges us to honor a concept of the person that ulti-
mately legitimates the democratic state and its acts of governance.
Victims in the War on Crime is divided into two parts. In Part I Dubber draws on a
variety of legal and political documents to demonstrate that the war on crime is intended
not to protect people from harm but to eliminate any behavior that disrupts the rules
and regulations experts have created to protect the interests of ‘society’. These interests,
Dubber claims, are ultimately defined by the state and reflect nothing but the state’s
BOOK REVIEWS
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