Embodied victims: An archaeology of the ‘ideal victim’ of restorative justice
| Author | Giuseppe Maglione |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895816677172 |
| Published date | 01 September 2017 |
| Date | 01 September 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2016
Article
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2017, Vol. 17(4) 401 –417
Embodied victims: An
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895816677172
DOI: 10.1177/1748895816677172
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victim’ of restorative justice
Giuseppe Maglione
Edinburgh Napier University, UK
Abstract
This article seeks to provide a historical-critical framework to reconstruct and discuss how the
crime victim is portrayed within theoretical literature, policy and legal documents on restorative
justice, with an emphasis on England and Wales. It first centres on a description of the most
deep-rooted and wide-ranging discourses on the victim’s characteristics within restorative
justice. Once these features have been organized into an ‘ideal’ model, the article traces the
conditions which fed into its development, that is, the cultural context within which this model
has emerged. The overall goal is not to test the ‘ideal victim’ within restorative justice, but rather
to explore how this methodological tool, within a historical and critical approach, might help to
shed light on some taken-for-granted assumptions of restorative justice and their legal, policy and
practical implications, thus contributing to the critical assessment of this acclaimed “new frontier”
of contemporary penality.
Keywords
Archaeology, conditions of possibility, ideal victim, Michel Foucault, restorative justice
Introduction
A recurrent explanation of the emergence of restorative justice (RJ) is that this way of
thinking and doing justice has emerged as a response to the needs of the neglected party
in criminal proceedings, that is, the victim (Braithwaite, 1999; Green, 2007; Johnstone,
2011; Walgrave, 2003; Zehr, 2002). Whereas restorative practices were initially more
focused on (youth) offenders’ needs (Eglash, 1977; Pemberton, Winkel and Groenhuijsen,
Corresponding author:
Giuseppe Maglione, Edinburgh Napier University, Sighthill Campus, Edinburgh, EH11 4BN, UK.
Email: G.Maglione@napier.ac.uk
402
Criminology & Criminal Justice 17(4)
2007; Shapland et al., 2006a), in RJ today the victim is promoted to a new, central role
(Dignan, 2005; Liebmann, 2007; Wright, 1996). Indeed, this elevation of the role of
victims is a distinctive feature of RJ, perhaps the main difference with respect to “con-
ventional” criminal justice (Pemberton, Winkel and Groenhuijsen, 2007; Walgrave,
2003; Zehr, 2002).
A fair number of academic analyses of the representations of the victim within RJ are
available, some of them particularly valuable for their critical edge (Bolivar, 2010;
Cunneen, 2010; Green, 2007, 2008; Pemberton, Winkel and Groenhuijsen, 2007, 2008;
Van Dijk, 2009). However, these contributions are lacking a clear conceptual outline of
the victim’s identity within RJ (with the very partial exception of Pemberton, Winkel and
Groenhuijsen, 2007 and Van Dijk, 2009), while methodologically, they are all character-
ized by the absence or limited presence of a historical perspective. Through an approach
informed by Foucauldian archaeology (Foucault, 1970, 1972) this work tackles these
two deficiencies in the critical literature. The article begins with a short review of the
available critical appraisals of the victim’s position within RJ. Then, as a first step of the
archaeological work, it reconstructs and analyses the set of ‘authoritative discourses’ (i.e.
the archive) on the victim within RJ (Maglione, 2013), focusing on a specific geo-histor-
ical context (England and Wales between 1980 and 2015). The outcome of this investiga-
tion is the identification of a range of stereotyped victim features, which will be organized
into a relatively coherent ideal model (Christie, 1986a). The next step consists of tracing
back the history of the ‘ideal victim’ in RJ, identifying and examining its cultural under-
pinnings. Some implications and concluding remarks are also offered. Overall, the pur-
pose of this enquiry is to enable a critical reflection on what is considered “natural”
within RJ (e.g. the victim’s identity), stimulating a close analysis of its taken-for-granted
theoretical foundations.
There are three main limitations to the research. The first is of a geographical nature,
insofar as a distinctive emphasis is placed upon England and Wales. As it will emerge,
however, in order to fully appreciate the ‘ideal victim’ of RJ within this particular geo-
graphical setting, an examination of the North American (particularly US) theoretical
literature on RJ also has to be carried out (Marshall, 1996: 23; Marshall and Merry, 1990:
7; Newburn, 1995: 232). Second, the article considers only RJ involving adults within
criminal justice settings and applied through victim–offender mediation.1 Lastly, this
work is a theoretical elaboration on historical material and as such it runs the risk of
being at times abstract and over-generalizing. That said, the main goal is to refine and
apply certain analytical and conceptual tools (e.g. archaeology and ‘ideal victim’), fos-
tering critical scholarship on RJ. This will accordingly entail a relatively high level of
abstraction and generalization, hopefully “compensated” by the generativity (Gergen,
2009) and critical edge (Foucault, 1996) of the approach used.
Critical Appraisals on the Victim in Restorative Justice: A
Literature Review
The stereotyped victim within RJ has been already considered by a limited number of
scholars, mainly from critical victimological and criminological perspectives. Crucial
issues within these accounts are the concept of ‘victim’s needs’, the overlaps between the
Maglione
403
‘ideal victim’ of “conventional” criminal justice and that of RJ and the epistemological
limitations of the definitions of victim within RJ.
As Bolivar (2010: 241) has noticed ‘the inclusion of needs in RJ literature and the
issue of victimization suggest two postulates: every victimization creates needs and
meeting such needs is the only way to restore the well-being which has been lost’. She
goes on stating that ‘[i]n this regard, the question arises whether it is possible to reduce
the definition of victimization to the concept of needs and, if so, which kind of needs we
are referring to here’ (Bolivar, 2010: 241). The needs that RJ seems to consider are
mainly the victims’ ‘expressed needs’ (Kettner et al., 1999 in Bolivar, 2010: 242), that is,
demands put forth within criminal proceedings. As Bolivar (2010: 242) further remarks,
Needs refers […] to an approach which focuses on the ways to reach well-being, more than on
the damage itself. In other words, it intends to create solutions and strategies. […] However, the
approach seems to be limited to victims who have recognized their own victim status and,
consequently […] to those who might already be on their way to recovery.
A similar concern is shared by De Mesmaecker (2010), who explicitly raises the ques-
tion whether this ‘ideal victim’ of RJ represents all victims, because if it does not, RJ
risks excluding some victims from its programmes.
In a different, mainly historical, perspective, Van Dijk (2009) observes that the label
of ‘victim’ consistently recalls, in western languages, the idea of a sacrificed individual
for religious reasons. By applying the label of ‘victim’, we assign a social role of passiv-
ity, compassion and forgiveness (Van Dijk, 2009: 7). Van Dijk highlights how, also in RJ,
the victim’s label seems to be loaded with the same qualities of passivity and forgiveness,
critically remarking on the gap between empirical work on victims’ attitudes and the
‘sacred texts’ of RJ (2009: 22). The foudational texts on RJ, in fact, have seemingly
ignored the available data on what crime victims want and who they are, perpetuating a
‘socially constructed’ idea of victim (Van Dijk, 2009: 22). He then argues for a paradoxi-
cal similarity between the ‘ideal victim’ of criminal law and the one of RJ: in both cases
a social construction that entails passivity, elicits compassion and has a forgiving dispo-
sition. In a similar way to Van Dijk, Pemberton, Winkel and Groenhuijsen (2007) aim to
provide RJ scholars and practitioners with a psychologically informed set of insights on
crime victims’ needs, which might then empirically substantiate the often sweeping
statements about victims made by RJ scholars. Here, the snapshot of the ‘ideal victim’ of
RJ they elaborate is of particular relevance: ‘it is forgiving, not punitive, more interested
in compensation than punishment, and symbolic compensation at that, part of the same
community as the offender, not afraid of the offender, wanting and capable of full partici-
pation in the case’ (Pemberton, Winkel and Groenhuijsen, 2007: 5).
Cunneen (2010) and Green (2008) offer a highly theoretical and critical reflection on
the RJ language when it comes to the victim’s representation. In Cunneen’s perspective,
victims and offenders are legal subjects who do not exist in a natural state separated from
the social characteristics through which individuals live their lives (Cunneen, 2010: 132).
To be a ‘victim’ or an ‘offender’ takes on meaning only in the context of social relations
between people and within the broader institutions of society. In RJ instead, ‘victim’ (as
well as ‘offender’) is often understood as an uncomplicated and...
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