Imaging victims, offenders and communities. An investigation into the representations of the crime stakeholders within restorative justice and their cultural context

This work is a critical analysis of how the main crime stakeholders (victim, offender and community) are represented within policy and legal statutes on restorative justice. The paper starts by sketching out the legal and policy archive of restorative justice, focussing on the most recurrent normative representations of the victim, offender and community, and unearthing their theoretical underpinnings. The goal is to identify a range of typified features and to assemble them together by profiling the ‘ideal stakeholders’ of restorative justice. The research includes a comparison between the ‘ideal’ victim, offender and community, pinpointing any overlaps and differences. Finally, it interrogates the cultural context within which these representations have emerged historically, influencing policy and laws. By way of reconstructing and discussing what is taken for granted in restorative justice and its background, the aim of the work is to foster critical reflection on the normative dimension of a popular development of western penal policies.