Towards a Critical Victimology

Offering a challenge to the law and order perspective on victims' rights and the false contest that is usually created between those rights and the rights of offenders, this book sheds light on the ways in which victim initiatives emerged, the timing of those initiatives, their seemingly ulterior motives and the political interests they are meant to serve. In so doing, this book separates the facts from the rhetoric and unveils the hollowness of many of the slogans often used in the "struggle" for victims rights.;This book further demonstrates that most of the supposedly innovative measures designed to improve the lot of crime victims are at best unfilled promises and at worst political palliatives and judicial placebos. Finally, this book offers a critique of recent developments in victimology, in particular the shift from a scholary stance to a lobbying posture. It also highlights the dangers of the missionary zeal exhibited by some victimologists in the interest of crime victims.