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Comment On Using Criminal Punishment To Serve Both Victim And Social Needs, John O. Haley
Comment On Using Criminal Punishment To Serve Both Victim And Social Needs, John O. Haley
Law and Contemporary Problems
Haley comments on the argument underlying the article by Erin Ann O'Hara and Maria Mayo Robbins, which emphasizes on victim-offender mediation (VOM). By expanding the frame of reference, restorative justice can be defined as a paradigm whose scope encompasses more than VOM and whose emphasis includes the needs of society and offenders as well as victims. Restorative justice involves a wide variety of processes and programs that are more apt to restore both those who commit and those who suffer wrongs. It includes children at risk programs, drug courts, violence-treatment programs, as well as VOM programs. It also includes efforts …
Using Criminal Punishment To Serve Both Victim And Social Needs, Erin Ann O'Hara, Maria Mayo Robbins
Using Criminal Punishment To Serve Both Victim And Social Needs, Erin Ann O'Hara, Maria Mayo Robbins
Law and Contemporary Problems
In recent decades, the criminal-justice pendulum has swung to the opposite extreme. Criminal law is often described as covering disputes between the offender and the state. Victims are not direct parties to criminal proceedings, they have no formal right to either initiate or terminate a criminal action, and they have no control over the punishment meted out to offenders. In this state-centric system, victim needs have been left unsatisfied, giving rise to a politically powerful victims' rights movement that has had success in giving victims rights of access to prosecutors and rights to be heard in the courtroom. Here, O'Hara …
Governing Pluralistic Societies, Tom Tyler
Governing Pluralistic Societies, Tom Tyler
Law and Contemporary Problems
Societies can be held together in many ways. Historically, many groups were linked by a common history, common ethnicity, and common religious and social values. These societies shared a unified set of norms dictating right and wrong. Other groups have been held together by charismatic leaders who present a unifying vision, but modern pluralistic society, uniquely, accepts a diversity of views about what is appropriate and reasonable, which makes these forms of authority difficult to enact. The form of authority emerging in western democratic states has been, instead, authority based upon the processes of government: people recognize democratic procedures as …