Restorative Justice and Victimology Euro-Africa Perspectives

by Omale, Don John O.

• ISBN13: 9789058508614
• ISBN10: 9058508617
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-09-01
• Publisher: Wolf Legal Publishers

Summary

This well-researched book provides a comparative discourse, along with Afro-centric knowledge, to the body of literature in restorative justice and victimology. The findings that are presented demonstrate the potential benefits of restorative justice to governments and victims who may want to implement and participate in restorative justice. These include the "community crimino-vigilance," "crimino-econometrics," and "value for money" (vfm) potentials of restorative justice policy to governments. For some victims of crime, the possibility of getting an answer to the "why me?" question which victims often ask, provides victimoautological or self-policing strategy to preventing revictimisation, and a vehicle to intra-personal harmony, reduction in fear of crime, and inter-personal reconciliation. Perhaps to some victims of crime, restorative justice is not only seen as a model of justice that gives them voice, but also as a "harmony restoration therapy." For the international audience, the book suggests that the Afro-centric knowledge is imperative to international academia and practitioners who often are commissioned to chair dispute resolution mechanisms in Africa. The success or failure of their efforts in resolving disputes in Africa could strongly be dependent on their knowledge of the core African philosophy of thoughts: cosmology (African worldview of conflict, crime, and reconciliation), axiology (African values of restoration), ontology (African nature and conception of persons), and epistemology (source of knowledge for Africans).