Just Interests: Victims, Citizens and the Potential for Justice

The idea of justice and the reality of justice are two very different things. Just Interests examines both concepts through accounts from lay people and legal officials with a view to explore how the multiple justice goals and interests of victims of crimes can be accommodated within criminal justice.

Robyn Holder challenges the usual representation of those who have been victimized by violence only as victims, and re-positions them as members of a political community with diverse interests that are both private and public. Departing from conventional approaches that see victims as a problem for law to contain, Holder draws on democratic principles of inclusion and deliberation to argue for the unique opportunity of criminal justice to enlist the capacity of citizens to rise to the demands of justice in their ordinary lives.

This book will be of fundamental importance for analysts and advocates in governmental and non-governmental organisations to understand the victim as a citizen first and their engagements with criminal justice as citizenship practices. It will also be a valuable read for socio-legal scholars and researchers examining the constitutive nature of peoples and their public criminal law.