After the Crime: The Power of Restorative Justice Dialogues Between Victims and Violent Offendersby Susan L. Miller
One only needs to read the back cover of book to understand the weighty issues this book explores:
"After the Crime explores a victim-offender dialogue program that offers victims of severe violence an opportunity to meet face-to-face with their incarcerated offenders. Following the harrowing stories of crimes of stranger rape, domestic violence, marital rape, incest, child sexual abuse, murder, and drunk driving. Miller moves beyond story-telling to provide an accessible scholarly analysis of restorative justice. After the Crime explores their transformative experiences with restorative justice, vividly illustrating how one program has worked in conjunction with the criminal justice system in order to strengthen victim empowerment."
Miller’s book is based on a Delaware restorative-justice program, Victims' Voices Heard (VVH), developed and implemented by Kim Book, also a victim/survivor of the murder of her only child. Victims' Voices Heard is one of 25 “therapeutic” restorative-justice programs in the United States that focuses on victim-centered restorative justice and brings victims face-to-face with their offenders.
This book eloquently describes the many facets of the immediate and long-range effects of living through and with the effects of violent crime. Whether a person is the victim or a family member or friend, the process of “healing” and bringing “closure” to such a life-changing event often takes many years. Programs like VVH offers a healing opportunity for both victim and offender. How and why victims and offenders choose to take on this intense and lengthy process is highlighted in chapters one through three. Chapters four through 12 are the actual stories of how nine victims and offenders undertook the process that led to the outcome of sitting down together for a one-on-one dialogue.
Miller, a professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware, examines the role and impact of the criminal-justice system on victims, combines story-telling with academic analysis by offering extensive references throughout the book and concludes with a reflection on therapeutic restorative-justice programs as well as a brief update on the long-range effect on the victims who have participated in this program.
