Restorative Justice and Victimology

"Aim[ed] at contributing a comparative discourse, and Afrocentric knowledge to the body of literature in restorative justice and victimology. The book is both practical and analytical. Arguably, the book is the first on restorative justice and victimology in the international market researched and written by an African and Africa-based international scholar. Findings presented in this book 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 the 'why me?' question which victims often ask, provides victimoautological or self-policing strategy to preventing revictimisation, and a vehicle to the 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 'harmony restoration therapy'. For the international audience, the author suggests that the Afrocentric knowledge contained in this book 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, the author argues 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]"--P. [4] of cover.