This paper departs from the observation that the victim image leading public
discourse has transformed in recent years: increasingly victims reject the
traditional victim label implying helplessness and dependency to adopt the
image of the emancipated victim that wishes to participate in the criminal
proceedings. Restorative justice at first sight provides an answer to these
emancipated victims? wishes, offering them participation in criminal
proceedings. Yet, using the concept of empowerment as an example and the
community psychology perspective as a theoretical reference, our analysis
suggests that restorative justice uses a restricted definition of
empowerment: it reduces empowerment to developing self-confidence and new
understandings of the offence, neglecting the behavioural component of
empowerment. This characteristic of restorative justice seems to deny
victims? capacities to promote social change and inhibit them from reaching
true empowerment.
Familicide from a clinical-community psychology perspective