The research focuses on the human dignity of prisoners and their families. The dominant human rights perspective of human dignity in terms of retributive justice is critiqued for its punishment approach of imprisonment which does not meet the benchmark of respecting human dignity but instead perpetuates experiences of indignity for prisoners and their families. While the approach of human rights under restorative justice as opposed to retributive justice is supported as a better approach to counter indignity, it’s dominant approaches are also shown to particularly overlook the dignity of prisoners and their families by often not focusing on their plight, and neglecting the very values of restorative justice. A case study of the Phoenix Zululand restorative justice programme, in KwaZulu-Natal South Africa confirms that a restorative justice approach that respects these values can re-humanise prisoners and their families. The study includes a discussion of the Christian perspective on human dignity, which forms a basis for a theological response to the indignity experienced by prisoners and their families. The concepts of Imago Dei and Imago Trinitatis as fully revealed in Jesus Christ lay the foundation for human dignity in the Christian perspective. The study concludes by showing how this theological basis has implications for the Church in working with prisoners and their families and also highlights some areas for future research. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

Violence against women by their male intimate partners remains a serious problem in all parts of Canadian society. Both the Canadian state and Canadian feminist anti-violence activists have explored legal responses to ending intimate violence, including criminalisation, and restorative justice. To date these legal responses have not effectively reduced the rates of intimate violence in Canada. This dissertation explores state and community-based legal responses to intimate violence in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada between 1999 and 2010, where both criminalisation and restorative justice were legislated responses to intimate violence. While restorative justice, in the form of Alternative Measures, was an available option in these cases, it was rarely applied. Criminalisation in the form of prosecution was also an option, but was applied in less than fifty percent of cases. Instead a peace bond, a form of criminally legislated restraining order, was often used. Research participants saw peace bonds as a flawed justice response to intimate violence, and described ways in which they felt peace bonds contributed to the revictimisation of survivors of intimate violence. Significantly, many research participants mislabeled peace bonds, attributing these negative characteristics to ‘restorative justice’. This dissertation draws on interviews with research participants, and existing empirical research on intimate violence, to outline some characteristics of a better justice response to intimate violence. That is; a hybrid justice response which includes models that are typically associated with both the restorative justice movement, and with the criminalisation of intimate violence. Regardless of what we call them, justice responses must take as their political and practical starting point the restoration of survivors of intimate violence, their families and their communities to full social, economic and political participation in Canadian society. To reinsert ‘justice’ into state and community responses to intimate violence, these practices need to be taken up, consciously, as a political tool. / Graduate

<p>History is regrettably replete with wars and dictatorial regimes that claimed the lives of millions of people. Most of the time the planners were not held accountable for their misdeeds. Fortunately in recent years the idea of people being prosecuted for mass atrocities was launched and debated. The purpose of this study was to propose avenues for promoting respect for victims rights. It examined the rationale of the victims reparation, its evolution, its denial and its rebirth. It canvass victims rights in domestic law especially in the civil law in comparison with international law. It proposed means whereby the international community may better address the issue of victims rights.</p>

Thesis (M.A.(Hons.))--Griffith University, 2003. / Title from title page of document; viewed 1/5/2007. "October 2003" Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-83).

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 92-96). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 172-182). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (doctoral), Universität, Düsseldorf, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 245-257).

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 120-130). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (doctoral), Universität, Düsseldorf, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 245-257).

Feminist criminologists have a long history of arguing against the use of imprisonment and other formal justice system processes for criminalized women. Often feminist analyses of the formal criminal justice system end with a call for community alternatives. There has not, however, been a corresponding analysis of community programs. Critical criminologists have examined informal justice and have shown the variety of ways that seemingly alternative programs reproduce and support the formal criminal justice system. This dissertation draws from both of these criminological literatures and examines alternative justice programs for criminalized women. Based on interviews with staff at community justice programs in Winnipeg MB, I argue that these programs are neither the complete alternatives called for by feminists nor spaces which simply reproduce dominant justice system norms as found by critical criminologists. Rather, they are complex spaces of governance of criminalized women. The community programs exhibit both informal and formal characteristics. These programs engage in a variety of informal justice practices. The programs also offer informal care, advocacy, and culture services. Alongside these informal aspects of the programs, staff also engage in highly formal criminal justice work of supervision and case processing. I account for the presence of both informal and formal practices using governmentality theorists’ concepts of government-at-a-distance and responsibilization of the community. This makes them spaces in which dominant discourses and practices are reproduced. However, a close examination of the ways in which the programs construct the subject of governance, the Criminalized Woman, shows the influence of feminist discourses and reveals these spaces to be spaces of resistance as well. The specific ways that the programs respond to criminalized women and the mentalities embedded in them also reflect a tension between neoliberal and social justice approaches. Both a neoliberal mentality of proper self-governance and an ethic of care are present in the work the programs do. I argue that the presence of the multiple types of work, the alternative subjectivities offered to criminalized women, and ethic of care and practices of self-care all make the alternative justice programs spaces of resistance to dominant neoliberal strategies of governance. / February 2016