1st Edition

Positive Criminology

Edited By Natti Ronel, Dana Segev Copyright 2015
    404 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    380 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    How can we best help offenders desist from crime, as well as help victims heal? This book engages with this question by offering its readers a comprehensive review of positive criminology in theory, research and practice. Positive criminology is a concept – a perspective – that places emphasis on forces of integration and social inclusion that are experienced positively by target individual and groups, and may contribute to a reduction in negative emotions, desistance from crime and overcoming the traumatic experience of victimization. In essence, positive criminology holds a more holistic view, which acknowledges that thriving and disengagement from distress, addiction, mental illness, crime, deviance or victimization might be fostered more effectively by enhancing positive emotions and experiences, rather than focusing on reducing negative attributes.

    Each chapter in this book is written by key scholars in the related fields of criminology, victimology and addiction and, thus, assembles varied and extensive approaches to rehabilitation and treatment. These approaches share in common a positive criminology view, thereby enriching our understanding of the concept and other strength-based approaches to dealing with offenders and victims.

    This edited book elaborates on positive criminology core ideas and assumptions; discusses related theories and innovations; and presents various benefits that this perspective can promote in the field of rehabilitation. For this reason, this book will be essential reading for those engaged in the study of criminology, criminal justice and victimology and may also assist scholars and professionals to help offenders desist from crime and improve victims’ well-being.

    Foreword  1. Introduction: "The good" can overcome "the bad", Natti Ronel and Dana Segev  2. How can criminology (and victimology) become positive?, Natti Ronel  3. The effect of "the good" and the self-centeredness barrier – Positive criminology in the lived reality of youth at risk, Ben Zvi Tahel and Haimoff-Ayali Ronit  4. Positive Criminology, Positive Criminal Justice?, Fergus McNeill  5. Strengths-Based Restorative Approaches to Reentry: The Evolution of Creative Restitution, Reintegration and Destigmitization, Shadd Maruna and Thomas P. LeBel  6. Synergizing Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Positive Criminology, Tali Gal and David B. Wexler  7. Positive Criminology and Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Relevant Techniques for Defense Lawyers, Dana Segev  8. Peacemaking, Hal Pepinsky  9. Israel's Juvenile Probation Service from the perspective of positive criminology: A critical review, Ety Elisah  10. Applied positive criminology: Restorative reentry and transition planning circles for incarcerated people and their loved ones, Lorenn Walker  11. The Good Lives Model of Offender Rehabilitation: Working Positively with Sexual Offenders, Chi Meng Chu and Tony Ward  12. Hotel Prison Check-out - Hotel Pardon Check-in, Jan De Cock  13. Long-term recovery from addiction: criminal justice involvement and positive criminology?, David Best and Elizabeth Aston  14. Recovery as a social phenomenon: What is the role of the community in supporting and enabling recovery?, David Best, Karen Bird and Lucy Hunton  15. Application of Positive Criminology in the 12-Step Program, Gila Chen and Keren Gueta  16. "Pulling Myself up by the Bootstraps": Self-change of Addictive Behaviors from the Perspective of Positive Criminology, Keren Gueta and Gila Chen  17. Positive Victimology – A contemporary approach or more of the same?, Yaara Toren  18. Posttraumatic growth and positive victimology: The case of ultra-Orthodox Jewish women who resided in a shelter, Mally Shechory-Bitton and Natti Ronel  19. Restorative Justice and Domestic Violence: A view from a positive victimological perspective, Nadia Wager  20. Irrational Coping Theory and Positive Criminology: A Frame Work to Protect Victims of Cyber Crime, Debarati Halder and K. Jaishankar  21. Between Secondary Victimization and Positive Victimology: The Case of Crime Victims' Right of Privacy, Hadar Dancig-Rosenberg and Dana Pugach  22. Challenges of Post-conflict Reintegration of Former Girl Soldiers, Janice Joseph  23. Programs for female prisoners and positive criminology and victimology: the case of Serbia, Vesna Nikolic-Ristanovic and Sanja Copic  Epilogue: Present to Future: A Positive Direction for Criminology?, John Fuller.

    Biography

    Natti Ronel is the Head of the Department of Criminology at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Natti is a clinical criminologist who incorporates clinical experience with research to develop theories on crime (criminal spin), recovery (Grace Therapy) and criminal justice. Natti introduced the Positive Criminology and Victimology perspectives, and is currently developing the Spiritual Criminology concept.

    Dana Segev is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Criminology, Bar-Ilan University. She has published papers on parole within a communicative sentencing framework and on Therapeutic Jurisprudence. Segev holds a MSc from the University of Oxford, where she wrote her dissertation on desistance.

    ‘Criminology emphasises when to exclude more than how to include. This collection explores in an evocative way the alternatives of growth by caring, of picking strengths and expanding them rather than picking weaknesses and fixing them. Rich essays give helpful glimpses of how it is possible to expand capacities in ways that transform incapacities like criminal predation on others. It is a generative process and this is a generative book about obstacles becoming opportunities that grow resilience. We learn that the more important thing about "wounded healers" is not that they are wounded (the negative) but that they heal (the positive).’ - John Braithwaite, Distinguished Professor, Australian National University, Australia 

    This book provides fascinating reading for professionals who aspire to promote human dignity in the framework of criminal justice. The editors have succeeded in presenting a collection of essays convincingly explaining why the concept of positive criminology can contribute to that goal.’ - Dr. Marc Groenhuijsen, President, World Society of Victimology

    ‘What if criminology and criminal justice systems moved away from an obsession with punishment, retribution, social isolation, and shaming and focused instead on compassion, strengths, and reconciliation? Would not such a system be transformative? This groundbreaking book, Positive Criminology, in fact, is transformative itself; it is a must-read for criminologists, addictions counsellors, social workers, and researchers in the field.

    Positive Criminology turns our attention away from the negative in criminology and victimology and provides a new way of thinking about crime, victimization, and criminal justice. Editors Natti Ronel and Dana Segev have assembled in this fascinating volume the most innovative theorists and practitioners from across the globe and in diverse professions to show the power of goodness and a restorative-strengths orientation as applied to people in trouble with the law and to criminal justice institutions. This is the book, that, without even realizing it, I have been waiting for. Other sociologists and criminologists, no doubt, will say this is the book they have been waiting for too.’ - Katherine van Wormer, Professor of Social Work, University of Northern Iowa, USA