About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


7 Criminology & Crim. Just. 5 (2007)

handle is hein.journals/crmcj7 and id is 1 raw text is: ARTICLES Criminology & Criminal justice @ 2007 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks & New Delhi) and the British Society of Criminology. www.sagepublications.com ISSN 1748-8958; Vol: 7(1): 5-32 DOI: 10.1177/1748895807072474 Staging restorative justice encounters against a criminal justice backdrop: A dramaturgical analysis JAMES DIGNAN, ANNE ATKINSON, HELEN ATKINSON, MARIE HOWES, JENNIFER JOHNSTONE, GWEN ROBINSON, JOANNA SHAPLAND AND ANGELA SORSBY University of Sheffield, UK Abstract Drawing from an ongoing evaluation of three major restorative justice schemes in England and Wales, the article employs a dramaturgical perspective to examine a number of process issues that arise when restorative justice processes are deployed within a criminal justice context. They include the r6le and identity of restorative justice facilitators, the locations for restorative justice encounters and associated matters relating to the values of privacy, openness and accountability. Key Words accountability * criminal justice * dramaturgical analysis * privacy * restorative justice 'All the world's a stage'1 It is customary for conventional criminal trials to be depicted and represented as dramatic events, at any rate for onlookers. In reality, however, this is true only of a relatively small proportion of contested trials in the Crown Court, which are themselves a statistical rarity.2 Moreover, even in cases such as these, all too often the 'key players' are consigned to relatively minor r6les. In the case of defendants, as generations of critical legal scholars have pointed 5