Martin Howard

HEALING FROM SEXUAL VIOLENCE - The Case for Vicarious Restorative Justice does so much more than lay out a solid academic case for VRJ as a viable criminological intervention. It is a multilayered scientific biography where everything is put on the line for the advancement of science in a field that is shrouded in social taboo. Ackerman and Levenson begin with a tour through the theory and reality of life as a survivor or perpetrator of sexual violence, surveying the relevant research about what can be done to help - and whether encounters between unrelated survivors and perpetrators can change criminal minds. Ackerman traces her own heartbreaking years of breakdown as a consequence of sexual violence and outlines the risks she was prepared to take to find closure. Like so many ground-breaking scientists before her, she places herself as a subject in her own experiment - a therapeutic encounter with a group of convicted male sex offenders. In the middle of the process she experiences transformational healing from her own trauma as her story awakens empathy and self-awareness in the sex offenders. All the time we get an inside view of what it's like to walk this controversial and complex path. Ackerman and Levenson carefully lay out their process and catalog the outcomes using the reflections of participants in multiple encounters using different methods. The profound therapeutic breakthroughs that emerge for the participants are so striking that they may drive further discoveries in the years to come. There are testimonies from offenders who realised for the first time, the damaging impact of their actions and set them on a new mental path. The findings confirm everything I've witnessed whilst facilitating VRJ encounters between surrogate crime survivors and perpetrators in a prison setting, in the Sycamore Tree Project. The results are consistently life-changing and life-giving for participants and observers. I strongly recommend this paradigm-shifting book for those who are involved in policy, research or therapy for sex offenders and/or survivors of sexual violence, as well as those who are looking for hope in a difficult world