Using a combination of victimological literature and empirical data from a European research project, this book considers the role and the position of the victim in restorative justice practices, focusing on legislative, organisational and institutional frameworks of victim-offender mediation and conferencing programmes at a national and local level, as well as the victims' personal needs and experiences.

Inge Vanfraechem is senior researcher at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (University of Leuven, Belgium) where she manages a European FP7 project on restorative justice and conflicts in intercultural settings. She has published extensively in the areas of restorative justice, victimology and youth delinquency, including Justice for Victims (co-edited with Pemberton and Ndahinda, Routledge 2014) and Conferencing and Restorative Justice (co-edited with Zinsstag, Oxford University Press 2012). She has (co)supervised multiple European research projects in these areas.

Daniela Bolivar is a research fellow at the University of Chile. After several years working as a practitioner in the field of victim support, she moved to Belgium where, first as a researcher of the Leuven Institute of Criminology and then of the European Forum for Restorative Justice, she devoted several years to the study of restorative justice and its impact on victims of crime. She has written a number of articles on restorative justive from the victim's perspective.

Ivo Aertsen is a professor of Criminology at KU Leuven, Belgium. His main fields of research and teaching are victimology and restorative justice. He is the Director of the KU Leuven Institute of Criminology, where he is also co-ordinating the Research Line on Restorative Justice. He is Editor-in-chief of Restorative Justice: An International Journal.

General introduction, Daniela Bolivar, Inge Vanfraechem and Ivo Aertsen Part 1. Victims in restorative justice literature 1. Victims' experiences and their need for justice, Antony Pemberton and Inge Vanfraechem 2. Restorative justice and victims of crime, Inge Vanfraechem and Daniela Bolivar Part 2. Victims in mediation and conferencing: a European research Introduction, Inge Vanfraechem and Daniela Bolivar 3. Victims in mediation in Austria, Christa Pelikan and Leo Bachinger 4. Victims in mediation in Finland, Päivi Honkatukia 5. Victims in mediation in the Netherlands, Antony Pemberton 6. Victims in conferencing, Inge Vanfraechem 7. Comparison of the main results: variations and similarities, Daniela Bolivar, Christa Pelikan and Anne Lemonne Part 3. Victims and restoration in policy-making 8. Local practices, Daniela Bolivar 9. European policies, Katrien Lauwaert.