ABSTRACT
In the aftermath of eras of state repression and political conflict, there are typically large numbers of perpetrators at various levels of authority and responsibility with varied modes of participation for which to account. Wrongdoers may be individuals who are perpetrators of violence in some respect and victims of violence in another; wrongdoers include those who are regretful or remorseful and those who are not. The field of transitional justice provides templates for addressing mass and systematic political violence, including either criminal prosecution or amnesty for perpetrators, but it is not rich in models to create perpetrator accountability and paths to meaningful reintegration that also respect victims’ needs. Potential models for more satisfactory approaches—for example, those based in restorative justice (including the South African TRC pattern) and on local or traditional justice practices—pose problems of scale, fairness, completeness, and responsiveness to victims’ needs. These models suggest desirable features of perpetrator accountability practices but also the need for any such practices to be linked to societal truth recovery and the maintenance of public memory, lest reintegration simply be another variation on impunity and forgetting.
