After Mass Crime: Rebuilding States and Communities

International interventions in the aftermath of mass violence tend to focus on justice and reconciliation processes, elections, and institution-building. The frame of reference is at the state level, although the experience of crime by a population is also at the level of the community and individuals. Insufficient attention has been paid to the radical transformations in community and individual belief systems and codes of conduct after the experience of mass crime. This book seeks to bridge the divide by offering a transdisciplinary analysis of the impact of mass crime on the rebuilding of social and political relations. Drawing on historical and more recent cases—including examples from Bosnia- Herzegovina, Burundi, Cambodia, Indonesia, Peru, and Rwanda—the authors examine the impact of mass crimes on individuals, society at large, and the organizations involved in providing assistance in the post-conflict phase. While outside actors have a role to play in this difficult process, the hardest work must be done by those picking up the pieces of a community that has turned on itself.