What is remorse, how do we show it and how are sentencers to judge it? Kate Rossmanith’s beautifully written memoir addresses these questions in a range of personal and public settings and it is the author’s engagement with the criminal justice system that will be of most interest to readers of this journal. Those who work in the court system, particularly in writing sentencing reports, will know that a key determinant in a court’s sentencing process is the perceived remorse of the person who has just been convicted. In this fascinating book, Rossmanith draws attention to the obvious, but often overlooked, fact that remorse is sought, measured and, seemingly, assessed by the courts but it is never clearly defined. How do we know that an offender is remorseful? And why does it matter? Rossmanith draws on her own life as well as her academic research to consider how the concept might be identified and understood. This response of remorse, or regret or shame is central to many ideas of how offenders reform, whether it is connected to reintegrative shaming in restorative justice or the creation of a new identity in conceptions of desistance or just seen as a form of pain and the first step of punishment in more classical ideas. In the book, remorse is seen as fulfilling a variety of functions. It is described by an interviewee as both reducing the pain of victims and sending a signal to the community that the offender is serious about rehabilitation. It plays a part in the spectacle of denunciation that makes up the court process. Remorse is also an acknowledgement of guilt, with the consequence that those who are victims of miscarriages of justice are doubly disadvantaged in that as well as being wrongly convicted, they face harsher punishment owing to their perceived lack of remorse. It is often spoken of in mystical or religious terms, as if experiencing remorse, particularly of the spontaneous and genuine kind is a step towards soul-saving. Rossmanith commences the book with a detailed description of a particular court hearing, describing in detail the vehicular homicide crime itself as well as the presentation and demeanor of the key characters in the court process. She returns to this case throughout the book, having observed the court hearing itself and spoken to key players and her focus is not on the adjudication, but on the sentencing. The perceived remorse, or lack of it, of the female driver – who had taken the life of a young man – was central to the court process and decision but was interpreted and understood in different ways by 801661 EJP0010.1177/2066220318801661European Journal of ProbationBook Review 2018

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书评：小错误：我们如何在爱情、生活和法律中真正说对不起，凯特·罗斯曼尼斯罗斯曼尼斯凯特，小错误：我们如何在爱情、生活和法律中真正说对不起，哈迪格兰特图书：英国和澳大利亚，2018 年。ISBN 9781743794111，32.99 美元(pbk)

什么是悔恨，我们如何表现它以及判刑者如何判断它？凯特·罗斯曼尼斯 (Kate Rossmanith) 撰写的精美回忆录在一系列个人和公共环境中解决了这些问题，而作者与刑事司法系统的接触将是本期刊读者最感兴趣的。那些在法院系统工作的人，尤其是撰写量刑报告的人，会知道法院量刑过程中的一个关键决定因素是刚被定罪的人的悔意。在这本引人入胜的书中，罗斯曼尼斯提请注意一个显而易见但经常被忽视的事实，即悔罪是由法院寻求、衡量和评估的，但从未明确定义。我们怎么知道犯罪者是有悔意的呢？为什么这很重要？罗斯曼尼斯利用她自己的生活以及她的学术研究来考虑如何识别和理解这个概念。这种悔恨、后悔或羞耻的反应是关于罪犯如何改革的许多想法的核心，无论是与恢复性司法中的重新整合羞辱有关，还是在停止概念中创造新身份，或者只是被视为一种形式的痛苦和在更经典的思想中惩罚的第一步。在书中，悔恨被视为履行多种功能。一位受访者将其描述为既减轻了受害者的痛苦，又向社区发出了罪犯对康复的认真态度的信号。它在构成法庭程序的谴责奇观中发挥了作用。悔恨也是对罪行的承认，结果是那些因误判而受害的人在被错误定罪的双重不利条件下，由于缺乏悔意而面临更严厉的惩罚。人们常常用神秘或宗教的术语来谈论它，仿佛经历悔恨，特别是自发的和真正的悔恨，是迈向拯救灵魂的一步。罗斯曼尼斯在本书的开头详细描述了一次特定的法庭听证会，详细描述了车辆杀人犯罪本身以及法庭程序中关键人物的表现和举止。她在整本书中都回到了这个案子，观察了法庭听证会本身并与主要参与者交谈，她的重点不是裁决，而是量刑。察觉到的悔恨，