Criminal proceedings, since they are mandatory and thus initiated even if the victim would prefer to forgive and forget, rest on laws whose “essence”—to quote Telford Taylor, writing in the New York Times Magazine—“is that a crime is not committed only against the victim but primarily against the community whose law is violated.” The wrongdoer is brought to justice because his act has disturbed and gravely endangered the community as a whole, and not because, as in civil suits, damage has been
