Everyday Desistance: The Transition to Adulthood among Formerly Incarcerated Youth L. Abrams and D. Terry. New Brunswick, NJ.: Rutgers University Press. (2017) 237pp. £85.95hb, £26.50pb ISBN 978‐0‐8135‐7446‐2
| Author | A.L. Cox |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12300 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
The Howard Journal Vol57 No 4. December 2018 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12295
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 596–610
Book Reviews
Women, Crime and Justice: Balancing the Scales E. Gunnison, F.P. Bernat and L. Goodstein.
Chichester: Wiley (2017) 306pp. £75.50hb ISBN 9781118793466
Women, Crime and Justice is an expansive teaching tool, focused on the position of women
in the criminal justice system, as victims, offenders, and professional agents working
within it. In addition, Gunnison, Bernat and Goodstein consider how the law impacts
upon distinctly gendered issues, with women as the focus of legal social control. The
textbook is accompanied by a series of online resources, accessible via the ‘instructor
companion site’ of the publishers, which includes essay questions, quiz questions and
PowerPoint slides for each of the book’s eleven chapters. For students, the online re-
sources feature additional engagement activities, reading and media suggestions, as well
as chapter outlines and a glossary. Each chapter of the book commences with student
learning outcomes, incorporates case studies and ‘special legal issues’, and closes with
student activities and discussion questions. Chapter 1, ‘Foundations for understanding
women and crime’, locates issues of women, crime, gender, and criminology historically,
while outlining the development of the feminist movement in the United States and the
progression of global feminist criminological theory. The authors highlight how ‘what
we know’ about women and criminal justice has primarily been discovered over ‘the past
several decades’ due to criminological focus on the crimes of men (p.2) and introduce
key concepts necessary for learning in this area: differences between sex and gender; the
law and its position in defining acts as criminal (p.4); the impact of laws put in place; and
the necessity for intersectional accounts of gender and crime (p.5). The book is aimed
at an American audience, basing discussions on the United States legal system and po-
sitioning global examples and experiences alongside the United States’ implementation
of criminal justice. Ontologically, the authors position the criminal justice system as en-
gaged in ‘a battle to reduce crime’ (p.1) and consider the text useful for students in that
it will ‘greatly improve your preparation for professions in law and in the criminal justice
system’ (p.2).
Chapter 2 examines ‘Women and the crimes they commit’, outlining the features
of contemporary ‘female offenders’, the differences between their crimes and those of
male ‘offenders’, and the theoretical frameworks for explaining crime generally, and
specifically asking ‘why do women commit crime?’ (p.34). The chapter puts forward the
reality of women’s offending: ‘women commit fewer serious crimes’ than men and ‘are
more likely to be arrested for committing property crimes’ (p.24); African Americans
are disproportionately arrested (p.25); and despite self-reporting data evidencing equal
‘criminal involvement’ across classes, ‘women who are poor end up serving sentences in
prison more than women from upper socioeconomic backgrounds’ (p.26). Yet, despite
aims to ‘break down the stereotypical images of female offenders’ (p.22), the chapter
highlights the exceptional, rather than the mundane, regarding women’s ‘offending’.
While noting the media sensationalisation of women offenders such as Amanda Knox
and Aileen Wuornos, the chapter, through use of case studies, including Rosemary West
(p.22), Lindsay Lohan, and Heidi Fleiss (pp.34–8), mirrors media preoccupation with
sexualised and violent crime, choosing to humanise conceptions of women’s ‘criminality’
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2018 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
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