Kevin Denys Bonnycastle, Stranger Rape: Rapists, Masculinity, and Penal Governance
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474513493900 |
| Author | Danielle Arlanda Harris |
| Published date | 01 December 2013 |
| Date | 01 December 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Paik concludes her book with a nuanced assessment of juvenile drug courts in
which she resists the opportunity afforded by her data to discredit drug courts
altogether. She writes:
I could easily conclude that we must completely reconsider having drug courts in the
first place. However, drug courts do have the potential to help drug addicts stop using,
to keep drug offenders in their communities instead of in jails, and to enable successful
drug court clients to reintegrate more easily back into society. (p. 177)
With this in mind, Paik briefly outlines a number of policy solutions to help
improve drug courts for youth. In her final assessment, the author suggests that
whatever innovations we make in processing youth in juvenile drug courts, our
success will always depend on the degree to which our society will have invested in
the kinds of educational and socioeconomic opportunities that can sponsor
sobriety.
Lizbet Simmons
University of California, USA
Kevin Denys Bonnycastle, Stranger Rape: Rapists, Masculinity, and Penal Governance, University of
Toronto Press: Toronto, 2012; 327 pp.: 9781442613461, $53 (cloth), $32.95 (pbk)
‘It is with sadness and pleasure’ that John McMullan begins his foreword to
Bonnycastle’s book and it is with sadness and pleasure that I begin my review of
the same. Like any academic, when I agreed to review this book, I was already
running behind and carried the book with me for weeks before finally reading the
first page at the beginning of a flight. On that first page I was hooked.
The sadness with which I write stems from the discovery on that first page of
Bonnycastle losing her battle with cancer just weeks before her manuscript was
accepted for publication. I also feel a personal sadness having never gotten to meet
her. As I read her book I found myself remembering, simultaneously, to find her at
the next conference, and, that she was gone. The pleasure with which I write stems
from the kind of nerdy enthusiasm one feels when they read the kind of study that
‘makes you want to be a better criminologist’. I am deeply grateful to have found
this book, at this particular point in my career, and at this particular point in our
national dialogue on sexual aggression. Stranger Rape is impressive because of the
timeliness and relevance of its message, the depth and breadth of its method, and
the strength, dedication, and talent of its author.
Stranger Rape provides an in-depth study of 14 incarcerated men who raped
(and in some cases killed) women who were unknown to them. In what was ori-
ginally designed to be an ethnography of a sex offender treatment program,
Bonnycastle conducted life history interviews with the men during a 12-month
period in which she also attended their group treatment meetings, interviewed
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