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9 Int'l Crim. L. Rev. 442 (2009)
Women and the Criminal Justice System, 2nd Ed.

handle is hein.journals/intcrimlrb9 and id is 448 raw text is: Book Reviews / International Criminal Law Review 9 (2009) 435-443

Katherine Stuart van Wormer and Clemens Bartollas, Women and the Criminal
Justice System, 2nd ed., Allyn & Bacon, Boston, ISBN-10: 020548218X ISBN-
13: 978-0205482184, 2007, 432 pp.
Women and the CriminalJustice System, now in its second edition (the first edition
was published in 2000), provides the reader with a broad overview of the subject.
Starting with an overview of feminist theory and, a depressingly necessary section
on the backlash to the women's movement, the book goes on to cover three main
areas in relation to women and the criminal justice system: women as offenders,
women as victims, and women as criminal justice system professionals. It takes a
standard textbook approach. It has 14 chapters divided into five sections, with
each chapter finishing with a recap of key terms, critical thinking questions (use-
ful for class discussion), and recommended web destinations. These features are
additions to the first edition, along with general updating and five new chapters.
In the area of women as offenders, Wormer and Bartollas cover the usual top-
ics, including theories of why women offend, the prison environment, issues of
race and class, and relevant statistics. New chapters include those on feminist
theory and research, delinquency across the life span, women, substance abuse
and criminal justice, and restorative justice programmes. Each of these chapters
is useful in itself, but the sequencing does not feel ideal. For example, the chapter
on feminist theory and research is useful for enabling students to critically evalu-
ate research findings, but it would have benefited from coming straight after the
introduction. Similarly, the chapter on restorative justice programmes comes
before the section on women as victims and therefore is primarily interested in
terms of women as offenders.
The section on issues relating to women as victims of crime covers rape, wife
and partner abuse and, the final of the new chapters, global perspectives on wom-
en's victimisation. The chapter on rape provides a basic overview on rape and
some other forms of sexual violence, and the chapter on wife and partner abuse
extends into one of the authors' (Wormer) own research on suicide murders
(something she differentiates from murder suicide on the basis that in the former
are suicide driven whereas the latter are murder driven). The chapter on global
perspectives of women's victimisation shows just how endemic violence against
women is today, and the describe the impact of the wars in Rwanda and in Bosnia-
Herzagovina as well as flagging up the current situations in the DR Congo,
Darfur, Sierra Leone and Liberia. This chapter works well and gives the reader an
insight into the global context, although some sections would have benefited
from being extended.
Undergraduates considering a career within the USA criminal justice system
will find the final section on women as professionals useful. This section covers
law enforcement, the legal profession and corrections. Far from providing a 'rosy
picture' about what life is like in these professions, Wormer and Bartollas describe

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009

DO] 10. 1163/157181209X43029

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