2012 Winner of the Outstanding Book Award presented by the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Outstanding Academic Title from 2011 by Choice Magazine Too often, the criminal justice system silences victims, which leaves them frustrated, angry, and with many unanswered questions. Despite their rage and pain, many victims want the opportunity to confront their offenders and find resolution. After the Crime explores a victim-offender dialogue program that offers victims of severe violence an opportunity to meet face-to-face with their incarcerated offenders. Using rich in-depth interview data, the book follows the harrowing stories of crimes of stranger rape, domestic violence, marital rape, incest, child sexual abuse, murder, and drunk driving, ultimately moving beyond story-telling to provide an accessible scholarly analysis of restorative justice. Susan Miller argues that the program has significantly helped the victims who chose to face their offenders in very concrete, transformative ways. Likewise, the offenders have also experienced positive changes in their lives in terms of creating greater accountability and greater victim empathy. After the Crime explores their transformative experiences with restorative justice, vividly illustrating how one program has worked in conjunction with the criminal justice system in order to strengthen victim empowerment.

More than one in three women in the United States has experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Luckily, many are able to escape this life-but what happens to them after? Journeys focuses on the desperately understudied topic of the resiliency of long-term (over 5 years) survivors of intimate partner violence and abuse. Drawing on participant observation research and interviews with women years after the end of their abusive relationships, author Susan L. Miller shares these women's trials and tribulations, and expounds on the factors that facilitated these women's success in gaining inner strength, personal efficacy, and transformation. Written for researchers, practitioners, students, and policy makers in criminal justice, sociology, and social services, Journeys shares stories that hope to inspire other victims and survivors while illuminating the different paths to resiliency and growth.

More than one in three women in the United States has experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Luckily, many are able to escape this life-but what happens to them after? Journeys focuses on the desperately understudied topic of the resiliency of long-term (over 5 years) survivors of intimate partner violence and abuse. Drawing on participant observation research and interviews with women years after the end of their abusive relationships, author Susan L. Miller shares these women's trials and tribulations, and expounds on the factors that facilitated these women's success in gaining inner strength, personal efficacy, and transformation. Written for researchers, practitioners, students, and policy makers in criminal justice, sociology, and social services, Journeys shares stories that hope to inspire other victims and survivors while illuminating the different paths to resiliency and growth.

Civil Court Responses to Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse fills a void in existing literature by shifting the conversation about intimate partner violence and abuse away from research that emphasizes criminal system responses and focusing instead on civil court responses. The volume highlights innovative theory and research about civil legal systems, helping readers better understand the interactions between people-survivors, offenders, children, and legal professionals-and these systems. Featuring interdisciplinary scholarship written exclusively for this volume, the text provides readers with a focused exploration of civil protection order systems, family court systems, state child protection systems, immigration systems, and more. It includes attention to the ways in which inequality based on race, ethnicity, immigration status, and socioeconomic status affects survivors and their interactions with the civil legal system. The book is an invaluable resource for courses in intimate partner or family violence, as well as for professionals who work with victims. Civil Court Responses to Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse is part of the Cognella Series on Family and Gender-Based Violence, an interdisciplinary collection of textbooks featuring cross-cultural perspectives, cutting-edge strategies and interventions, and timely research on family and gender-based violence.

While traditional policing celebrated male officers as masculine crime fighters who were tough, aloof, and physically intimidating, policewomen were characterized as too soft and emotional for patrol assignments and were relegated to roles focusing on children, other women, or clerical tasks. With the advent of community policing, women's perceived skills are finally finding a legitimate place in police work, and law enforcement structures now encourage such previously undervalued feminine traits as trust, cooperation, compassion, interpersonal communication, and conflict resolution.
In this illuminating study of gender and community policing, Susan L. Miller draws on a combination of survey data, forthright interviews with a diverse mix of police officers, and extensive fieldwork conducted in a midwestern city where community policing has been practiced for over a decade. She describes the differences and similarities in policing styles of male and female officers, considers the relationships that develop between neighborhood police on foot and patrol officers in squad cars, and explores the interactions between neighborhood officers and community members.
Miller confronts such questions as how police reconcile incompatible images of masculinity and femininity; how actions of neighborhood police officers compare with those of traditional rapid response patrol officers; how community police cope with resistance from the rank and file; and how gender and gender-role expectations shape police activities and the evaluation of new skills.
Gender and Community Policing provides both a feminist framework for community policing and a fresh examination of how race, gender, and sexual orientation affect police image, identity, and methods.

2012 Winner of the Outstanding Book Award presented by the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Outstanding Academic Title from 2011 by Choice Magazine Too often, the criminal justice system silences victims, which leaves them frustrated, angry, and with many unanswered questions. Despite their rage and pain, many victims want the opportunity to confront their offenders and find resolution. After the Crime explores a victim-offender dialogue program that offers victims of severe violence an opportunity to meet face-to-face with their incarcerated offenders. Using rich in-depth interview data, the book follows the harrowing stories of crimes of stranger rape, domestic violence, marital rape, incest, child sexual abuse, murder, and drunk driving, ultimately moving beyond story-telling to provide an accessible scholarly analysis of restorative justice. Susan Miller argues that the program has significantly helped the victims who chose to face their offenders in very concrete, transformative ways. Likewise, the offenders have also experienced positive changes in their lives in terms of creating greater accountability and greater victim empathy. After the Crime explores their transformative experiences with restorative justice, vividly illustrating how one program has worked in conjunction with the criminal justice system in order to strengthen victim empowerment.

"Finally, a book that moves us forward in the 'mutuality debate.' Miller's research demonstrates the seeming inability--or unwillingness--of the criminal legal system to recognize that gender (as well as race, class, and sexual orientation) matters in intimate partner violence, but even more importantly, she offers compelling answers to the question, 'What can we do about it?'" --Claire M. Renzetti, Ph.D., editor of Violence Against Women: An International, Interdisciplinary Journal Arrests of women for assault increased more than 40 percent over the past decade, while male arrests for this offense have fallen by about 1 percent. Some studies report that for the first time ever the rate of reported intimate partner abuse among men and women is nearly equal. Susan L. Miller's timely book explores the most important questions raised by these startling statistics. Are women finally closing the gender gap on violence? Or does this phenomenon reflect a backlash shaped by men who batter? How do abusive men use the criminal justice system to increase control over their wives? Do police, courts, and treatment providers support aggressive arrest policies for women? Are these women "victims" or "offenders"? In answering these questions, Miller draws on extensive data from a study of police behavior in the field, interviews with criminal justice professionals and social service providers, and participant observation of female offender programs. She offers a critical analysis of the theoretical assumptions framing the study of violence and provides insight into the often contradictory implications of the mandatory and pro-arrest policies enacted in the 1980s and 1990s. Miller argues that these enforcement strategies, designed to protect women, have often victimized women in different ways. Without sensationalizing, Miller unveils a reality that looks very different from what current statistics on domestic violence imply. Susan L. Miller is a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware. A volume in the Critical Issues in Crime and Society series, edited by Raymond J. Michalowski, Jr.

In The Victimization of Women, Michelle Meloy and Susan Miller present a balanced, comprehensive, and objective summary of the most significant research on the victimizations, violence, and victim politics that disproportionately affect women. They examine the history of violence against women, the surrounding debates, the legal reforms and justice system outcomes, the related media and social-service responses, and the current science on intimate partner violence, stalking, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape. Plus, they augment these victimization findings with original research on women convicted of domestic battery and men convicted of sexual abuse and other sex-related offenses. In these new data the authors explore the unanticipated consequences associated with changes to the laws governing domestic violence and the newer forms of sex-offender legislation. Both of these investigations are based on qualitative data that involve in-depth offender-based interviews that probe the circumstances surrounding the arrests and victimizations involved in the cases, the significant legal issues, and their experiences with the criminal justice system.

With recent "tough on crime" policies of the 1990s, the negative impact on women and children reverberates with social unawareness. Using a feminist perspective, Crime Control and Women explores the adverse effects of the U.S. crackdown on crime. Edited by Susan L. Miller, this book exposes the unintended consequences of today crime control policies: how cuts from social services to pay for crime control can disproportionately affect women; how women incur increased responsibility for family while men serve longer sentences; and how government often victimizes women as third parties when women are associated with criminals. Using policy-oriented contributions, the book discusses empirically driven and theoretically driven implications of today crime control policies. Miller provides a substantive introductory overview and a concluding summary, creating a cohesive text that emphasizes a reduction in crime through commitments to prevention, education, and treatment. A timely book, Crime Control and Women is vital for criminal justice academics and practitioners, mental health professionals, and policy makers. It future implications also make it an essential component for courses related to criminology, criminal justice, gender studies, sociology, public policy, and social work.

With recent "tough on crime" policies of the 1990s, the negative impact on women and children reverberates with social unawareness. Using a feminist perspective, Crime Control and Women explores the adverse effects of the U.S. crackdown on crime. Edited by Susan L. Miller, this book exposes the unintended consequences of today crime control policies: how cuts from social services to pay for crime control can disproportionately affect women; how women incur increased responsibility for family while men serve longer sentences; and how government often victimizes women as third parties when women are associated with criminals.

Using policy-oriented contributions, the book discusses empirically driven and theoretically driven implications of today crime control policies. Miller provides a substantive introductory overview and a concluding summary, creating a cohesive text that emphasizes a reduction in crime through commitments to prevention, education, and treatment.

A timely book, Crime Control and Women is vital for criminal justice academics and practitioners, mental health professionals, and policy makers. It future implications also make it an essential component for courses related to criminology, criminal justice, gender studies, sociology, public policy, and social work.

In The Victimization of Women, Michelle Meloy and Susan Miller present a balanced, comprehensive, and objective summary of the most significant research on the victimizations, violence, and victim politics that disproportionately affect women. They examine the history of violence against women, the surrounding debates, the legal reforms and justice system outcomes, the related media and social-service responses, and the current science on intimate partner violence, stalking, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape. Plus, they augment these victimization findings with original research on women convicted of domestic battery and men convicted of sexual abuse and other sex-related offenses. In these new data the authors explore the unanticipated consequences associated with changes to the laws governing domestic violence and the newer forms of sex-offender legislation. Both of these investigations are based on qualitative data that involve in-depth offender-based interviews that probe the circumstances surrounding the arrests and victimizations involved in the cases, the significant legal issues, and their experiences with the criminal justice system.

While traditional policing celebrated male officers as masculine crime fighters who were tough, aloof, and physically intimidating, policewomen were characterized as too soft and emotional for patrol assignments and were relegated to roles focusing on children, other women, or clerical tasks. With the advent of community policing, women's perceived skills are finally finding a legitimate place in police work, and law enforcement structures now encourage such previously undervalued feminine traits as trust, cooperation, compassion, interpersonal communication, and conflict resolution.
In this illuminating study of gender and community policing, Susan L. Miller draws on a combination of survey data, forthright interviews with a diverse mix of police officers, and extensive fieldwork conducted in a midwestern city where community policing has been practiced for over a decade. She describes the differences and similarities in policing styles of male and female officers, considers the relationships that develop between neighborhood police on foot and patrol officers in squad cars, and explores the interactions between neighborhood officers and community members.
Miller confronts such questions as how police reconcile incompatible images of masculinity and femininity; how actions of neighborhood police officers compare with those of traditional rapid response patrol officers; how community police cope with resistance from the rank and file; and how gender and gender-role expectations shape police activities and the evaluation of new skills.
Gender and Community Policing provides both a feminist framework for community policing and a fresh examination of how race, gender, andsexual orientation affect police image, identity, and methods.