Women and the Criminal Justice System: Gender, Race, and Class

Van Wormer and Bartollas' book provides a very broad discussion of all facets of women in the criminal justice system, such as rape, spouse abuse, women in prison, women in law enforcement, and women in the legal profession. Because of its broad range of information, it provides a strong book for courses in criminal justice programs involving women. It also provides a strong reader for lay persons who are just interested in knowing the issues involving women and the criminal justice system. In the College of Social Work at Ohio State University, I teach a course entitled social work practice in corrections and would adopt this book as a second book for my course to provide students with broad perspective of women issues in criminal justice.

Although laid out like a textbook(numerous summary statements and bullet points) and encompassing an enormous amount of literature, the writing is crisp and interesting, liberally sprinkled with quotes, original interviews, vignettes and illustrative sidebars. The chapters fall into the basic categories of women as imprisoned perpetrators, women as victims of crimes, and the place of women in the law enforcement system. The book is a joint effort from a social work professor and a sociology/criminal justice professor. THis resulted in a fruitful interplay between the objective and subjective voice in the presentation of this material. The subject is explicitly approached from an empowerment perspective, which focuses on giving people the information they need to navigate the issues most effectively for helping themselves and others.The assumption is that issues of gender,social class and racial oppression enter into all aspects of the subject.This is a valuable and rare resource in this area of human concern. Reviewed in Social Work Forum Newsletter