- Email: [email protected]
The crime victim's book
Journal of Cnminal Jurrice, Vol. 8. pp. 129-136 Pergamon Press. Printed in the U.S.A
0(~7-?352/80102012Y-08502.0010 Copyright C 1980 Pergamon Press Ltd
(1980).
BOOK REVIEWS
The Crime Victim’s Book by Morton Dawn Sangrey.
Bard and
Basic Books, Inc., (404 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10016), 1979, 223 pp., $10.00. The consequences for the victims of personal or property crimes are, at best, inconvenient and, at most, potentially devastating, constituting a life crisis. The impersonal nature of our criminal justice system often adds to the victim’s frustration and devastation in the subsequent process of bureaucratic legal investigation and prosecution. The Crime Victim’s Book by Morton Bard and Dawn Sangrey is written for the victim of crimes such as rape, robbery, and burglary. The authors present in nontechnical language a much needed and beneficial lay explanation of the effect of crime on an individual’s life. It provides a good. but basic, understanding of the notion of “personal violation,” without subjecting the reader to long, drawn-out, abstract, theoretical explanations of the “self.” It is this violation of self, the authors argue, that, in addition to the financial or physical severity of a crime, is often at the core of the victim’s distress. The resulting feelings of lack of control over one’s environment, vulnerability, and even guilt often develop into a personal crisis situation. During such crises the victims are often forced to face (real or imagined) aspects of self that before the crime may have been less salient in their identities. The resulting stress is often compounded by the inability of the victims, or the lack of opportunities for them, to share and express their feelings of frustration and hurt. Bard and Sangrey repeatedly emphasize the victims’ need for emotional support from friends and relatives at this time. They also suggest that if such support is not
obtained early in the recovery process, recuperation may be slow and destructive, or it may even require professional assistance from a counselor or social worker. An entire chapter is devoted to the attribution process, which is apparently necessary in the victim’s recovery. The need to project rationality on a seemingly chaotic situation often results in the victim’s making attributions about the criminal, the society, or about him or herself in an effort to explain away the crisis. Here the authors provide useful guidelines for understanding the basics of this process and delineate some positive and negative consequences that may result. Negative attributions about self are often the result of .societal beliefs about victimization. According to the authors, the American belief that victims contribute in some way to their victimization intensifies feelings of guilt often to the point where victims will not seek support or assistance when needed. Further, they point out that to empathize with a victim can be a threatening experience for a third party. To empathize is to openly admit that “it can indeed happen to you” or a loved one. It is to admit that one does not have complete control over such matters and, further, that the world may not be logical and predictable. The final chapter and the three appendixes provide information about the availability of legal, financial, and supportive resources for victims. The first appendix provides useful legal definitions of criminal acts and statistics summarizing their prevalence, and rates of arrest and conviction. The second appendix is a descriptive overview of our criminal justice system, and the third contains a listing of the types of governmental and community services that may be available to the victim.
129
130
BOOK REVIEWS
Unfortunately, since the authors directed the book to a nonacademic audience, it contains many generalizations not only about crime as a social phenomenon but also about the self. Although crime is a little-understood social phenomenon, it is compared with other phenomena that make it somewhat understandable (e.g., poverty). Crime is not as totally beyond human comprehension or control as this book sometimes implies. Regarding the latter, as the authors mention briefly, the self is a complicated and fragile entity. Since there are many competing theories in the social psychologies about the nature of the self, it seems inadequate to present a number of aspects of the self without the use of a consistent theoretical framework. The book lacks this consistency, either covertly or overtly. A scholarly work the book is not, nor was it probably intended to be. References supporting theoretical and some empirical statements are missing. However, it appears accurate (barring generalities) in its overall content. Further, it is highly readable. The use of personal vignettes adds flavor to the manuscript, which does keep the reader’s interest. It should be quite useful for the nonacademician. In addition to this utility for the lay public, the book might be used as a supplementary text in an undergraduate course in social problems or criminology. It also has potential for introductory students of counselling or social work. It is encouraging to come upon a book that deals with an often forgotten topic, the victim of crime, and that can be read and understood by a variety of audiences. Nancy A. Greenwood Department of Sociology Washington State University Pullman, Washington 99164
Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of Prison by Michel Foucault, translated by Alan Sheridan. Pantheon Books (201 E. 50th Street, New York, New York 10022), 1977. 333 pp., $10.95. Why do prisons, acknowledged as a failure for over one hundred years, continue to exist?
Foucault answers this question by saying that the use of the penal institution has not failed to meet its objective; rather, we have failed to understand its true objective. The objective of the prison has not been to eliminate criminal behavior, but to function “as an instrument for the differential supervision of illegalities” through the identification and separation of certain criminals engaged in certain types of criminal behavior. In developing this thesis, Foucault has written an impressive work, fascinating for its novel appoach and remarkable for its breadth of detail. Using a cultural/historical perspective and relying on extensive documentation, Foucault has carefully reconstructed the evolutionary development of punitive techniques applied by Western European societies on their criminal members. Foucault begins with the use of physical punishment in the seventeenth century and concludes with the concept of the modern prison. This review provides a broad outline of Foucault’s work so the reader might better appreciate the unique approach taken by the author in his analysis of the development and use of prisons as a penal mechanism. In the seventeenth century a large portion of the crimes required public physical punishment. and the authority for ordering torture rested with the sovereign because the control of deviant behavior was his responsibility. This practice reaffirmed the sovereign’s power for all to see. and the criminal, by his public confession, was put in the position of judging his own actions and condemning himself. In the eighteenth century, support for public punishment waned. Reformers had criticized the public executions because they had clearly demonstrated both the unlimited power of the sovereign and the ever active illegality of the people. The reformers advocated significant changes. Society, rather than the sovereign, was seen as having the authority to punish. The objective of punishment was not only to be concerned with the crime at hand, but it must have a future effect: punishment must keep the criminal from committing other crimes, and it must keep others in the populace from committing them. At this time the prison was not seen as an acceptable vehicle for punishment. since its role had been that of detention, not punishment. It was also closely identified with the power of the
0(~7-?352/80102012Y-08502.0010 Copyright C 1980 Pergamon Press Ltd
(1980).
BOOK REVIEWS
The Crime Victim’s Book by Morton Dawn Sangrey.
Bard and
Basic Books, Inc., (404 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10016), 1979, 223 pp., $10.00. The consequences for the victims of personal or property crimes are, at best, inconvenient and, at most, potentially devastating, constituting a life crisis. The impersonal nature of our criminal justice system often adds to the victim’s frustration and devastation in the subsequent process of bureaucratic legal investigation and prosecution. The Crime Victim’s Book by Morton Bard and Dawn Sangrey is written for the victim of crimes such as rape, robbery, and burglary. The authors present in nontechnical language a much needed and beneficial lay explanation of the effect of crime on an individual’s life. It provides a good. but basic, understanding of the notion of “personal violation,” without subjecting the reader to long, drawn-out, abstract, theoretical explanations of the “self.” It is this violation of self, the authors argue, that, in addition to the financial or physical severity of a crime, is often at the core of the victim’s distress. The resulting feelings of lack of control over one’s environment, vulnerability, and even guilt often develop into a personal crisis situation. During such crises the victims are often forced to face (real or imagined) aspects of self that before the crime may have been less salient in their identities. The resulting stress is often compounded by the inability of the victims, or the lack of opportunities for them, to share and express their feelings of frustration and hurt. Bard and Sangrey repeatedly emphasize the victims’ need for emotional support from friends and relatives at this time. They also suggest that if such support is not
obtained early in the recovery process, recuperation may be slow and destructive, or it may even require professional assistance from a counselor or social worker. An entire chapter is devoted to the attribution process, which is apparently necessary in the victim’s recovery. The need to project rationality on a seemingly chaotic situation often results in the victim’s making attributions about the criminal, the society, or about him or herself in an effort to explain away the crisis. Here the authors provide useful guidelines for understanding the basics of this process and delineate some positive and negative consequences that may result. Negative attributions about self are often the result of .societal beliefs about victimization. According to the authors, the American belief that victims contribute in some way to their victimization intensifies feelings of guilt often to the point where victims will not seek support or assistance when needed. Further, they point out that to empathize with a victim can be a threatening experience for a third party. To empathize is to openly admit that “it can indeed happen to you” or a loved one. It is to admit that one does not have complete control over such matters and, further, that the world may not be logical and predictable. The final chapter and the three appendixes provide information about the availability of legal, financial, and supportive resources for victims. The first appendix provides useful legal definitions of criminal acts and statistics summarizing their prevalence, and rates of arrest and conviction. The second appendix is a descriptive overview of our criminal justice system, and the third contains a listing of the types of governmental and community services that may be available to the victim.
129
130
BOOK REVIEWS
Unfortunately, since the authors directed the book to a nonacademic audience, it contains many generalizations not only about crime as a social phenomenon but also about the self. Although crime is a little-understood social phenomenon, it is compared with other phenomena that make it somewhat understandable (e.g., poverty). Crime is not as totally beyond human comprehension or control as this book sometimes implies. Regarding the latter, as the authors mention briefly, the self is a complicated and fragile entity. Since there are many competing theories in the social psychologies about the nature of the self, it seems inadequate to present a number of aspects of the self without the use of a consistent theoretical framework. The book lacks this consistency, either covertly or overtly. A scholarly work the book is not, nor was it probably intended to be. References supporting theoretical and some empirical statements are missing. However, it appears accurate (barring generalities) in its overall content. Further, it is highly readable. The use of personal vignettes adds flavor to the manuscript, which does keep the reader’s interest. It should be quite useful for the nonacademician. In addition to this utility for the lay public, the book might be used as a supplementary text in an undergraduate course in social problems or criminology. It also has potential for introductory students of counselling or social work. It is encouraging to come upon a book that deals with an often forgotten topic, the victim of crime, and that can be read and understood by a variety of audiences. Nancy A. Greenwood Department of Sociology Washington State University Pullman, Washington 99164
Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of Prison by Michel Foucault, translated by Alan Sheridan. Pantheon Books (201 E. 50th Street, New York, New York 10022), 1977. 333 pp., $10.95. Why do prisons, acknowledged as a failure for over one hundred years, continue to exist?
Foucault answers this question by saying that the use of the penal institution has not failed to meet its objective; rather, we have failed to understand its true objective. The objective of the prison has not been to eliminate criminal behavior, but to function “as an instrument for the differential supervision of illegalities” through the identification and separation of certain criminals engaged in certain types of criminal behavior. In developing this thesis, Foucault has written an impressive work, fascinating for its novel appoach and remarkable for its breadth of detail. Using a cultural/historical perspective and relying on extensive documentation, Foucault has carefully reconstructed the evolutionary development of punitive techniques applied by Western European societies on their criminal members. Foucault begins with the use of physical punishment in the seventeenth century and concludes with the concept of the modern prison. This review provides a broad outline of Foucault’s work so the reader might better appreciate the unique approach taken by the author in his analysis of the development and use of prisons as a penal mechanism. In the seventeenth century a large portion of the crimes required public physical punishment. and the authority for ordering torture rested with the sovereign because the control of deviant behavior was his responsibility. This practice reaffirmed the sovereign’s power for all to see. and the criminal, by his public confession, was put in the position of judging his own actions and condemning himself. In the eighteenth century, support for public punishment waned. Reformers had criticized the public executions because they had clearly demonstrated both the unlimited power of the sovereign and the ever active illegality of the people. The reformers advocated significant changes. Society, rather than the sovereign, was seen as having the authority to punish. The objective of punishment was not only to be concerned with the crime at hand, but it must have a future effect: punishment must keep the criminal from committing other crimes, and it must keep others in the populace from committing them. At this time the prison was not seen as an acceptable vehicle for punishment. since its role had been that of detention, not punishment. It was also closely identified with the power of the