Book Review: Beck, E., Britto, S., & Andrews, A. (2007). In the Shadow of Death: Restorative Justice and Death Row Families. New York: Oxford University Press. 336 pp

• Author: Richard Tewksbury
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016809331776
• Published date: 01 September 2009
• Date: 01 September 2009
• Subject Matter: Articles

462 Criminal Justice Review
and practices of prison administrators who are employed by profit-seeking corporations. In
this way it helps fill in the eclipse of prison ethnography in the current age of mass incar-
ceration. It also has the sound of honesty, and it is absent of any hint of attempting to con the
reader about the unimaginable cruelty of imprisonment. It should be in every library in the
United States and read with a cautious and critical perspective.
J. Robert Lilly
Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights
Beck, E., Britto, S., & Andrews, A. (2007). In the Shadow of Death: Restorative Justice
and Death Row Families. New York: Oxford University Press. 336 pp.
DOI: 10.1177/0734016809331776
In the Shadow of Death is an exceptional book that teaches readers about the experiences
of family members of death row offenders and the meanings and practices of restorative
justice. For any book to effectively summarize and advocate one main topic is an accom-
plishment; to do two primary foci within one book is an outstanding achievement. Authors
Elizabeth Beck, Sarah Britto, and Arlene Andrews are to be commended for crafting a well-
written, easy-to-read, clearly organized, and highly informative tome that provides readers
with a depth of understanding of two initially seeming incompatible topics that has not
been done before.
The main topic of the book is how families of death row offenders (as well as offenders
charged with capital offenses but spared the death sentence) are impacted by their loved one’s
offenses and how the criminal justice system processing of such offenders takes a toll on their
lives. Through 34 individual interviews with parents, children, siblings, extended family
members, and other loved ones of such offenders (as well as 2 focus groups with 12 family
members), the authors show the emotional, social, psychological, and health consequences of
such situations for those related to serious offenders. The far-reaching...