Book Review: Bending toward justice: The Birmingham church bombing that changed the course of civil rights

• Author: David E. Barlow
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734016819863092
• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Date: 01 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

common inside the prisons. However, the prisoners also express some of their fears and challenges

they will face once they are released. A poignant point made by one of the participants discusses how

he will have to learn to interact with others who are not part of the prison environment. Others dis-

cussed the challenges of avoiding the bad inf‌luences they were around before going to prison and

trying to renew family relationships that may have been damaged as a result of the participant’s

crime and subsequent incarceration.

Other issues presented in these chapters include securing a stable home environment, reestablish-

ment of family relationships not only as a means of material support but also as a source of social

identity and a form of informal social control. The role of neighborhood context as it relates to

reentry is also explored. Often, these individuals being released from prison return to neighborhoods

that provide ample opportunities for crime and drug use. The strategies used by individuals to try to

avoid a return to criminal behavior are discussed along with the challenges the participants faced. The

f‌inal issue presented involves the task of the offenders securing employment. With the stigmatization

of a criminal record, little education, weak job skills, parole requirements, and transportation diff‌i-

culties, this can be an extremely daunting task for the recently released offenders.

The conclusion of the book brings together the issues discussed in the heart of the book. The

authors then make some connections to theoretical paradigms in criminology to try to explain

why some offenders do not renter society successfully. Policy recommendations are then presented

which the authors argue would help make the transition back to the free world a smoother and more

successful process for those leaving prison. Some of these recommendations seem to already be in

place, such as incarcerating fewer people and better preparing prisoners while they are still in prison

to meet the challenges they will face when released.

Overall, the book provides a timely and useful examination of the primary issues facing prisoners

when they are released from prison. Considering that the most currently incarcerated offenders will

eventually be released, the reentry paradigm will continue to be relevant for the foreseeable future.

The personal casestudies provide a unique insight intothese issues and demonstrate how theobstacles

vary from person toperson as well as the resources needed tobe successful in reentry. The book could

use more incorporation of the quantitative data available. Plenty is presented from the qualitative inter-

views. Additional presentation of quantitative data could be used to better explain some of the issues

and would appeal to those correctional scholars who value the inclusion of quantitative support and

explanations. A f‌inal shortcoming of the book is the almost exclusive reliance on a sociological per-

spective in addressing the issues presented as well as fashioning recommendations to address the

issues. The addition of other perspectives, such as psychology and biology, would add to the discus-

sion, especially when connecting theoretical paradigms to reentry successes and failures.

ORCID iD

Ken Balusek https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4116-8091

Jones, D. (2019). Bending toward justice: The Birmingham church bombing that changed the course of civil rights.

New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. 363 pp. $29.99. ISBN 9781250201447.

Reviewed by: David E. Barlow ,Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville, NC, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0734016819863092

Senator Doug Jones may best be known for his defeat of Roy Moore in the 2017 special election held

in Alabama to replace Jeff Sessions after he became U.S. Attorney General. In the book, Bending

134 Criminal Justice Review 48(1)