Book Review: Rebuilding Attachments With Traumatized Children: Healing From Losses, Violence, Abuse, and Neglect

Published date01 September 2005
Date01 September 2005
DOI10.1177/0734016805282756
AuthorJennifer Baggerly
Subject MatterArticles
Daly, Lisa Maher, and Jody Miller, with others being less well-known, at least to this New
Zealand-based reviewer.
This raises one issue of concern, namely, that the book is almost solely based on research
emanating from North America, with comparatively little inclusion or reference to feminist
criminological research from the United Kingdom or other areas of the world. Unfortunately,
this makes the inclusion of one Australian-based article seem akin to tokenism, an impres-
sion I am sure the editors did not intend.
This criticism likewise is not intended to detract from the overall caliber of this selection.
In general, the articles selected are good and well written, and their inclusion in such an edi-
tion will surely guarantee them a wider readership than journal publication alone. The
authors stress in their introduction the importance of recognizing the linkages between girls
and crime and women and crime. This observation draws attention to the way in which the
separation of juvenile delinquency and associated studies from adult offending can obscure
such links. One of the major contributions of this book is in emphasizing such connections, in
relation to both female victimization and female offending. Although the editors provide
introductions to each of the major sections, these are typically only one page or less, and the
book’s merits could havebeen strengthened by greater effort on their part to provide and ana-
lyze linkages.
A further limitation of this book, which may have been inevitable given its attempt to
cover such a wide area, is that there are major gaps and imbalances. The first section on “Gen-
der and Criminological Theorizing,” for instance, contains two pieces devoted to strain the-
ory alongside two broader overviews, leaving other major theoretical developments vying
for space. Later in the volume, an interesting piece by Leslie Acoca briefly draws attention to
the victimization of girls within the home, streets, and juvenile justice system, but there is lit-
tle material devoted to examining the victimization of adult women and how this may be
linked to their offending.
Despite these limitations, there is much to recommend Girls, Women, and Crime. It pro-
vides a useful companion text to the earlier volume edited by the same authors, The Female
Offender, Second Edition (2004), and the articles selected would be accessible to researchers
from a range of disciplines, including criminology, law, and women’s studies, as well as to
students and criminal justice practitioners. Overall, there is much benefit to be found in this
collection, which provides yet another strong affirmation of the fact that, in criminology as in
life, gender matters.
Jan Jordan
Victoria University of Wellington
Rebuilding Attachments WithTraumatized Children: Healing FromLosses, Violence, Abuse,
and Neglect, by Richard Kagan. Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Press, 2004. 374 pp.
DOI: 10.1177/0734016805282756
Are abused and neglected children destined to enter the criminal justice system? Not
according to this author. On the contrary,given proper trauma therapy, even those who are in
the system can reclaim their past and rewrite their future. This book provides an understand-
226 Criminal Justice Review

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