Book Review: The politics of sorrow: Families, victims, and the micro-organization of youth homicide

• Published date: 01 December 2014
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016814540301
• Date: 01 December 2014
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

In Chapters 3 and 4, the author goes in depth discussing the data and analytical strategy used

to examine AAOs. He uses the in-home survey portion of all three waves of the well-known

National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Positively, this book is the

first to use the nationally representative Add Health sample to specifically study how emerging

adulthood influences offending. Negatively, changes in the Add Health survey design for Wave

3 meant that the dependent measure of AAO, AL, and LCP offenders was slightly different

than that for Waves 1 and 2. Further, the justification for the independent variables used at

Wave 3 to represent the traditional turning points of education, employment, an d economic sta-

bility was somewhat difficult to follow. Salvatore also notes that Add Health provides a purely

cross-sectional view at each wave, so future research should use more sophisticated longitudi-

nal designs to consider emerging adulthood.

In the final chapter, Salvatore discusses how key indicators of turning pointsas well as social bonds

had relationshipswith both low- and high-level offending. He also states that these key indicators had

relationships with low- and high-level drug use that were both consistent and inconsistent with his

hypotheses. For example, marital status, having children, and military service were not relevant pre-

dictors of low or high offending. However, workingmore hours did lead to lower AAO offending and

education did act as a turning point for LCP offenders. The hypothesized relationship in social bonds

between job satisfaction and property ownership was not related to AAOs; however, parental attach-

ment and economicstability were related, withreligious participation results fluctuating depending on

the wave of data used. Further, identifying and separating AAOs from LCPs were useful, as AAOs

committed fewer offenses and had lower incidence of both low- and high-level drug use.

Direct testing of a new emerging adulthood stage provides an important theoretical contribution

to the field of criminal offending over the life course. Specifically, identifying AAOs provides an

interesting addition to Moffitt’s existing taxonomy. Salvatore also finds that by using a more recent

data sample such as Add Health, many of the traditional turning points and social bonds as described

by well-known life-course scholars are still relevant today.

However, there are a few weaknesses. The book itself is organized and reads very much like a

doctoral dissertation. The chapters on methods and findings were somewhat difficult to follow—

most notably many of the tables in the findings section were incorrectly numbered (and thus refer-

enced). For example, a table that continued onto two pages was considered and numbered as two

separate tables. Also, the appendices were too extensive including a series of models to examine two

of the hypotheses that were simply referenced in Chapter 4 as appendix E. Such detail on hypotheses

testing is normally examined in the body of the text.

Overall, this book tests a new stage in the life course and type of offender—emerging adulthood

and the AAO. It adds to the body of knowledge on the subject of the life course and is a good

reference for those interested in the area of emerging adulthood today.

Martin, D. (2013).

The politics of sorrow: Families, victims, and the micro-organization of youth homicide. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. 198 pp.

$104.95, ISBN 978-1-4094-4634-7.

Reviewed by: Jennifer M. Balboni, Curry College,Milton, MA, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0734016814540301

Daniel Martin’s The Politics of Sorrow: Families, Victims, and the Micro-Organization of Youth

Homicide is a detailed look into the lives of families wrought by homicide from the symbolic

Book Reviews 457