Victims still : the political manipulation of crime victims /

Elias (Univ. of San Francisco) deals with crime victims but not in a traditional manner. Although his book somewhat superficially describes various programs for crime victims and the victims' movement in general, its primary focus is on the fundamental social, political, and economic changes that have to be made in the US to reduce the number of future crime victims. In an understandable and straightforward style Elias evaluates the effectiveness of the last decade's victim policy and argues that victims and the victims' movement have been politically manipulated for official objectives. Elias is a radical criminologist who acknowledges that "many people [from various points of the political spectrum] will hate this book." Andrew Karmen's Crime Victims (2nd ed., 1990) is a much more descriptive analysis than this work, but the value of Victims Still lies in its theoretical approach. This controversial thesis should stimulate a fundamental analysis not only of the victims' movement, but also of American society generally. General; advanced undergraduate; graduate; faculty; professional. P. Horne; Mercer County Community College