Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2016 -

There is a wealth of critical criminological scholarship (e.g., research that emphasizes how unequal class, race/ethnic, and gender relations shape crime, law, and social control) on state or government crime. However, conspicuously absent from the progressive, extant empirical and theoretical literature that has rapidly accumulated over the past 26 years is an in-depth feminist analysis of how gender is related to women's roles as victims and perpetrators of harms such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Hence, this book by Collins (justice studies, Eastern Kentucky Univ.) is a much-needed response to this glaring omission. Her offering, however, is much more than simply a critique of androcentric research on one of the most compelling variants of crimes of the powerful. Rather, this pathbreaking monograph is theoretically rich and an excellent resource for those seeking realistic solutions to acts of gender-based violence committed by state institutions. Furthermore, the author's definition of state crime moves well beyond narrow legalistic conceptualizations and encompasses both direct and indirect types of state-perpetrated, gender-based violence, one of the book's most important contributions.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.