Girard Philip Lawyers and Legal Culture in British North America: Beamish Murdoch of Halifax. Toronto: Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History/University of Toronto Press, 2011. 304 pp.

Abstract

Book Reviews 111 uses emotions in the media to resocialize members and the general public around responsiveness to victims' issues. In the sixth chapter, Kenney reviews the role played by public and private agencies set up to serve victims of crime. He shows the often-counterintuitive effect of encounters with victim support programs. Drawing on an ethnography with Don Clairmont, chapter seven provides a critical engagement with a youth restorative justice program, showing how traumatic, shaming emotions are dramaturgically mediated in restorative justice encounters by the rhetorical use of the victim role. Th e authors elaborate on how shaming management can facilitate ostensibly meaningful outcomes, undermine them, or result in agreements based more on realpolitik than on reintegration. In the fi nal substantive chapter, Kenney (with Alfredo Schulte-Bockholt) compares the Columbian and Canadian responses to victims of crime. Th e concluding chapter off ers a synopsis of the book and lines for future inquiry. Both of these books will appeal to academics and practitioners interested in victims' rights issues. Both are written in accessible language and off er insights into contemporary problems regarding crime victims. Th e two texts complement each other: Rentschler's text offers more insight into media issues regarding victims of crime; Kenney's text is more wide-ranging in scope as it pertains to victims' issues relative to the criminal justice system and related agencies. Both of these texts should be welcome additions to the library of anyone interested in victims and victimization.