In the US, murderers, particularly those sentenced to death, are usually considered as entirely different from the rest of us. Sociologist Susan F. Sharp challenges perspective by reminding us that those facing a death sentence, in addition to being murderers, are brothers or sisters, mothers or fathers, daughters or sons.

Foreword by Michael L. Radelet
Preface
Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: The Death Penalty, Victims' Families, and Families of Prisoners
2. Dealing with the Horror: "We're Sentenced, Too": Families of Individuals Facing a Death Sentence
3. Trying to Cope: Withdrawal, Anger, and Joining
4. The Grief Process: Denial and Horror, the BADD Cycle (Bargaining, Activity, Disillusionment, and Desperation}
5. Facing the End: Families and Execution
6. Aftermath: Picking Up the Pieces
7. "But He's Innocent"
8. Double Losers: Being Both a Victim's Family Member and an Offender's Family Member
9. Family after the Fact: Fictive Kin and Death Row Marriages
10. The Death Penalty and Families, Revisited
11. Conclusion

Appendix A. Death Row Visitation Policies (Social/Family Visits)
Appendix B. Interview Schedule for Initial Interviews
Appendix C. Demographics of Interview Subjects
Notes
Bibliography
Index

SUSAN F. SHARP is David Ross Boyd Professor of Sociology and is affiliate faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies. She is also a faculty fellow with the College of Liberal Studies, the Department of Human Relations, and the Organizational Leadership Program. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas-Austin in 1996. Her research focuses on female crime and deviance, the incarceration of women, and the impact of corrections policies on families of offenders. Her recent research has focused on theoretical explanations of female criminal behaviors from a life course perspective, exploring how multiple marginalities may steer women into criminal and/or deviant behaviors. She has served on the executive board of the American Society of Criminology and was the founding editor of Feminist Criminology, the official journal of the Division on Women and Crime of the American Society of Criminology.

 Dr. Sharp’s current research focuses on jail diversionary programs for female offenders.