More than one in three women in the United States has experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Luckily, many are able to escape this life—but what happens to them after? Journeys focuses on the desperately understudied topic of the resiliency of long-term (over 5 years) survivors of intimate partner violence and abuse. Drawing on participant observation research and interviews with women years after the end of their abusive relationships, author Susan L. Miller shares these women’s trials and tribulations, and expounds on the factors that facilitated these women’s success in gaining inner strength, personal efficacy, and transformation.
Written for researchers, practitioners, students, and policy makers in criminal justice, sociology, and social services, Journeys shares stories that hope to inspire other victims and survivors while illuminating the different paths to resiliency and growth.
Susan L. Miller is Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. She is the author of After the Crime: The Power of Restorative Justice Dialogues Between Victims and Violent Offenders, and Victims as Offenders: The Paradox of Women's Violence in Relationships.
"The enormity of violence against women means womanhood cannot be understood without hearing how girls and women make sense of pain long after their escape from these damaging relationships. Miller’s work lets us hear these missing voices as they remake their lives, often drawing strength from harrowing experiences.
Journeysalso powerfully documents the ways that the criminal justice system fails girls and women. A must read."
—Meda Chesney-Lind, Professor, Women’s Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa