The Preface to this set describes women’s criminality as a growing area of scholarship that can no longer be encapsulated in a chapter or two in a criminology textbook or monograph. The scope of the work supports this assertion. The first volume in this set provides twelve well-researched essays written by scholars in the fields of criminology, sociology, criminal justice, and psychology. The second volume includes biographies of 135 women criminals dating back to the sixteenth century. The essays discuss topics such as the types of crimes women most often commit and diversity in relation to women’s crime, as well as specific types of crimes such as sexual offending, political crimes, and crimes of retaliation by women victims.

This set is easy to use and provides cross references between essays and biographical sketches. Criminals’ names appear in bold print within the essays. While this makes the woman’s biography relatively easy to find by name using the complete tables of contents appearing in both books, the inclusion of page numbers would also be helpful, but ultimately proves unnecessary. The appendixes featuring statistics and reports will also prove useful for students and researchers. An index appears at the end of Volume 2. Names, laws, organizations, and topics are indexed with page numbers.

This set works to establish connections between women’s (often gender-specific) experiences, the crimes that they commit, and how they are received and treated by the criminal justice system; however, the authors resist arguing for overly simplified causal connections between these elements. Clearly, this resource has a decidedly feminist flavor. While some readers may find ideological difficulty with this, the assertions of the authors are generally well documented by thorough research, sound logical reasoning, and statistical information. Perhaps most importantly, the biographical sketches are readable and interesting. Throughout the writing of this review, I have likely spent more time reading than truly necessary as a result of the engaging biographical sketches.

To my knowledge, there exist few reference works specifically dedicated to women’s criminality. One such volume is Nicole Hahn Rafter’s Encyclopedia of Women and Crime (Oryx 2000). This volume, in its Preface claims to be the “first comprehensive reference book on the topic of women and crime” (xxv). This work includes discussions of various types of crime, crime occurrence and corrections by geographical area, correctional systems, women in law enforcement and the court systems, and only a few profiles of women criminals. The breadth of this work is wider and covers a larger number of topics than Women Criminals. Women Criminals, on the other hand, offers more detailed biographical sketches of women criminals and a more in-depth examination of the relationships between women criminals and the crimes they commit. The two works together will complement each other nicely without being duplicative.

In summary, while this set is somewhat costly, it is recommended for most academic libraries and public libraries with adequate funding. Libraries supporting programs in law enforcement, criminology, sociology, gender studies, and related disciplines will find this set particularly useful.