This book describes the collective responses of bereaved people to the aftermath of violent death, a subject not dealt with in any detail in the literature that is currently available. It concentrates particularly on the birth, development, and organization of the self-help and campaigning groups that have emerged in the last decade. The book examines these as attempts to give institutional expression to interpretations of grief, and shows us that these attempts, in their turn, are implicated in a potent phenomenology of mourning. In addition, the book had special access to a number of groups ... More

This book describes the collective responses of bereaved people to the aftermath of violent death, a subject not dealt with in any detail in the literature that is currently available. It concentrates particularly on the birth, development, and organization of the self-help and campaigning groups that have emerged in the last decade. The book examines these as attempts to give institutional expression to interpretations of grief, and shows us that these attempts, in their turn, are implicated in a potent phenomenology of mourning. In addition, the book had special access to a number of groups and uses the information that has been gathered through this access to discuss the practical and political importance of the work of these groups, and their affects on policing, the media and the law.