We are all actors in a play, for which the stage is set every day, in every workplace. Owners, managers, employees, customers and suppliers are all part of the constant, swirling emotional drama, a drama we call The Plot, involving victims, villains and heroes. This book explains how to step out of emotional dramas in the workplace.

Moral Wages offers the reader a vivid depiction of what it is like to work inside an agency that assists victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Based on over a year of fieldwork by a man in a setting many presume to be hostile to men, this ethnographic account is unlike most research on the topic of violence against women. Instead of focusing on the victims or perpetrators of abuse, Moral Wages focuses exclusively on the service providers in the middle. It shows how victim advocates and counselors—who don't enjoy extrinsic benefits like pay, power, and prestige—are sustained by a different kind of compensation. As long as they can overcome a number of workplace dilemmas, they earn a special type of emotional reward reserved for those who help others in need: moral wages. As their struggles mount, though, it becomes clear that their jobs often put them in impossible situations—requiring them to aid and feel for vulnerable clients, yet giving them few and feeble tools to combat a persistent social problem.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.

Volume 6 in the 6-volume series titled Criminal Justice: Contemporary Literature in Theory and Practice. This compilation of articles attempts to fill gaps in existing resources with some of the best current statements on the topic. Subjects include the characteristics of victims, the effects of crime on victims, and some contemporary theories of victimization. Also included are evaluations of a variety of victim-oriented policies and programs, such as victim assistance, peace-making, and victim-impact statements. This title will be of great utility to students, scholars, and others with interests in the literature of criminal justice and criminology.