Offering insights based on years of original research, Redefining Murder, Transforming Emotion investigates the ideas and experiences of individuals who have lost loved ones to homicide (co-victims) in order to advance our understanding of the emotional transformation of forgiveness.

Kristen Lee Discola received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the State University of New York at Albany in 2017, and is currently an Associate Professor of Sociology at California State University, Los Angeles. Her areas of specialization are social psychology, with a focus on emotion and identity, and crime and deviance, with a focus on victimization and trauma. Demonstrating a profound commitment to scholarship and professional growth, Discola has won a number of awards for her in-depth, qualitative work investigating individuals' experiences following tragic loss, including the inaugural Siegel Graduate Fellowship for Victimology Studies through the American Society of Criminology, Division of Victimology; the Liska Dissertation Research Award; the Paul Meadows Award for Excellence in Research; and the Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award, from the State University of New York at Albany.

1. Introduction to the Research, Context, and Content of this Book; 2. Narrating Lived Experiences of Forgiveness and Unforgiveness; 3. Forgiveness Factors Salient within Narratives of Lived Experience; 4. "I could've been the one in jail for murder": How Experiential Empathy Fosters Forgiveness in Cases of Close Cultural Proximity between Forgiver and Forgiven; 5. "We are all victims of victims": How Speculative Empathy Fosters Forgiveness in Cases of Distant Cultural Proximity between Forgiver and Forgiven; 6. Constructing Victim, Survivor, and Transcender Identities; 7. Unraveling Causal Order; 8. Conclusions and Future Directions; Postscript: Detailed Methodology; Appendix A