Book Review

What To Do When the Police Leave
by Bill Jenkins

Publisher:  WBJ Press
ISBN:  096676000X

After the tragic murder of his seventeen-year-old son Bill Jenkins, a Drama and Speech professor from Virginia Union University, used his grief to create a remarkable tool for the bereaved. As the title suggests, this tool is especially geared for the loss of a loved one to a traumatic death, but its pages hold treasures for everyone.

Writing from a bereaved father's point of view Bill Jenkins gives us insight into the basic steps of surviving devastating news. He offers a checklist for your immediate attention to help you keep on track through the grief. He offers insight for laypeople on the Local Victim's Assistance Program and dealing with trials, the local police, and the media.

The book offers advice on how to chose a funeral home, planning and customizing the funeral to meet your needs. The book also is filled with special inspirational poetry and prose that talk to the bereaved.

Bill Jenkins offers advice on the phases of grief, how men and women differ in grief, and how to respond to the grief of children. His insights are not from a professional point of view, although he utilized some of the great therapists in this work, but from a person who has walked the path. Resources for the bereaved include national organizations and Internet sites.

"What To Do When the Police Leave" is truly a one of a kind offering that should be available through any victim's rights group or law enforcement agency. It fills the need of practicality with compassion for anyone experiencing a loss through a murder, suicide, accidental death, or any other type of traumatic death.