Abstracts
| Date | 01 December 1974 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486587400700408 |
| Published date | 01 December 1974 |
256
BOOK
REVIEWS,
ABSTRACTS and
NOTES
AlJST. N.z.J.r. (1974) 7
the process. The
explanatory
material
about the
pec~liar
language
lawyers
and judges use
is
es-
p.eclally
helpful
to the
program
of
demystifica-
tlon.
There
are
two
particular
groups
of
readers
who
will
profit
most
from
this
book. The
first
are
those people
in
other
disciplines
who
want
a
basic
introduction
to law.
For
instance, this re-
viewer
has been
involved
in
planning
and teach-
ing
a
one-term
course
on
Social Work and
Law
for
social
work
students
at
the
University
of
Svd-
ney.
This
text
was prescribed
on
the basic
"Iav/'
source
for
the course.
It
provided
the
ideal
common
base
for
the class and
an
excellent
starting
point
for
class discussions. The book
would
seem to be
obviously
suited
to
similar
interdisciplinary
studies in' non-law
fields
in-
cluding
criminology
and
corrections.
The second
group
of
readers who
might
profit
from
the book
is
intending
lawyers.
Every
Y(lar
law
school
deans
are
beseiged
with
requests
for
reading
lists
from
students who have been
admit-
ted to
law
school.
This
book is a
"must"
item
on
that
list.
But
it
may
well
be
that the
die
has been
cast by
them:
the book could
well
be
pointed out
and
recommended
to high school students
before
they
make
that
important
decision.
And even
if
they
have
no
desire to
be
lawyers.
it
would
be
a
profitable
venture
in
civil
education.
It
is a
small
book:
112
pages
including
thp
index
and
two
pages
of
suggestions
for
additional
reading.
It
is paper-backed.
At
$2.00
acopy,
it
is
well
within
the reach
of
those people
for
whom
it
is intended.
One
might
quibble
with
small
points:
t~e
omis-
sion
of
asection
on
lpgal
training
is recognised
by the
authors
in
their
introduction;
the sugges-
tIOns
for
further
reading could
be
annotated.
But
these
are
really
matt~rs
of
personal
preference
which
do not
detract
from
the
overall
impact
and
excellence
of
the book.
For
criminologists
it
is
well
to point
out
that the book is nct
confined
to
cri
minal
law
-
it
covers
all
facets
of
the
law
and
thus serves as a
useful"
rounding
out"
source
for
those to
whom
"law"
means
criminal
law
and
nothing
else.
W.T.
WESTLI;\lG.
University
of
Sydney
Abstracts
O'Malley,
Pat.
Webb, Stephen D.
"Economics,
Ideology and Criminal Policy: Sentencing and
Penal
Reforms
in
N~w
Zealand,
1954-1970"
(1973)
International
Journal
of
Criminology
and
Penology
363-374.
TH
EUSU
AL
explanation
for
the
development
of
penal and sentencing
reforms
is
in
terms
of
the
spread
of
rationalism,
liberalism
and
knowledge
through the 19th and 20th
centuries.
While
this
may
be
true
in
so
far
as
it
relates to the changes
from
custodial
to
treatment
oriented
programs
within
the
prison
itself,
to assume
that
the ex-
perimental
programs
developed
as
alterna
ti
ves
to
short-term
incarceration
(i.e. suspended sen-
tences,
probation,
periodic
detention
and
wider
use
of
fines>.
are
reforms
with
a
similar
raison
d'etre
is both
theoreticallv
and
politicallv
naive.
The
demand
to
maximise
reform
capacity
of
the
crinlinal
justice
system
and,
at
the same
time.
to
control
the cost, have faced
administrators
with
the
problem
of
resolving
potentiallY
contrary
ne-
cessities demanded
by
changing
·criminogenic.
ideological and
economic
pressures.
New
Zea-
land's
approach to sentencing and
corrections
is
based
on
what
the
Department
of
Justice
terms
"...a
positive
approach
of
responsible ex-
perimentation".
From
a
logistical
point
of
view,
the
importance
of
the increased range
of
dis-
positions
available
to the
courts
in
New Zealand
is -that techniques such
as
probation
and parole
provide
means
of
maintaining
formallv
defined
deviant
populations
in
a
manner
far
le's5
labour
intensive
and
capital
intensive
than is possible
with
incarceration.
The
figures
relating
to the
use
of
incarcerative,
semi-incarcerative
and
non-incarcerative
sanctions in
New
Zealand
an>
analysed and an
overall
picture
emerges
in
which
economic
considerations
are
seen to have
more
or
less
dictated
the adoption
of
sentencing
policies
which
are
also consistent
with
reform
oriented
goals
of
correction.
The
massive
in-
crease in the
number
of
convicted
offenders
over
the last
two
decades has
required
that
less ex-
pensive means
of
dealing
with
such persons be
developed, but also
there
have been changes
in
penal
administration
which
have
conflicted
with
the economic
directives
underlying
penal
policy.
The most
important
example
of
this
is the reduc.-
tion in
inmate-staff
ratios
in
penal
institutions,
and
client-staff
ratios
in
probation.
The
argu-
ment
is nevertheless stressed
that
the casual
processess
underlying
the development
of
non-
incarcerative
penalties
are
predominantly
eco-
nomic
and
that
the
accompanying
ideology
of
reform
merely
constitutes
a
rationalisation
of
the new
developments.
Notes
The
ANNUAL
CONFERENCE
of
the
AUSTRA-
LIAN
PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOCIETY
will
be
held
at
LA
TROBE
UNIVERSITY,
MELBOURNE
from
the 17th -22nd AUGU'ST 1975.
Further
details
of
program
and
registration
will
appear
in
the
Journal
"AUSTRALIAN
PSY-
cHoLoGIsT"
in
March
1975,
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