Book Received
| DOI | 10.1177/000486586900200211 |
| Published date | 01 June 1969 |
| Date | 01 June 1969 |
| Subject Matter | books-received |
AUST. &N.Z.
JOURNAL
OF CRIMINOLOGY (1969):
z.
2125
doubt
that
public
attitudes
towards punish-
ment
have changed
vastly
in
the
past
cen-
tury. Education, child-rearing and the
criminal law
are
no longer as dependent
upon
the
infliction of pain and suffering
as they were, and
further
changes, perhaps
as
great,may
be expected in the century
to come.
The .direction of
these
future develop-
ments is clearly predicted by Sir
Walter
Moberly. Moral progress, he suggests, will
be
marked
by indirect
rather
than
direct
consequences of punishment; by shame
rather
than' physical suffering. The sym-
bolism of
the
punitive
gesture
may be
attached to a spoken rebuke
rather
than
to an
event
such as imprisonment, cor-
poral or capital punishment. Finally, more
creative types of counter-action, such as
requiring restitution,
will
.be tried.
We can see the' beginnings of a move-
ment
in this direction today. Retributive
sentencing of offenders is becoming accom-
panied by a feeling of unease. Predictions
of future dangerousness or offensiveness
(although invariably
..
today
unscientiflcally
made)
are
increasingly being considered
in the fixing of
appropriate
punishments.
Sir
Walter
Moberly does
not
accept
the
validity of
this
trend
if it goes so
far
as
to suggest
that
punishment should be re-
garded
not
as a settling of an old account
but
the
opening of a
new
one.
For. him
just
retribution is essential in
order
to express moral condemnation.
and
to enable
the
community to repudiate the
offence. But this does
not
mean
that
the
punishment
must
be
as
evil or as damag-
ing as the offence itself.
It
is enough
that
condemnation is signified
and
under-
stood.
Hence he is opposed to capital punish-
ment
as being ·unnecessary, and he has
grave
misgivings
about
the
ethics and
practical wisdom of
the
Nuremburg trials.
Progress in prison
reform
he sees as
both
sensible
and
beneficient,
with
the
greatest
obstacle to
further
progress being conser-
vative public opinion.
No final conclusions emerge from this
book. The rational
and
moral bases for
the
application of
punishment
will still be
debated by philosophers and practitioners
for
years
to come.
But
at
least this work
has'
made
the
simple sentiment of an old
nursery rhyme seem as inadequate
~nd
strange
as
the
words used to express It:
"Him
as
prigs
what
isn't hissen,
When
he's cotched, shall go to
prison."
DAVID BILES,
Lecturer
in Criminology,
University of Melbourne.
BOOKS
RECEIVED
Cowie, J., Cowie, V. and Slater, E., Delin-
quency
in Girls. Heinemann, Lond., 1968,
220 pp., $6.65
McClintock, F. H. and Avison, N. a.,
Crime
in
England
and
Wales. Heinemann,
Lond., 1968, 317 pp., $17.00
Schur, E. M.,
Law
and
Soeiety: A
Sociological View. Random House, New
York, 1968, 239 pp.
Stratton,
J. R. and Terry, R. M., Preven-
tion
of Delinquency: Problems and
Pr0-
grams.
Macmillan, New York, 1968,
334 pp.
Sykes, G. M. and Drabek, T. E.,
Law
and
the
Lawless: AReader in Criminology.
Random House, New York, 1969
Sykes,G.
M., Crime
and
Society, 2nd
edition, Random House, New York, 1969
(paperback), 427 pp.
Any
books for review should be
sent
to the Editor, Department of
Criminology,
University
of Melbourne,
Parkville,
Victoria, 3052.
The Editor and
the
Advisory
Edi-
torial
Board do
not
accept
respon-
sibility
for
any
views or
criticisms
expressed regarding
any
books re-
viewed in this section.
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