Book Review: Crime Prevention and Intervention: Legal and Ethical Problems
| Date | 01 December 1989 |
| Published date | 01 December 1989 |
| Author | Ian O'connor |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486588902200410 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
282
BOOK REVIEWS (1989)
22
ANZJ
Crim
This book could be usefully prescribed in undergraduate criminology courses and
would make an excellent stimulus for in-service training
or
seminars on correctional
officer training and/or correctional officer management.
In
the reviewer's opinion, this
is
an important work which provides both
academics and practitioners with valuable insights into the real world
of
prison
officers.
Adelaide
ADRIAN
SANDERY
Crime Prevention and Intervention: Legal and Ethical Problems, Peter-Alexis
Albrecht and Otto Backes (eds), Walter de Gruyter (1989)
286
pp $US44.95.
This
is
acollection of
16
papers presented to the Third International Symposium of
the University of Bielefeld's Prevention and Intervention in Childhood and
Adolescence Research Unit in October 1987. The collection discusses:
(i) the issues involved in extending the ambit of the law from
"the
directed
control of the manifest problem care to anticipatory control of clients who
only have potential problems" (p 1);
(ii) various preventative programmes; and
(iii) the ethical problems of prevention.
The papers prImarily focus on the law and practice in West Germany.
The issues related to prevention, the extent of preventative intervention, pre and
post trial diversion and sentencing options are the focus of ongoing debate in the
juvenile justice literature. The four papers addressing these issues from alegal
perspective, not surprisingly, stress the threat posed by preventative intervention in
the criminal justice system. Prevention
is
the state's trojan horse, masking the
extension of the coercive powers of the West German state. In the view
of
the
contributing authors in this section, prevention can only be achieved through
socioeconomic and socio-cultural measures (structural prevention). The expansion
of
the criminal justice system must be resisted and emphasis on traditional legal
rights maintained.
In the second section seven papers discuss preventative programmes and
strategies. With two exceptions these papers focus on prevention in terms of
diversion and minimising the extent of penetration into the juvenile justice system.
(The structural issues identified previously are put to one side.) Herboth, Rzepka
and Voss, for example, analyse the failure of police and prosecutors in Bielefeld to
implement the diversionary intent of the Juvenile Court Act. Galaway evaluates a
victim offender reconciliation programme and provides auseful review of the
research on such programmes. He
is
inconclusive as to whether such programmes
are preventative in terms of individual diversion
out
of the juvenile justice system
or
preventing individuals from reoffending. The potential and forms of informal
justice in two European programmes are evaluated without firm conclusion in
another two papers.
Only Polk and Bollert and Otto move beyond anarrow legalistic approach to
prevention. Using data on the Australian labour market, Polk delineates the
structural reasons for the marginalisation of youth and the creation
of
an
"underclass". Polk argues that schools will increasingly face the consequences of
this marginalisation and be involved in the management
of
the resultant
misbehaviour:
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