Book Review: Delinquency in Girls
| DOI | 10.1177/000486586900200310 |
| Date | 01 September 1969 |
| Published date | 01 September 1969 |
| Author | E. Harwood |
Book Reviews
CivU Disobedience: Theory
and
Praetice,
Hugo
Adam Bedau (ed.), Pegasus. New
York. 1969. 1-268, References 269·275,
Notes on Contributors 277·8. Index 279-
282. U.S. price $7.50
(hard
cover); $1.95
(paperback),
CIVIL disobedience is a constantly
recurring theme in
the
history
of human
societies, and in these
days
distorted
presentations in ubiquitous mass com-
munication media give to some of its
manifestations an appearance of eccentric
irrationa1ity. Al
though
civil disobedience
falls outside
the
patterns
of criminal
or
deviant
behaviour normally
the
concern of
crlminologlsts, it frequently involves
behavioural and social phenomena
that
merit
their attention. Professor Hugo
Adam Bedau, who in 1964 edited T h e
Death
Penalty
in
America:
An
Antholog}'.
has collected
twenty
essays by writers of
varying eminence on different aspects of
the
right
and
duty
of civil resistance. The
presentation is organised in four parts.
Inevitably the first
part
is devoted to
Henry
D. Thoreau's seminal lecture
delivered in Concord, Mass., in
January
1848,
under
the tltle,
"On
the
Relation of
the
Individual to the
State",
but
called
"Civil Disobedience" when it
was
published
in a volume of essays four years
after
his death. Professor Bedau provides a
thoughtful and informative introduction to
Thoreau's essay.
Part
11
is designated
"Against Racism", and contains five essays,
one of them Martin
Luther
King
Jr's
"Letter
from Birmingham City Jail",
Part
111,
"Against War". is
the
largest sectlon,
with
ten contributions. Bertrand Russell's
essay, "Civil Disobedience and
the
Threat
of Nuclear War",
written
in 1963 when he
was
91, is characteristically incisive and
persuasive.
Part
IV, "Interpretation and
Justification", has four essays of profound
interest.
Pundits have found the phrase, "civil
disobedience", asource of semantic debate,
but
at least it means disobedience of
the
civil authorities by a passive and deliberate
defiance of a law
that
is backed by
the
coercive power of
the
State. For
the
resistance to be meaningful,
the
law
disobeyed must be a law to which a puni-
tive sanction is attached, and which is
thus, in essence, acriminal law.
The ambit Iegitimately embraced by the
concept is the subject of a penetrating
discussion by John Rawls, professor of
philosophy at Harvard University, in bis
essay, "The Justification of Civil
Disobedience". He sees civil disobedience
as "a public, non-violent, and conscientious
act
contrary
to law usually done
with
the
intent
to bring about achange in the
policies
or
laws of the
govemment."
In
his view, "in a reasonably
[ust
(though of
course
not
perfectly just) democratic
regime, civil disobedience,
when
lt is
justifled, is normally to be understood as
apolitical action which addresses the
sense of justice of the
majority
in order
to
urge
reconsideration of
the
measures
protested and to
warn
that
in
the
firm
opinion of
the
dissenters
the
conditions
of social co-operation
are
not
being
honoured." This essay is an illuminating
and valuable aid to clarity of thought on
asubleer
that
usually generates more heat
than
light.
It is to be hoped
that
this anthology
will be readily available in Australia. It
is timely and deserves awide audience,
particularly among university students.
Its
contents
should be read in coniunctlon
with
the
civilized affirmation of "the
inviolable rights of the human person" by
Pope
John
XXIII in the
justly
famous
Encyclical, Pacem in Terris, 1963, and
an erudite hut commendably lucid essay,
"The Right and Duty of Resistance", by
Mr. Justice Haim A. Cohn, of
the
Supreme
Court of Israel, in 1
Human
Rights
Journal, 1968, No. 4.
JOHN
v. BARRY
Delinquency in Girls, John Cowie, Valerie
Cowie and Eliot Slater, London, Helne-
mann, 1968, x+220
pp.,
$6.65.
DELINQ·UENCIES in boys have always
been known to be more frequent and more
varied and dramatic than those committed
by girls, whose activities have been
virtually limited to sexual misbehaviour
and small-scale stealing. Consequently
less enthusiasm has been shown for
research in
the
latter
area,
and
this book
comes as a welcome addition to the
literature of criminology.
The authors approach
the
subject as
psychiatrists,
but
others Interested in the
social problems of delinquency will be
interested. No new techniques or
measures
are
introduced, and
there
is an
unfortunate
lack of a control group, the
use of which would have lent more eon-
viction to several aspects of
the
analysis
of
test
results.
The first two chapters
are
usefully
devoted to a review of earlier
work
from
180
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