Book Review: Mass Imprisonment: Social Causes and Consequences
| Published date | 01 June 2002 |
| Date | 01 June 2002 |
| Author | Joe Sim |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466390201100210 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Much of the debate around this ‘crisis of the family’ focuses on divorce and its
effects on children. Helen Reece’s contribution views from a new perspective the now
defunct provisions of the Family Law Act. She argues that Part II is imbued by a
notion of autonomy that resembles the autonomy recommended by child-rearing
specialists for children; the provisions designed to reform the divorce process would
have the effect of treating divorcing couples like children. Alison Diduck’s chapter
also explores the idea of autonomy in the context of divorce, but does so though an
analysis of the discourse of law as it is used in the offices of solicitors advising divorce
clients. Parents have autonomy only to the extent that they agree to arrangements for
children that accord with prevailing conceptions of child welfare. A feminist–con-
structivist approach to lawyering, she suggests, would, in contrast, ascribe agency to
the parties and to their children. Adrienne Barnett too deals with divorce, focusing
on the priority accorded by the legal system to contact with fathers.
Katherine O’Donovan’s examination of constructions of motherhood in England
and France reveals the cultural assumptions that inform the image of the ‘good’
mother in this country. Daniel Monk’s chapter on education law is unusual in that it
addresses two distinct topics but is interesting nonetheless. There is a chapter by
Melanie Roberts on assisted reproduction and access by children to information about
their genetic parentage. Doris Buss provides a thought-provoking analysis of the
concept of children’s rights in the context of the Christian Right’s opposition to repro-
ductive rights for adolescents. Rachel Thomson’s chapter, based on interviews elicit-
ing young people’s views on the age of consent to sex, offers some new insights but
is marred by the occasional spelling mistake and grammatical error as well as one or
two instances of infelicitous expression.
This collection largely achieves the aims set out by the editors and is a welcome
addition to the literature on child law. It will be of interest to students and researchers
in the fields of law and sociology.
FELICITY KAGANAS
Centre for the Study of Law, the Child and the Family, Department of Law, Brunel
University, UK
DAVIDGARLAND (Ed.), Mass Imprisonment: Social Causes and Consequences. London:
Sage, 2001, 184 pp., £18.99 (pbk).
The end of 2000 saw the US Presidency delivered from the Republican Party’s
nemesis, Bill Clinton. For Republicans, as a draft-dodging, non-inhaling, sexually
licentious child of the decadent 1960s, he had become a symbol of the decay and
degeneracy entrenched in the heart of American culture and politics. The ‘righteous
fury’ (Frank, 2001: 27) of the party was mollified by the election of George W. Bush,
which restored and renewed their vision of America as a gleaming mansion on the hill
that was prepared to give no quarter to the apostates and infidels who rejected their
brand of a capitalism that was voracious and unfettered. The coup that delivered the
White House was built on Bush’s dynastic family connections with Republican patri-
archs, the plutocrats of the oil industry and the idiosyncrasies of dimpled chads and
voting machines. However, it was those people, mainly black, who were disqualified
from voting in Florida because of their connections with the criminal justice system
that made the difference for Bush. It has been estimated that 525,000 Florida citizens
were disenfranchised because they were categorized as ‘felons’ of whom 170,000 were
black (The Independent on Sunday, 14 January 2001). This disqualification was based
on a law drawn up in 1868 as part of the backlash against voter registration among
freed slaves after the Civil War (The Guardian, 4 December 2000).
312 SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 11(2)
07Book reviews (bc/d) 5/17/02 8:50 AM Page 312
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