Book Review: Problems of Homosexuality in Corrections
| Date | 01 March 1969 |
| Author | Allen A. Bartholomew |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486586900200110 |
| Published date | 01 March 1969 |
60 AUST. &N.Z. JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY (1969): 2, 1
crime,
punishment
and ostracism.
But
apart
from
the
author's
thesis
that
"pro-
vided a
man
is genuine and has guts, it is
never too late to fight his
way
to some-
thing
better",
the
reformation of his life
nevertheless remains for the
reader
a
somewhat
"magic
wand"
affair.
There is no clue at all as to
why
Jeffrey
never
managed
to change his behavioral
patterns
and mode of life. McNaNy in
the
more
tolerant
atmosphere of the middle
20th century, could be expected to
have
opportunities
and
help
whlcbnever
came
Jeffrey's
way
in
the
convict era.
But
it
is interesting to
note
that
Jeffrey, accord-
ing to his own accounts at least, had
many
chances even in
the
grim decades in
which
he lived to
break
away
from
the
pattern
of violence,
arrogance
and stupidity
which
characterized his dealings
with
his fellow
man. These opportunities he so consis-
tently
appeared
to
throwaway
that
the
only unenlightening clue to his behaviour
pattern
is
the
unsatisfactory
appellation of
"psychopathic personality".
These
two
books
then
have to be accept-
ed
at
their
face
value.
"Cry
of aMan
Running" is simply
the
story
of
years
of
futile crime
and
barren
punishment,
with
some insights into
reformatory
and prison
life,
but
very
little, if any, into
the
psycho-
logy of a
man
who
at
last
ceases to be a
fugitive from society.
"A Burglar's Life" is simply a
story
which, as
the
Hobart
Town
Mercury
of
1893 commented, "will have
attraction
for
those who can find amusement in perusal
of
narrations
of
robbery
and worse lawless
courses". The editors baldly
state
that
Jeffrey's
story
is
the
story
of a man
who
"was
frankly bad . . . an incorrigible
reprobate,
but
he
was
also intelligent,
humorous and indomitable". But
what
they
do
not
add is
that
he becomes even
more difficult to
understand
because of
these
latter
qualities, which one might ex-
pect
would have contributed some elements
of stability,
purpose
and value
to
his
career. J.
CLUNIES-ROSS,
Senior
Tutor
in Criminology,
University of Melbourne.
Problems of Homosexuality in Corrections,
Clyde B. Vedder and Patricia G. King,
Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois,
1967.
THIS is a
most
disappointing book
and
apart
from a general sense of
frustration
engendered by its reading one becomes
more clearly
irritated
by such
remarks
as
"The pseudo-homosexual is a person
with
heterosexual inclinations
who
indulges in
homosexual intercourse as a substitution.
Nearly all pseudo-homosexuals
are
of sub-
normal intelligence;
many
of them
are
feeble-minded
...
" (p.7). Such a comment
hardly squares
with
clinical experience in
acorrectional
institution
or, for
that
mat-
ter, in the
armed
services. Another com-
ment
that
one finds
hard
to accept, at least
in this country, is
that
"Many homosexuals
are
arrogant, and
most
of them continually
proselyte" (p.10).
One tends to
read
in this book wild
and
general
statements
that
are made
either
without
authority
or
are
made
without
the
backing of
any
research. Often, such
authority
as is
quoted
is ten years or more
old. The alleged facts are
not
related to
the previous
background
of the individuals,
the offence causing
the
sentence of "im-
prisonment", the
duration
of the "sen-
tence", at
what
stage
of a
"sentence"
sexuality became aproblem,
or
the
type of institution
the
sexuality
was
noted
in - open or closed.
It is time we recognised
that
inmates of
correctional institutions
are
not
all
the
same
type
and
research
must
begin to
distinguish
between
the different types.
Quite
apart
from sophisticated differences
of personality it
must
be appreciated
that
acorrectional
institution
must
be a "dif-
ferent place" to a 17-year-old first offender
sentenced for "illegal
use"
as compared
with a34-year-old 'recidivist who
may
well
have a history of sexual deviance.
Apart
from the tedious
unsupported
generalizations in
the
book it is significant
that
some two-thirds of the references
are
from 1961 or
earlier
so
that
the
biblio-
graphy
indicates
that
much
modem
work
on this subject
has
not
been
very
fully
examined and evaluated. One
may
recog-
nize
the
superficiality of the
work
by
simply noting
the
available
recent
research
in this field in
the
Excerpta
Criminologica.
ALLEN
A.
BARTHOLOMEW,
Melbourne.
Uniforms of the
World's
Police:
With
Brief
Data
on Organization, Systems
and
Weapons,
James
Cramer, Charles C.
Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1968, $18.50.
THE author, a
former
Inspector of
the
Portsmouth City Police, following an
argument
in a police reserve room in 1958,
sets
out
to prove his assertion
that
the
British uniform
was
of poor quality by
obtaining comparative information from
other
countries. The
fraternal
co-operation
which he received stimulated him into
producing this book.
The details supplied on organization,
systems and
weapons
are
indeed brief,
but
there
are
nearly
200 pages of clear
photographs and descriptions of
the
uniforms of 174 different forces. The
coverage is excellent, ranging from
the
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