Book Review: Public Criminology?
| Author | Lynne Copson |
| Published date | 01 March 2015 |
| Date | 01 March 2015 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663914560970d |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
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The author concludes, then, by stating that the private law of nuisance was ill-
equipped to secure the protection of the environment. In essence, the law of nuisance
centres around settling private disputes. Simply because a dispute is settled has no bear-
ing on whether the nuisance is abated. However, the most significant obstacle to the
improvement of river pollution in the 19th century was simply that the technology was
ineffective.
This reviewer found Rosenthal’s book very readable. Most importantly, it reminds the
black letter nuisance lawyer that the granting of an injunction to an affected claimant
may have little effect on the social problem that it addresses. Whereas a particular clai-
mant may be ‘bought off’ (e.g. by the award of damages) by the polluter, the general
environment continues to suffer. Rosenthal’s detailed and scholarly study poignantly
illustrates this point. In the last analysis, this study fortifies the traditional view that the
law of nuisance, whether it was invoked in the face of atmospheric pollution or water
pollution, simply scraped at the surface of the problem in Victorian Britain. In short,
what was really required was effective environmental regulation.
FRANCIS MCMANUS
University of Stirling, UK
IAN LOADER AND RICHARD SPARKS, Public Criminology? London: Routledge, 2010, p. 196,
ISBN 9780415445504, £29.99 (pbk).
Written during a period of burgeoning interest in normative questions about the public
role(s) and function(s) of social scientific research in the 21st century, Public Criminol-
ogy? by Ian Loader and Richard Sparks presents a welcome contribution to contempo-
rary debates concerning the possible and desirable interactions between academic
knowledge and public engagement (including discussions of what is entailed by the latter
term in the first place), focusing specifically on the production, consumption of crimin-
ological knowledge in a contemporary context.
Best described as a sociological analysis of criminological public engagement rather
than a championing of a particular form of any such engagement, Public Criminology? is
animated by a concern to bring some kind of harmony to a discipline marked by internal
conflict and division as criminologists seek to negotiate the delicate path between intel-
lectual autonomy and critical rigour, and political relevance and policy engagement, par-
ticularly in what is described as the ‘hot climate’ of contemporary public discourse
around crime and penal policymaking in the 21st century. As such, Public Criminology?
reflects an attempt to critically question the role of criminology in conceptualizing and
realizing in practical institutional terms a collective ‘public good’, questioning among
other things the extent to which, and ways in which, criminological knowledge can be
considered to be ‘for’ the public good.
The book is organized into five chapters, preceded by an introduction. In the introduc-
tion, the authors outline the focus of the text and its underlying aims as being ‘to begin to
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Social & Legal Studies 24(1)
examine those ways in which criminologists,...
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