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Book Review: Situational prison control: Crime prevention in correctional institutions

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Date01 January 2003
Published date01 January 2003
AuthorAlison Liebling
DOI10.1177/146247450300500118
Subject MatterArticles
/tmp/tmp-17eaaq1us060Fw/input 06book revs (ds) 30/10/02 2:21 pm Page 134
PUNISHMENT AND SOCIETY 5(1)
wealth distribution and crime, questioning the distributional effects (material and
symbolic) of criminal law itself. Regrettably, none of the articles similarly examines
criminal procedure. Some of the criminal justice system’s greatest inequalities lie in the
disparate effects of procedural rules.3 The only procedural issue mentioned in several
articles is the right to counsel. Even a libertarian such as Loren Lomaski, in ‘Aid Without
Egalitarianism: Assisting Indigent Defendants’, supports the right to counsel, albeit a
pale version. Perhaps the wide support for supplying legal representation to the poor is
because the right to counsel is a fig-leaf on an unfair system. The symmetrical image of
two lawyers arguing in court represents an ideal of equality, masking the system’s true
inequalities and asymmetries. The idea of legitimation, according to which certain
features of the criminal justice system operate ideologically to legitimate the broader
social order, is indeed another possible connection between criminal justice and social
justice unexplored in the book.
As its title promises, the book examines the relationship between poverty and the
administration of criminal law.4 From diverse political positions, the authors employ
different methodologies and academic disciplines. It is an important scholarly contri-
bution, well designed for those interested in the intersection of social justice and criminal
justice. For those interested only in one of the two fields, the book helps to reveal their
inseparability.
Notes
1 Whereas Rand’s claim is based on belief that certain taxes are unjust, Valjean’s can be
founded on actual danger to her son, not only on her conception of social justice.
2 Under Jewish law, ownership includes responsibilities toward the weak. See Walzer,
Michael (1983) Spheres of justice: A defense of pluralism and equality, p. 75. New York:
Basic Books. California law, as...

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