Book Review: Street Crime
| Author | Marian FitzGerald |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895806068585 |
| Published date | 01 November 2006 |
| Date | 01 November 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
mining of various data sources, ranging from court and prosecutorial files to
annual state reports, sometimes the data are more anecdotal than systematic
and generalizable. So, while the analysis is infused with a commitment to
empirical inquiry, it is not always evident to the reader when points are
supported by systematic empirical data and when, though fascinating, by
qualitative and illustrative data. Relatedly, more information on dismissals/
nolles could have added additional insight into plea and trial proportions
during both periods. Furthermore, the data, as rich as they are, cannot
accomplish in any systematic way the kinds of controls the authors con-
template. For example, the authors imply they will control for culpability, race,
gender and ethnicity in their assessments of pleas and sentences (p. 173).
Anecdotally this is possible; but it would take a far larger and more system-
atically collected set of data to make judgements confidently about these
matters. Finally, on the generalizability point, we should acknowledge the
general limits of a single site case study.
Overall, this study is a major contribution to the understanding of the
origins of plea bargaining, and one that transcends ‘cheap shots’ which would
simply dismiss it as relevant only to New York. McConville and Mirsky tackle
two of the ‘biggies’ in plea bargaining literature, and they amassed a massive
amount of empirical evidence to do so. It is in their disagreements with extant
theories and in their socio-legal scholarship that their major contentions and
contributions to the literature rest. Though one can dispute that the golden age
of trials was as pristine as is implied, and one can argue from a policy
perspective about what this understanding of the proliferation of pleas means
for an understanding of plea bargaining in today’s courts, there is no gainsaying
the remarkable analysis McConville and Mirsky undertook, the invaluable
conclusions they draw debunking popular theories of plea bargaining’s origins
and the valuable hypotheses they present for understanding plea bargaining’s
eventual ‘triumph’.
Simon Hallsworth
Street Crime
Cullompton, Devon and Portland, OR: Willan, 2005. 193 pp. £17.99 ISBN
1–84392–028-X (pbk)
•Reviewed by Marian FitzGerald, University of Kent, UK
DOI: 10.1177/1748895806068585
Simon Hallsworth’s study of street crime in Britain is wide-ranging and at the
same time unusually personal. Almost the first quarter of the book is taken up
with the history of street crime in two substantive chapters, which respectively
cover: outlaws and highwaymen; and street robbery in an urban context. The
second part of the book looks at the current explanations of street crime. Here
four chapters are devoted to considering the relevance of different theoretical
Book Reviews 461
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