Book Review: The criminological foundations of penal policy: Essays in honour of Roger Hood
| Author | Jacqueline Tombs |
| Published date | 01 January 2005 |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/146247450500700115 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
06 048135 (to/d) 23/11/04 3:09 pm Page 111
BOOK REVIEWS
to document or explain genocide (p. 165). The fact that the authors draw so heavily
upon anthropology, history, international relations, political economy, and sociology,
among other disciplines, adds to the richness of the their work. But it is also a sad
indictment of the poverty of much criminology which, at least as practised in the
dominant Anglo-American context, increasingly serves rather than scrutinizes the activi-
ties and interests of the state.
Steve Tombs
Liverpool John Moores University, UK
The criminological foundations of penal policy: Essays in honour of Roger Hood, Lucia
Zedner and Andrew Ashworth (eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 553 pp.
ISBN 0–19–926509–7.
This collection of essays, written in honour of Roger Hood’s immense contribution to
British criminology, opens with a thoughtful and informative introductory essay by the
editors, Lucia Zedner and Andrew Ashworth. Zedner and Ashworth first pay tribute to
the originality, breadth and depth of Roger Hood’s scholarship – in the fields of sentenc-
ing, parole and release from custody, race, the effectiveness of penal measures, custody,
the history of criminal justice and the death penalty. They then move on to the focal
point of the volume by noting that, while much of Hood’s own research has been influ-
ential on penal policy, the degree of that influence ‘has not always been commensurate
with the quality of the research and the robustness of its findings’ (p. 10). This, they
argue, has occasioned Hood’s periodic reflections on the relationship between crimino-
logical research and penal policy and it is with this particular strand of his scholarship
that the volume is primarily concerned.
In setting the context, Zedner and Ashworth concisely trace the contours of Hood’s
view that criminal justice policy should be based on criminological research into the
nature of offending, the efficacy of penal measures, and a review of penal philosophy
(Hood, 1974). In particular, they emphasize that while Hood’s conception of the crim-
inological enterprise tends to privilege robust and verifiable empirical research, it also
embraces normative dimensions, imaginative theorizing and ‘criminological analysis’ –
using a body of knowledge to examine the foundations of penal policy proposals. The
12 essays in the collection, in one way or another, address these facets of Hood’s concep-
tion of what criminology is and what its contribution to penal policy should be.
All the contributors take Hood’s central premise of the indivisibility of criminology
from penal policy as their starting point, though their contributions diverge widely in
inclination, explanatory perspective and content. Not surprising, given that there are at
...
BOOK REVIEWS
to document or explain genocide (p. 165). The fact that the authors draw so heavily
upon anthropology, history, international relations, political economy, and sociology,
among other disciplines, adds to the richness of the their work. But it is also a sad
indictment of the poverty of much criminology which, at least as practised in the
dominant Anglo-American context, increasingly serves rather than scrutinizes the activi-
ties and interests of the state.
Steve Tombs
Liverpool John Moores University, UK
The criminological foundations of penal policy: Essays in honour of Roger Hood, Lucia
Zedner and Andrew Ashworth (eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 553 pp.
ISBN 0–19–926509–7.
This collection of essays, written in honour of Roger Hood’s immense contribution to
British criminology, opens with a thoughtful and informative introductory essay by the
editors, Lucia Zedner and Andrew Ashworth. Zedner and Ashworth first pay tribute to
the originality, breadth and depth of Roger Hood’s scholarship – in the fields of sentenc-
ing, parole and release from custody, race, the effectiveness of penal measures, custody,
the history of criminal justice and the death penalty. They then move on to the focal
point of the volume by noting that, while much of Hood’s own research has been influ-
ential on penal policy, the degree of that influence ‘has not always been commensurate
with the quality of the research and the robustness of its findings’ (p. 10). This, they
argue, has occasioned Hood’s periodic reflections on the relationship between crimino-
logical research and penal policy and it is with this particular strand of his scholarship
that the volume is primarily concerned.
In setting the context, Zedner and Ashworth concisely trace the contours of Hood’s
view that criminal justice policy should be based on criminological research into the
nature of offending, the efficacy of penal measures, and a review of penal philosophy
(Hood, 1974). In particular, they emphasize that while Hood’s conception of the crim-
inological enterprise tends to privilege robust and verifiable empirical research, it also
embraces normative dimensions, imaginative theorizing and ‘criminological analysis’ –
using a body of knowledge to examine the foundations of penal policy proposals. The
12 essays in the collection, in one way or another, address these facets of Hood’s concep-
tion of what criminology is and what its contribution to penal policy should be.
All the contributors take Hood’s central premise of the indivisibility of criminology
from penal policy as their starting point, though their contributions diverge widely in
inclination, explanatory perspective and content. Not surprising, given that there are at
...
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