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Book Review: Understanding Criminal Justice: Sociological Perspectives

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
AuthorChristine Allen
DOI10.1177/146680250500500406
Published date01 November 2005
Date01 November 2005
Subject MatterArticles
Book Reviews
433
Philip Smith and Kristin Natalier
Understanding Criminal Justice: Sociological Perspectives
London: Sage Publications, 2005. 225 pp. £65.00 ISBN £19.99
0–7619–4031–6 (hbk) ISBN 0–7619–4032–4 (pbk)
• Reviewed by Christine Allen, University of Essex, UK
A professor at an American university said to me recently, ‘So many students
want to catch the bad guys. They watch CSI: New York and come into class
saying they want to be profilers’. I knew what he was talking about (although,
teaching at a British university, plotlines from The Bill are more likely to enter
my classroom’s discussions). One of the most common challenges in teaching
students criminal justice is getting them to take a step back and think critically
about law, punishment and its institutions in a way that goes beyond all too
familiar discourse about ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’. Until recently, textbooks
in criminal justice have not always been most helpful in this endeavor. As Philip
Smith and Kristin Natalier note, the trend of these texts has often been to take
the object of study for granted, offering vocationally-oriented perspectives
towards law, policing and corrections. In sharp contrast, their book Under-
standing Criminal Justice: Sociological Perspectives, is a welcome relief, ‘all
about asking challenging questions, adopting a critical perspective, and encour-
aging thinking outside the square’ (p. 4).
On first glance the structure of the book may look familiar with chapters
divided by ‘Law’, ‘Police’, ‘Court Processes and Personnel’ and ‘Punishment’.
However, it goes beyond dry description and familiar histories by offering a
thorough and accessible first chapter detailing relevant classical and modern
social theory. Smith and Natalier discuss a wide range of theories, including not
just those associated with Durkheim, Marx and Weber but also symbolic
interactionism and poststructuralist, postmodernist and feminist perspectives.
In doing so, they run the risk that the wide range of the material covered could
be...

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