Book Reviews : CHRIS CUNEEN, MARK FINDLAY, ROB LYNCH AND VERNON TUPPER, Dynamics of Collective Conflict: Riots at the Bathurst 'Bike Races. Sydney: The Law Book Company, 1989, xxviii + 207 pp. NATIONAL INQUIRY INTO RACIST VIOLENCE IN AUSTRALIA, Racist Violence. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1991, xxi + 535 pp
| Published date | 01 June 1993 |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399300200210 |
| Date | 01 June 1993 |
| Author | Eugene Mclaughlin |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
245
Sweden, unlike Britain, taking heed of the research overviewed by Mathiesen, has
rejected theories of social defence in its justification of the prison. How then, Mathiesen
asks, can Sweden continue to use prison as the cornerstone of its criminal policy. The
answer is to be found in another fundamentally flawed penal theory - that of justice.
Principles of justice, incorporating notions of equality of punishment, proportionality
between punishment and gravity of offence and punishment scales, provide an impression
that it is possible to arrive scientifically at the length and severity of punishment. But when
Mathiesen poses the crucial and unanswered question - How is the gravity of the offence
to be determined
we
are provided with the circular and astonishingly unhelpful answer
’by what the offence deserves in terms of punishment’.
The demolition of existing justifications for prison is decisive, eloquent and irrefutable-
even in terms of its own
rationale the prison is a ’fiasco’. Mathiesen then takes us further,
stretching our creative powers in a consideration of the future of the prison institution. We
are reminded that at various points in history major penal systems have been frozen in
size, partially abolished and even fully abolished. The ideological immutability of the
prison is quickly shattered and, we are reminded also, the abolition of slavery and
witch-hunting seemed inconceivable at the time of their existence. This is not idealism.
Mathiesen is clear that such changes will only be possible in the context of socialism and
while we might argue over the means by which socialism is to be achieved his concluding
message should be a tonic to us all: ‘... the exercise of thinking away crime as a conceptual
tool, and of opening up for imaginative rethinking of the whole handling of problematic
situations, should be intriguing to social scientists’.
This is a book to challenge penological thinking, it is an excellent and hard-hitting
assault on the theories which currently justify the existence of the prison and should be
essential reading for all students of criminology.
PENNY GREEN
Faculty of Law
,
University of Southampton
CHRIS CUNEEN, MARK FINDLAY, ROB LYNCH AND VERNON...
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