Book Reviews : MIKE BROGDEN, On the Mersey Beat: Policing Liverpool between the Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, 184 pp. ROBERT REINER, Chief Constables: Bobbies, Bosses or Bureaucrats? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, 383 pp. PHILIP TERDOO AHIRE, Imperial Policing: The Emergence and Role of the Police in Colonial Nigeria 1860-1960. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991, 165 pp
| Date | 01 June 1993 |
| Published date | 01 June 1993 |
| Author | Adrian Guelke |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399300200215 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
253
students
gaze
at
its
post-Holocaust
buildings,
semioticians -
following
Roland
Barthes -
flock
to
decode
its
ever-proliferating
sign
systems,
and
pop
musicians
from
Bob
Dylan
to
the
Pet
Shop
Boys
jet
in
to
sell
Western
popular
culture.
But
criminologists
documenting
youth
subcultures?
The
teenage
Bosozuku -
the
violent
driving
tribe,
terrorizing
Japanese
streets
with
high-speed,
high-risk
car
and
motorcycle
action -
who
adopt
the
Yankee
youth
lifestyle
caused
moral
panics
to
be
created
around
them
in
the
1970s
and
early
1980s.
This
is
certainly
the
first
I
have
heard
of
them
and
I
suspect
that
is
also
true
for
most
Western
colleagues
interested
in
youth
subcultures
in
affluent
societies.
This
account
is
a
most
welcome
addition
to
the
literature.
Suitably,
this
book
on
Japanese
bike
boys
(and
girls)
is
written
not
by
a
Western
’foreigner’
but
by
a
University
Professor
in
Japan.
However,
the
key
to
the
enterprise
is
the
fact
that
Ikuya
Sato
wrote
his
doctoral
thesis
on
Japanese
biker
gangs
at
the
University
of
Chicago
where
Gerald
D.
Suttles
was
one
of
his
examiners.
Suttles
provides
an
introduction
to
the
book
and
begins
with
a
quotation
from
Robert
Park.
Chicago
(the
’school’
in
criminology,
not
the
city)
permeates
the
text
throughout
and
ultimately
this
is
the
book’s
drawback.
It
is
also
a
work,
despite
its
rich
detail
of
facts
and
figures,
semi-structured
interview
and
questionnaire
answers,
and
insights
into
the
indigenous
culture
which,
I
guess,
only
a
Japanese
could
have
made,
that
is
essentially
a
PhD
thesis
published
as
a
book.
Personally
I
feel
strongly
that
the
Chicago
school
legacy,
rich
and
diverse
though
it
is,
needs
considerable
revision
these
days.
It
is
peculiar
that
though
someone
like
Paul
Willis
-who
wrote
a
wonderful
account
of
British
bikers
(and
hippies)
in
Profane
Culture
in
the
1970s -
is
briefly
name
checked,
the
influence
of
the
Birmingham
University
Centre
For
Contemporary
Cultural
Studies
on
this
book
is
negligible.
The
Centre’s ptece
de
resistance
(sic),
Resistance
Through
Rituals
is
even
credited
to
Edward
(rather
than
Stuart)
Hall
and
Tony
Jefferson -
there
must
incidentally
be
a
semiotician’s
PhD
project
on
book
typos,
my
own
included! -
and
the
reader
is
left
feeling
that
the
’attraction’
(as
opposed
to
strain)
theory
of
deviance
is
hardly
at
the
centre
of
current
debates.
Its
use
reinforces
the
feeling
that
though
the
phenomenon
under
study,
profusely
illustrated
by
Sato’s
detail
as
it
certainly
is,
was
brought
to
public
prominence
in
the
1970s
and
1980s
the
theoretical
apparatus
which
the
author
uses
to
explain
and
analyse
it
is
very
definitely
pre-1970s.
STEVE
REDHEAD
Manchester
Institute for
Popular
Culture
,
Manchester
Metropolitan
University
,
UK
MIKE
BROGDEN,
On
the
Mersey
Beat:
Policing
Liverpool
between
the
Wars
.
Oxford:
Oxford
University
Press,
1991, 184
pp.
ROBERT
REINER,
Chief
Constables:
Bobbies
,
Bosses
or
Bureaucrats?
Oxford:
Oxford
University
Press,
1991, 383
pp.
PHILIP
TERDOO
AHIRE,
Imperial
Policing:
The
Emergence
and
Role
of
the
Police
in
Colonial
Nigeria
1860-1960
.
Milton
Keynes:
Open
University
Press,
1991,
165
pp.
The
assumption
that
the
past,
except
in
periods
of
actual
war,
was
less
violent
than
the
present,
seems
to
exercise
a
powerful
hold
over
the
human
imagination.
While
its
most
obvious
manifestation,
the
perennial
complaints
of
conservative
members
of
the
older
generation
that
the
youth
of
today
lack
the
self-discipline
of
earlier
generations,
elicits
a
large
measure
of
cynicism,
the
fear
that
current
violence
provokes
naturally
tends
to
magnify
its
significance.
Emphasis
on
the
atavistic
and
undeserved
character
of
present-day
violence
is
combined
with
a
curious
collective
amnesia
about
past
violence.
The
consequence
is
that
statements
warning
about
the
moral
degeneration
of
society
and
To continue reading
Request your trial