Book Reviews : PAUL ROCK, The Social World of an English Crown Court. Oxford Socio-Legal Studies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, 390pp
| Date | 01 June 1995 |
| Published date | 01 June 1995 |
| Author | Mervyn Murch |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399500400212 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
,285-
B O O K
REVIEWS
PAUL
ROCK,
The
Social
World
of an
English
Crown
Court.
Oxford
Socio-Legal
Studies.
Oxford:
Clarendon
Press,
1993,
390pp.
Written
from
a
sociological
perspective,
this
case
study
of
a
suburban
London
Court
Centre
succeeds
in
encompassing
and
getting
beneath
the
public
face
of
a
large,
complex
and
well
protected
legal
institution.
The
book
is
constructed
in
two
parts.
The
first
captures
the
essence
of
the
complex
and
often
confusingly
disorganized
way
in
which
crown
courts
stage-manage
an
endless
succession
of
largely
routine
criminal
trials.
Throughout,
emphasis
is
given
to
the
impact
of
this
world
on
prosecution
witnesses
including
the
victims
of
crime.
The
second
describes
the
establishment
of
a
specialist
victim
in-court
support
service,
which
was
developed
from
the
analysis
of
court
processes.
While
this
aspect
will
be
useful
to
those
involved
in
the
victim
support
movement,
the
first
part
is
of
wider
significance,
being
an
original
and
important
contribution
to
judicial
administration
generally.
The
book
adds
to
the
small
number
of
ethnographic
criminological
studies
concerning
the
phenomenology
of
the
trial
and
the
social
interactions
that
play
around
it.
A
wealth
of
detailed
observations,
not
only
of
trials
but
of
the
setting,
are
skilfully
distilled
so
as
to
highlight
the
significance
of
ritual
and
the
choreography
of
adversarial
trials.
The
author’s
concern
for
the
depersonalized
treatment
of
the
prosecution
witness
gleams
through
without
ever
becoming
polemical.
We are
given
a
contrasting
picture
of
the
relationship
between
the
insider
world
of
the
professional
(advocates,
judges,
court
clerks,
ushers,
security
guards
etc.)
and
the
social
rules
by
which
they
operate,
and
the
often
bewildered
outsider
witnesses
who
move
through
the
courts,
segregated,
isolated
and
often
subjected
to
a
hostile
process
of
adversarial
examination.
Paul
Rock
shows
how
the
witnesses’
experience
involves
having
one’s
word
mistrusted
and
sometimes
discredited.
The
public
identity
and
private
experience
of
the
prosecution
witness,
whose
moral
status
is
thus
thrown
into
contention,
is
forged
in
conflict -
the
social
conflict
of
the
crime
itself,
followed
by
the
ritualized
conflict
of
the
trial.
Description
and
analysis
of
the
trial
process
(Chapters
2
and
3)
are
particularly
well
drawn.
This
is
followed
(Chapter
4)
by
a
fairly
straightforward
account
of
the
social
structure
of
the
court,
but
distinctive
for the
attention
given
to
the
listing
officers’
stage-management
role,
to
the
part
that
ushers
play
in
mediating
both
physically
and
symbolically
between
what
happens
inside
the
court
room
and
the
wider
world
outside,
and
to
the
role
of
security
staff
who
guard
the
public
spaces
of
the
court.
In
Chapter
5,
SOCIAL
&
LEGAL
STUDIES
(SAGE,
London,
Thousand
Oaks,
CA
and
New
Delhi),
Vol.
4
(1995),
285-300
To continue reading
Request your trial