Books Received
| Date | 01 June 1972 |
| Published date | 01 June 1972 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486587200500214 |
AUST. &N.Z. JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY (June, 1972): 5, 2 131
urgent. In this review, these
are
merely
cited, with very little additional comment,
because they deserve a wide airing.
(i)
Many prisons suffer from disciplinary
problems because
they
are
too.
re-
pressive,
not
because
they
are Ienient
or slipshod. Emery says: "The more
the
inmates
are
restricted
and
de-
prived,
the
less
the
staff can inflict
punishments
that
will
tea
chan
appropriate lesson or offer rewards
that
provide an adequate incentive to
inmate good behaviour"
(at
9).
(ii) The following is
pertinent
to the
recent
problems
at
Pentridge: " . . .
when
he is fulfilling his role of judge,
the
governor is normally passing
judgment upon both
the
officer and
the
inmate. This, which only occasion-
ally occurs in a court of law, is the
usual thing in
the
prison because the
officer and inmate
have
to go on liv-
ing
with
each
other"
(at
19).
(iii) This book shows the difficult prob-
lem of staffing prisons, particularly at
the lower levels. The
guards
are
men
of low education, little imagination
and who are relative failures in
socio-economic terms. The inmates
are
fully aware of this. They "con-
demn
the
staff for electing to do work
which is
not
really men's
work
...
and
in some instances . . . direct
against an officer
the
extreme
charge
of having taken this job because he
was a failure in the ordinary
work
field"
(at
37).
(iv) Even if
the
prison
guards
were
men
of high calibre, it is
very
difficult,
even in a "modern" prison, to com-
bine the roles of custodian
and
coun-
sellor.
Finally, Dr. Emery sets
out
(at
95-96) the
following propositions as
"a
reasonable
challenge to
other
social scientists and a
caution to those who have to operate
prison systems in the 'here
and
now'.
(a) Given
the
requirement of medium or
maximum security,
the
prison regime
cannot
be expected to be a refor-
mative agent. .
(b) Given the requirement of security, a
level of internal freedom
cannot
be
found
that
will automatically secure
good order. Supervision
and
coercion
will be necessary. .
(c) Given
the
requirements
of
security
and
good order, the role of
the
ordi-
nary
officer cannot be defined as
that
of also being
the
prisoner's friend and
counsellor." RKE'R
GRAHAM PA ,
Department
of Law,
Research School of Social Sciences,
Australian National University.
Sexual
Offences
Against
Females
(1969):
Proceedings
of
the
Institute
of
Criminology,
University of Sydney.
No.2
pp 182. Edited
by R. P. Roulston.
THIS monograph is an account of a sem-
inar
on the topic of sexual offences against
females. It was held under the auspices of
the Institute of Criminology, Faculty of
Law, University of Sydney
in
mid-1969.
The papers range from
the
numerical/
empirical to the speculative/explanatory.
The introduction
states
that
the
seminar
was
arranged
in response to public dis-
quiet over the seerning increase in violent
sexual
attacks
on females.
For
this, as-well
as
other
reasons
the
papers
were
present-
ed by persons from widely varying fields of
expertise. .
This reviewer did not
attend
the
semmar,
but the flavour of a seminar does come
through in the presentation. Equally,
what
does come through is
that
it concerns the
professionally interested in New South
Wales.
What
it does
well
is to outline rele-
vant
New South Wales
data
and
relate
these to
current
views and overseas trends.
It is
not
asimplification or systematisa-
tion
nor
does it
treat
of the most general
que~tions,
such as whether there is any-
thing special about sex crimes
and
would
treatment
under the general heading of
G.B.H.,
assault
etc. be appropriate; or why
are
imprecations in English so sexually
loaded as compared to
other
European
languages,
and
what
.impact
that
has: or
what
is the
relationship
between
perceived
risk of detection and severity of penalty on
the incidence of offences, etc.
Some spelling mistakes
are
in evidence
throughout the monograph (e.g. pp. 1, 33,
149, 173), and in the third
pa~(agra~p
be-
ginning on p. 108 the words male and
"female" should be reversed.
This
work
is a valuable addition to the
literature on the subject
and
is strongly
recommended to the professionally interest-
ed. R. D.
FRANCT~,
Macquarie University,
NSW.
BOOKS
RECEIVED
Cressey, D. R., Criminal Organisation.
Heinemann, London, 1972, $2.90 (paper),
$6.40 (boards).
Kenney, J. P., Police .
Administr~ti~.
Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, IllInoIs,
1972, $8.75.
Post, R. S., Combating
Crime
Against
Small
Business. Charles C. Thomas,
Springfield, Illinois, 1971, $6.75.
Sparks, R., Local Prisons!
The
Crisls
In
The EngUsh Penal System, Heinemann,
London, 1971.
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