Jane B. Sprott and Anthony N. Doob, Justice for Girls? Stability and Change in the Youth Justice Systems of the United States and Canada
| Author | Nicholas Bala |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474510394963 |
| Published date | 01 October 2011 |
| Date | 01 October 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
experienced the leak of emails from the University of East Anglia, exposing it to
unwelcome publicity and its lack of publicness. Moreover, the sacking of Professor
David Nutt over his views on relative drug risks offers a caution against the capac-
ity of experts to insulate themselves from politics.
They admit, again, in the opening to Chapter 5 that, ‘readers may have noticed
that we have left the title and promised focus of this book...some distance behind’
before digressing again to the importance of criminologists understanding politics,
to become ‘democratic under-labourers’. Using the device of imagined conversa-
tions they explore this theme.
Thus the expert worries about the dilution and politicization of science and the
democratic under-labourer asks them to look at the political context and to be
tolerant of the non-scientific. The policy adviser wants to distinguish clearly
between their research and the policy advice they give but the democratic under-
labourer is concerned this may be a ‘private’, ‘behind the scenes’ criminology. The
player pictures academic criminology as unlikely to attract the support of ministers
but the democratic under-labourer rejoins that NGOs too have their policy advi-
sers also engaged in this private criminology. For the activist, the democratic
under-labourer’s criminology may be insufficiently critical, conservative even.
The democratic under-labourer counters, with Bourdieu, that all good social sci-
ence is critical. Finally the lonely prophet wants to see the big picture and recog-
nizes that the democratic under-labourer’s criminology has space for them but less
happily also for the scientists. The democratic under-labourer just seeks to placate.
The authors’ ideal of the democratic under-labouring criminologist is seen as a
diplomat shuttling between camps or, else-wise, as a firebreak. They invite: ‘crim-
inologists to play their part in imagining and building the kinds of civic institutions
that can bring the light of public reason to problems about which they – like many
of their co-citizens – care so passionately’ (p147).
This is a high-minded book – with the occasional dig (e.g. at Carol Smart for
leaving criminology and the harm perspective for disciplinary fuzziness). It is well-
written and a useful tour de horizon, but the authors’ long labour has not produced
an elephant. Their eclectic take on criminology is useful but the narrowness of their
concept of ‘public’ is not. Far more attention to both old and new media is needed
for a full discussion of ‘public criminology’.
Nic Groombridge
St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, UK
Jane B. Sprott and Anthony N. Doob, Justice for Girls? Stability and Change in the Youth Justice
Systems of the United States and Canada, University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, 2009; 232
pp. (includes index): 9780226770048, US$37.50
The majority of criminology scholarship and policy work focuses on men, which is
perhapsunderstandable since males commitmore crimes than females in bothjuvenile
496 Punishment & Society 13(4)
To continue reading
Request your trial