Paul Rock, The Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales: Vol II Institution Building
| Author | Rod Morgan |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14624745211015831 |
| Published date | 01 October 2022 |
| Date | 01 October 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews
Paul Rock, The Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales: Vol II
Institution Building, Routledge: London, 2019; 555 pp., £114 (hbk)
This is the second volume of the exhaustive official history, commissioned by the Home
Office, of the criminal justice system from the 1940s to the mid-1990s which a London
School of Economics team has put together. The first volume, entitled The Liberal Hour
and also by Paul Rock, charted the three great criminal justice reforms of the 1960s and
‘70s, the abolition of the death penalty and the reform of the law relating to abortion and
homosexuality. Those reforms redefined the relationship between the citizen and the state
and were achieved by coalitions of ministers and backbenchers, across the political party
divide and between parliamentarians and lobbyists. Their passage was widely debated,
the product of democratic activism. As such those reforms were and are well known
and understood, whether supported or opposed. Volume II covers different territory. It
reaches into the skeletal body of the state and tackles more esoteric territory. It concerns
the reform of the criminal courts and the prosecutorial system, in particular the back-
ground to, passage and implementation of the 1971 Courts Act and the 1985
Prosecution of Offences Act. The first saw the demise of the Courts of Assize and
Quarter Sessions in favour of the Crown Court. The second introduced the Crown
Prosecution Service, displacing what had previously been a function undertaken
largely by the police.
It would be a mistake for most criminologists to relegate the topic of court reform to
the arcane attentions of specialist, insider lawyers. On the contrary, there is rich and abun-
dant material here for theorists interested in the formation of the state and the mutual rela-
tionship and obligations of citizens to the state and it to them. Paul Rock has
painstakingly ensured that the significance of this re-shaping, dragging the organisation
of the criminal courts into the 20th century, is traced in powerful detail. But he has also
demonstrated how much scope there is for further original historical research, revealing
how little attention had been given by social scientists and historians to the manner in
which, for example, the prosecutorial system worked in practice before it was transferred
from the police. Further, many readers will find themselves wondering whether it is really
possible that aspects of our antediluvian court organisation could have lasted for as long
as they did and how uncharted much prosecutorial practice has been.
The Courts of Assize and Quarter Sessions originated from the 12th and 14th centuries
respectively, Assize being a Norman French term originally meaning the Kings Council,
but which came to mean a travelling court presided over by senior judges representing the
Punishment & Society
2022, Vol. 24(4) 742–755
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/14624745211015831
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