Recent Book: Another: Children and the Courts
| Published date | 01 April 1980 |
| Date | 01 April 1980 |
| Author | Pauline C. Low |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X8005300224 |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
reader can attempt the application of
management concepts to real life
situations. These studies will provide
good material for training staff.
It is suggested that the book will be of
value to all people concerned with
supervision at all levels. In the opinion of
this reviewer. it is a basic introductory
text and I suspect that many senior
officers will be familiar with most of the
material. As a basic management book
for newlyappointed and
junior
managers
it is a welcome addition to a limited
collection of suitable textbooks. M.W.
ANOTHER
ROGER
SMITH:
Children and the Courts
Sweet &Maxwell. £3.95.
As legislation becomes increasingly
complex it is helpful for specialists to
have access to selected digests of relevant
topics. In the series Social Work and
Law. this particular guide "Children and
the Courts" is aimed at social workers.
solicitors and others who may be
sometimes but not wholly engaged with
children and the law.
As any other guide the book suffers
from omissions. while superficially
comprehensive the book lacks essential
legal and practical detail. It is for
instance disappointing that the author.
Roger
SMITH.
himself a solicitor and
law centre worker has not included some
of the practical difficulties which he must
realise will face the new and naive
workers in the field. for whom this type
of book must have been aimed.
With an impressive list of contents. a
table of cases and a table of statutes. this
paper back has the appearance of a
reliable and accurate legal text book. but
that is not the case. it is rather a "first
reader" certainly not a second or third.
At £3.95 it istherefore expensive and not
an investment.
While generally not of value to the
police reader. whether a specialist bureau
officer or not. the book does contain
some interesting comments which whet
one's appetite for more. There is for
instance acomparison between two
London Magistrates Courts and their
varying policies towards legal aid. and
the section on legal aid is fairly
comprehensive and easy to understand.
The three pages devoted to complaints
against police. out of all proportion to
the space devoted to other topics also
generates speculation. especially on
methods adopted by Investigating
Officers.
While there is a need for the sort of
introductory text its limitations must be
appreciated but even accepting that. this
particular volume is not one
ofthe
best in
its field.
PAULINE
C. LOW
AS
OTHERS
...
R.
A.
STEWART.G.
E.
POWEL.L.S.
J.
CHETWYND:
Person Perception and Stereotyping.
Saxon
House. £9.50.
This is a scholary and highlystatistical
approach to the subject of "stereo-
typing". The term. as commonly
understood by the layman. refers to an
unpleasant tendency to obscure the
diversity of others with a blatlket
assessment of their personality based on
minimum information
that
places them
in this or that group. Whist this is no
doubt
aregrettable and real human
frailty it is not a definition of
stereotyping encouraged by the authors
who reclaim the notion from the margins
of anti-social behaviour and posit it as a
central mechanism in
our
everyday
perception of others.
197
The authors also demolish the idea
that stereotyping must involve consensus
and admit personal or idiosyncratic
stereotypes into the reckoning and
distinguish such from social stereotypes
which are evidenced by some degree of
consensus.
Their definition of terms and analysis
of the relationship between person
perception and stereotyping is a prelude
to the main content of the book - the
detailed report of five more or less
independent
investigations.
three
involving responses by adults to six
different shaped physiques and two
involving children's responses to six
Police Journal
April
1980
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