Recent Book: Motor Vehicle Technical Regulations
| Date | 01 July 1983 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X8305600315 |
| Published date | 01 July 1983 |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
RECENT BOOKS
RANDALL
G.
SHELDEN:
Criminal Jus/ice in America
Prentice Hall Inc. $17.95
Professor Randall Shelden's book is
provocative, candid, and remarkably
free
from
jargon,
providing
a
sociological perspective to examine the
historical development of the judicial
problems which exist in contemporary
America.
Using
data
on class, race and sex, the
author reveals how the biases of the law
makers
and
enforcers
frequently
determine what behaviour is defined as
criminal and who is allocated the label.
Dr Shelden's standpoint is that the
American
criminal
justice
system
differentially sorts clients on the basis of
class and ethnicity.
The reader is taken methodically
through the criminaljustice systemin the
United States and the 17 chapters are
organized in four major parts. Of
particular interest is the Historical
Development of the Police Institution
(Chapter 3), which considers early police
systems and deals in detail initially with
England, including the.establishment of
the Met. and later with the developme.nt
of the police in the United States within
an historical framework. Contemporary
policing isconsidered in Chapter 4 while
two further chapters are devoted to
special issues and explanations of police
behaviour.
Of particular value and interest are the
Item Sections which reproduce magazine
and newspaper articles on topics. The
special section on women, women's
prisons,
women
police,
female
delinquents, and battered wives is of
particular value.
This text isof special interest to police
officers visiting the United States, and to
those studying the American criminal
justice system. Ken Russell
STUART
HENRY(ED):
Can /have it in Cash?
Astrahal Books. £12.95
The illegal economy has excited interest
recently with such questions being posed
as the fiscal cost to the nation and the
extent of behaviour within society.
Previous examinations of deviant
behaviour in the workplace have been
piecemeal with Ditton's classic study of
the Fiddling Bread Salesman, Mars'
Dock Pilferage, and the Chibnall and
Saunders examination of the Poulson
corruption (unfortunately omitted from
this volume), to mention examples
extending the area of knowledge.
This volume is significant in that for
the first time the unofficial social and
economic systems which exist and
operate behind the formal institutions
which
form
society
are
closely
scrutinized and an assessment attempted
of the hidden contribution which such
activities
as
extra-marital
affairs,
moonlighting,
and
non-market
transactions make to the working of the
regular economy.
The introduction, which is particularly
valuable, develops a typology of
informal institutions and establishes the
framework for the three major sections,
into which the book is divided: Informal
Economic Activity, Informal Social
Activity,
and
Informal
Social
Institutions.
Twelve
papers
from
leading
researchers in Britain and the United
States reveal how people chose to make
and control their own lives outside the
state, whose institutions are very heavily
dependent upon informal institutionsfor
their very survival. L.P.
C. C.
TOYNE,
BSC. C.Eng. FI Mech E.: Motor Vehicle Technical Regula/ions
Liffon Engineering Services. £6.50
A well compiled book in which the understandable.
author
has avoided the temptation to There is an excellent descriptive
over simplify but still managed to make section on Type Approval and Approval
the
more
complex
regulations
Marks which does much to clarify a
July /983
29/
To continue reading
Request your trial