Recent Book: Road Traffic Procedure: Road Traffic Forms
| Published date | 01 September 1961 |
| Date | 01 September 1961 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X6103400513 |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
natural that most of the accounts are rather sketchy. More difficult to accept
are the author's personal comments, which at times become rather intrusive and
at others give the impression that he is writing with his tongue in his cheek.
In particular, his treatment of Rowan and Mayne over the affair of the murder
of Constable Clark at Dagenham in 1846appears to be a little unkind. His main
accusation appears to be on the grounds of expediency and appears to be based
on a standard
of
evidence necessary for a prosecution that not many would
accept.
This is a book to pass an idle hour, but it is by no means the work that one
day might be written on these men who by giving their lives have helped to
found and maintain the proud tradition of the British Police.
H. V. D. HAu.Err.
PENAL
REFORM
GORDON
ROSE:
The Struggle for Penal Reform: The Howard League and its
Predecessors. Library of Criminology. London, Stevens; Chicago, Quadrangle.
£2 lOs. Od.
SOCIAL
REf'ORM
IN the United Kingdom has largely been inspired by private
effort. The story of progress in social matters is often a story of methods
evolved by private persons being carried over into the field of Government
action. The police force, to take an obvious example, is no exception.
Not
only were the first constables part-time amateurs, not only was the direction
of
their activities the work of the equally amateur justice
of
the peace, but
the
police forces of the 19th century were preceded by the private protective
associations, analogous with the present-day security organizations, which
provided their subscribers with a full-time professional force that served as an
example to Parliament when the public forces were formed. Yet prisons
obviously can only be established by public authorities, and it might be expected
that
the rule would not apply in the field of penal reform.
It
is a common-
place, however, that this is not the case: from the time of John Howard
onward, the motive force behind the reform of the English prison has been
the ideas and the energy of a multitude of enthusiasts who have sought to
publicize the problems of the prisons and to promote their own suggested
remedies.
Dr. Rose's book is a careful study
of
the work of certain of these reformers
who banded together in the Howard Association of 1866, the Penal Reform
League of 1907, and the amalgamated Howard League for Penal Reform
of
1921. Individual reformers, however influential, were alone not strong enough
to perform the never-ending task
of
bringing English prisons into line with
changing conditions and changing theories, and the formation of a pressure
group devoted to this task was an important step forward.
Dr.
Rose provides
a clear account of the aims and policies of the various societies, of the ways in
which they sought to promote them, and of the personalities who helped to
shape them. He has assessed the contribution to the course of penal reform
made by the societies, paying tribute to the close co-operation which has
existed of recent years between the Howard League and the Prison Commission.
It should be pointed out
that
the title of the book could be misleading:
all that part of the struggle for penal reform which fell before 1866 is outside
the scope of the book, as indeed is indicated by the sub-title; and furthermore
the framework of the book is a chronological account of the societies' work, in
which particular aspects of penal reform are discussed as attention was turned
to them rather than as continuous topics. But the book deserves to be read,
and it is a pity it is so expensive. J. J. TOBIAS
ROAD
TRAFFIC
PROCEDURE
KEITH
C.
CLARKE:
Road Traffic Forms. Sweet and Maxwell. 12s.6d.
THIS PUBLICATION, one in a new series
of
Law Practice Guides, is the work
of
Mr. Keith Clarke, assistant prosecuting solicitor to Essex county council,
September-October 375
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