Recent Book: The Criminal Law and Consumer Protection
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X8305600328 |
| Published date | 01 July 1983 |
| Date | 01 July 1983 |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
MICHAEL
BIOGDEN:
The Police -
Autonomy
and Consent
Academic Press Inc. £21.00.
Without question, a work of scholarship
in which the relationship between the
police and the policed is examined,
dissected, re-assembled and subjected to
searching, critical comment.
An academic's view of an increasingly
complex area with a Merseyside flavour,
perhaps to enhance its credibility among
those who might otherwise deem to
doubt the authority of the author.
With scientific thoroughness, he
discusses "several major contemporary
accounts of the state in order to lay bare
the police state problematic from
opposing perspectives", making full use
of an impressive bibliography to analyze
the various models and notions to good
effect, albeit in a style, the severity of
which might prove daunting to the casual
reader.
Through ever convoluting trails he
explores the mysteries of local and
central
influences
on
police
management; the changing position and
authority of chief officers; the part
played by class relations in police history
and the attitudes, either of a positive or
negative
nature,
shown
by
the
community to the police, i.e., the
importance of consent, despite a certain
ambivalence; and a final chapter in which
the various historically structured
demands and constraints on the chiefs
are summarized.
The book begins with an epigraph
which relates to a "frightening attack" by
police officers on strikers in Liverpool,
circa 1921, and ends with a postscript to
the Toxteth Riots, the incidence of which
undoubtedly caused it to be written.
Thought provoking and challenging
though it may be to those immersed in
the police culture, one cannot help but
postulate that police "development" has
simply been a reaction to the problems
thrown up by society in order to perform
its role effectively! E.D.
G.
STEPHENSON:
The Criminal Law and Consumer Protection
Chichester: Barry Rose (Publishers) Limited. £12.00
Not the most descriptive title but to set out the refined position, which Mr.
nevertheless most descriptive in the vital Stephenson does so ably, although
area - the content. concentrating on its central aspects.
Sustained legislative and judicial A most useful addition to the library of
interest have combined to create an area all whose interests directly or indirectly
ofthelaw
where there was an urgent need are identified with the consumer.J.B.H.
RICHARD
CLUTTERBUCK:
The Media and Political Violence (Second Edition)
London: MacMillan Press Ltd. £7.95
In the first edition of this work, published violent picket, the violent demonstrator
in 1981, Richard Clutterbuck predicted and the terrorist; they magnify the
urban violence only to see it break out at corrupt policeman; and they are
the very time his book went on sale.
It
sometimes unscrupulous in exacerbating
was to be expected that he would wish to the violence and even risking lives in
add the
1981
riots in English cities to his orderto get reports of good news value".
already impressive list of case studies and The list of case studies reads like a battle
in this edition he does so very effectively. roll of honour for the police; indeed
that
He is most perceptive in his view
ofthe
day in 1972 when 15,000coal miners and
media. Having been a distinguished their hangers-on overwhelmed 800
soldier, his description of the television policemen is listed as the Battle of
cameraasthe super tank in "the battle for Saltley. Grunwick, Bristol, Brixton,
survival of the reasonable society" is
apt
Toxteth are all here, each one carefully
and he is surely right to point to the but succinctly described with only a small
"awful responsibility" of those who
amount
of editorial comment. The
employ such weapons. The incidents he problems for the peace-keeping forces in
has collected demonstrate the sheer a free society have never been more
power of the media which "magnify the clearly described. They have to fight
298 July 1983
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