Responses to Crime (Volume 2) Lord Windlesham Oxford University Press, 1993; pp 467; £25 hbk
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059304000418 |
| Author | Rob Canton |
| Date | 01 December 1993 |
| Published date | 01 December 1993 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
value-base of the justice system leading
criminal justice to contribute to ’arbitrary
the agencies within criminal justice to
repression’2 is clearly there. Some
adopt all the characteristics of Rational
linkage to the wider debate on present
Goal-oriented organisations. The typical
penal policy would have made an
characteristics are of objective setting
otherwise good book an excellent one.
within imposed financial constraints, set
References:
procedures, standardisation and
1. Hood, C ’A Public Management for all Seasons,’
routinisation of tasks, a mechanical
Public Administration vol 69 pp3-19, 1991.
production line of efficiency justice. This
2. Radzinowicz, L ’Penal Regressions’, Cambridge
Law
in
Journal
,
50,
turn results in
pp 422-444, 1991.
a particular form of
organisational structure best described as
Hazel Kemshall
a ’machine bureaucracy’ in which strict
Lecturer in Probation Studies
hierarchies are adhered to, standards are
imposed,
University of Birmingham
managers seek to control
professional staff and uncertainty is
removed. This is the current state of all
the justice services.
Fortunately, Raine and Wilson do not
view this as a permanent state of affairs.
Like most everything else, organisations
are also prey to the environment in
which they must operate. Whilst market
forces and the New Public Management
have provided the catalyst for change, the
bureaucracies they are throwing up may
slide into finance dominated hierarchies
incapable of flexible responses. The real
danger is that innovative practice will be
stifled and hence professional standards
and effective service delivery may be
Responses to Crime
compromised. It cannot be any
(Volume 2)
coincidence that all the justice services
Lord Windlesham
are currently plagued by value
Oxford University Press, 1993; pp 467;
uncertainty and low morale. They end
£25 hbk
their book with a more hopeful chapter
on the future and a possible ’more
This is an illuminating account of the
mature’...
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