Rethinking Law and Order. A Last Rethought? (Review Essay)
| Author | Adam Sutton,Fiona Haines |
| Date | 01 December 1999 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486589903200310 |
| Published date | 01 December 1999 |
326
REVIEWS
ing call for a revamped social democracy
that
could contemplate
the
possibility of a
"neo
..
liberal society" (p. 180, see also pp. 139, 160, 179). However, at the expense
of
tangential
detail,
these
chapters
could
have
developed
the
book's
overall
argument more assiduously.
The
meandering and cursory discussion offive "waysof
taking
law
and
order
seriously,"
which
rather
abruptly
ends
chapter
5
(pp.
121-139), provides a clear case in point.
The
final
chapter
begins
with
acritique
of
the
rising
importance
of 'safer
communities'
and
associated 'crime
prevention'
concepts. It also looks at
their
translation into crime
control
policies in Australia. Again, Iwondered why
the
authors chose to include this (undoubtedly valuable) discussion in
the
concluding
chapter. It might have proved more useful to devote
the
entire discussion to
rethink.,
ing
law
and
order
(as promised again by this chapter's title),
and
providing a more
detailed analysis of
an
"alternative political strategy" (p. 211).
The
somewhat brief
section devoted to a 'civil' politics of law and order (pp. 210-217) is enticing,
but
lacking in detail. Here, Hogg
and
Brown call for civil political arenas
that
embrace
the
'polycratic' and plural
nature
of contemporary societies; such a civil politics
would foster tolerance of strangers,
and
encourage openness to diversity. Its reflex is
inclusive,
and
would
mean
that
"law enforcement agencies should aim to respect,
reinforce
and
promote
the
capacity of
other
institutions in society to prevent crime
and
to sanction informally
and
effectively" (p. 216).
This book will be of interest to a wide audience, especially readers concerned
about
the
absurdities of commonsense visions of crime, and the increasingly punitive
responses proposed.
At
a time
when
neo
..liberal
and
neo
..conservative rationales of
governance are
dominant
in law
and
order discussions, it is
no
doubt timely to
update attempts -prominent in
much
left
realist
thinking - to take 'law and order'
seriously. But it is noteworthy
that
Hogg and Brown should choose
not
to align their
attempts at engagements
with
the
old (and amorphous) "left"; they have instead
called upon a civil politics founded upon the tenets of associative democratic
think
..
ing. Here, as in many
other
places, this book challenges common discursive precepts
and
intimates interesting avenues for their reconsideration. Some, no doubt, will
vehemently contest certain aspects of
the
book; others (such as
the
present reader)
would want
the
authors to have gone further. Few will, however, deny
that
this book
is a valuable contribution to critical thinking about crime.
George
Pavlich
University
of
Auckland
Rethinking Lawand
Order:
A Last Rethought?
(Review Essay)
Over a relatively short period of time, Australia has recently seen dramatic shifts
in outlooks and policies
on
crime. Nowadays, it often seems,
the
Australian
politician's sole fixation is to
extend
the
scope
and
severity of criminal law.
Given
this, Russell Hogg
and
David Brown's
Rethinking
Law and
Order
(Pluto
Press, 1998) is timely. As
the
authors
note,
they
are far from
the
first to offer
THE AUSTRALIAN
AND
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JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
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