Review: Archbold's Pleading Evidence and Practice in Criminal Cases
| Published date | 01 July 1931 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3100400327 |
| Date | 01 July 1931 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS 477
LA
LUTTE
MODERNE
CONTRE
LE
CRIME
(The Present-day War
with Crime). By DR.
LEON
RABINOWICZ.
(Ferdinand Larcier,
Brussels. 1930.)
THIS is a type of publication of which America and the Continent have
produced more examples than Great Britain.
The
question raised is as to
the appropriate penal legislation which will recognize the scientific results of
the study of criminal anthropology as well as the moral law. Readers of the
Police Journal will recall
Dr.
Hamblin Smith's plea for the psychological
study of accused persons (vol. i. p. 402).
The
author is a distinguished graduate of the Universities of Cracow and
of Rome, and was a pupil of the great Italian criminologist, the late Enrico
Ferri. AForeword is contributed by M. Janson, the Belgian Minister of
Justice; and the preface is from the pen of Count de Wiart, President of the
International Association of Criminal Law.
At the beginning of the work an historical sketch is given of the develop-
ment of the prison system in
Belgium-the
actual practice at present is
described in a later
chapter-and
the book closes with a study of the reform
in that system.
The
chapter which has interest for the police officer as well
as for the prison officialand the social reformer is one dealing with the
dossier
which was brought into use in 1907 by Dr. Vorvaeck.
In
this
dossier
are
recorded details regarding prison inmates under a large number of headings,
the main divisions of which are the following
:-(i)
general; (ii) inherited;
(iii) medical; (iv) anthropological (such as bodily measurements, finger-
prints, tattooing); (v)morphological(i.e. organic development, such as speech,
handwriting,
etc.);
(vi) nervous system; (vii) physical senses; (viii)
mental examination; (ix) social condition; (x) criminological.
This
ex-
haustive record closes with a summary of the diagnosis; it states whether
penal or reformatory treatment is required; whether reclassification of the
accused person for jail purposes is necessary, or whether any other suitable
measures are required. Since 1927 a laboratory of penal anthropology has
been established in Brussels prison under the direction of the same
Dr.
Vorvaeck for the purpose of studying, by means of this special
dossier,
everything concerning the mental and physical characteristics of the pri-
soners.
The
writer sums up by saying that the main object in viewis to introduce
and
put
into practice in prison administration the conclusions derived from
a study of criminal anthropology.
The
duty of the S.A.P. (Service Anthro-
pologique Penitentiaire) is to examine all convicts or previously convicted
persons undergoing a sentence of more than three
months;
to study the cause
of the offences, the environment of the accused and its individual character-
istics and so on. With this object " psychiatric" annexes have been in-
stalled in many Belgian prisons since 1921.
The
examination of 1432 cases
between 1921 and 1926 furnishes some interesting results: about half
(46 per cent.] were returned to prison
life;
14 per cent. were transferred to
mental hospitals; 11 per cent. were treated as abnormals; 9 per cent. were
sent to a mental colony; and 8 per cent. were sent to a prison for mental
defectives, while the balance of 12 per cent. were released or deported.
ARCHBOLD'S
PLEADING
EVIDENCE
AND
PRACTICE
IN
CRIMI-
NAL
CASES. 28th Edition. (Sweet &Maxwell, Ltd., 2 and 3
Chancery Lane,
W.C.2;
Stevens &Sons, Ltd., 119 Chancery Lane,
W.C.2).
£2
12S.
6d. net.
A
DISTINGUISHED
Judge on circuit is said to have asked of prosecuting
counsel, ' Against which page of Archbold has this man
offended?'
A
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