Review: Rural Crime Control
| Date | 01 October 1933 |
| Published date | 01 October 1933 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3300600418 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
RURAL
CRIME
CONTROL.
By
BRUCE
SMITH.
(Institute of Public
Administration, United States of America.)
MR.
BRUCE
SMITH
has produced athoughtful book which cannot fail to be
of really great interest and value to all serious students of police administra-
tion. He traces the growth of the rural justice machine, including the growth
of the police, in England and America following what he calls ' the aimless
path of the Sheriff-constable.' His historical review of rural crime and of the
way in which it has been and is being dealt with in Europe, particularly Eng-
land and America, is exceedingly well done.
It
is a pity that he should convey
the impression that there is no central Criminal Record Office in England.
He describes the Wakefield Clearing House as covering the north of England
and the Metropolitan Police as covering the south. This, of course, is not
the fact.
The
Criminal Record Office, although part of the Metropolitan
Police and housed at New Scotland Yard, is national in character, contains
complete records of all criminals convicted in the United Kingdom, and
provides information for police forces all over England, Wales and Scotland.
All other clearing houses are local in character and provide information as
to criminals of interest to the district. Further, it is not accurate to say
that
the'
modus
operandi'
system'
originated in
the
West Riding in
1912.'
What was done in the West Riding was to introduce aparticular system of
classifying criminals according to
the
method or modus operandi they em-
ployed. Other systems for dealing with the well-known fact that many
criminals, having devised one way of preying upon their fellows, continue
to exploit that method far too long and sometimes all their lives, have been
in existence for many years before
1912,
not only in England
but
also in
other European countries.
The
book is primarily an appeal to Americans to amend their police
system and ' to get rid of constitutional restrictions, to erase political boun-
daries, to weaken the force of tradition, which do not square with the mani-
fest needs of modern justice administration.' At the same time, whilst
Mr.
Smith's comparisons between the systems of England and America are
flattering to this country, he does not fail to point out that things are by no
means perfect here.
It
is rather pathetic to be reminded that a select com-
mittee which recently studied the question decided not to recommend the
merger of many small boroughs on the grounds that there is no precedent
for depriving the county borough, however small, of any powers it already
possesses, particularly as some of them have been counties since the Middle
Ages I
The
book is most attractively bound and printed and is published by
the Institute of Public Administration, Columbia University, New York.
5°4
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