REVIEWS
| Date | 01 July 1970 |
| Published date | 01 July 1970 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1970.tb01287.x |
REVIEWS
THE
HONEST POLITICIAN’S
GUIDE
TO
CRIME
CONTROL.
By
NOBVAL
MORRIS
and
GORDON
HAWIUNS.
[Chicago
and
London:
Chicago
University
Press.
1970.
271
pp.
inc.
index.
WS.]
As
if the title were not provocative enough, the blindfold figure of Justice on
the dust-cover
is
lifting her bandage
so
that
she can peep out with one eye.
But
this
is far from being
a
one-eyed view of the crime problem. Here
are
two much-respected and long-established criminologists, Professor Norval
Morris of Chicago and Mr. Gordon Hawkins of Sydney universities, marching
boldly into this twilit world
not
merely with both eyes open but operating
a
searchlight powered by unblinking and (at this
late
stage) shocking
smpti-
cism. In the result, they commit to cold print what criminologists say
to
each
other in low voices in the corridors and smoke
rooms
at
conferences but
will
repudiate anywhere
else;
and thereby the book does immense damage to the
structure of criminological dogma.
On
the question of “worsening crime
figures,” for instance,
the
authors
dare
to
say that “propositions regarding
the
‘
volume of crime
’
hardly belong
to
the
realm of significant discourse, for
crime
is
not
a
unitary phenomenon; it
is
a
label applied
to
a thousand diversi-
ties
of behaviour. Their aggregation
is
a pointless exercise in mixing the
immiscible, and quantification
only
lends
a
spurious air of precision and clarity
to
statements which
are
inherently confused.”
They are writing of
the
American scene, but their observations are
universally valid; and those of
us
who have
to
do with the annual
Chid
Btatwtks, England and
WVdes, and know what grotesque groupings
are
therein represented, can but sadly acquiesce. The
Chid
8tatiStieS
will
always be misleading, but they could mislead
a
lot less than they do now; and
although in
1967
we had the report
of
the
Perks Committee,
a
strong com-
mittee of mainly statistical experts convened by the Home Oilice to say how
the
statistics could be improved* nothing has ever been done about the Perks
Report.
Morris and Hawkins think that the criminal justice system is
a
moral
busybody
unwisely
extended beyond
its
proper role of protecting persons and
property, and enforcing private morality about alcohol, gambling, drugs and
sex. The system ought
to
be getting on with its socially more urgent job of
reducing crime and
the
fear of crime. There is now available to us
a
fund
of information
on
the subject which, were
it
acted upon responsibly and
steadily,
WWU
reduce crime and curtail
the
fear, suffering and unhappiness
which
it
entails.
“It
is
not lack of knowledge, but
a
failure of political
responsibility, that supports our present luxuriant crime rates
”
:
so
the book
is
addressed
to
the politicians rather than
to
the criminologists.
It
is con-
structive
to
a
degree that
is
exciting and even daring
on
all
the over-familiar
subjects--costs and causes,
“
victimology,” rehabilitating offenders, juvenile
delinquency, psychiatric measures, and-particularly-research. (Research
at
the public expense on “the causes of crime” would be made a crime in itself.)
Coming from two criminologists it is
so
outrageously iconoclastic
as
to
suggest
that both of them, having
got
their book published, were
prepared
to cut and
run. But they
are
both
still
in post, having exposed criminologists, every-
where, to an implied comparison with Cato’s view of the Roman haruspex,
who was paid
to
foretell the future by disembowelling birds and studying their
entrails.
“I
often wonder,” Cat0
is
reported to have said, “how one haruspex
can keep from laughing when he sees another.” This
is
a
ruthless and fumy
463
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