Reviews : Criminal Justice Under Stress Eric Stockdale & Sylvia Casale (Eds) Blackstone Press, 1992; £18.95 pbk
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059304000115 |
| Author | Rob Canton |
| Date | 01 March 1993 |
| Published date | 01 March 1993 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
37
and
the
Youth
Court.
Poor
layout
and
presentation
and
a
less
than
helpful
in-
dex
make
it
not
always
easy
to
find
what
you
want
and
some
of
the
con-
tent
already
seems
faintly
dated,
for
example,
the
discussion
on
possible
interpretation
of
s29(2)
but,
overall,
a
useful
addition
to
the
burgeoning
Criminal
Justice
Act
literature.
Graham
Nicholls
SPO,
Nottingbam
Guildhall
Criminal Justice
Under
Stress
Eric
Stockdale
&
Sylvia
Casale
(Eds)
Blackstone
Press,
1992;
£18.95
pbk
The
Editors
have
assembled
a
distinguished
team
of
contributors
for
this
timely
and
useful
anthology
on
the
criminal
justice
system.
The
collection
is
very
up-to-date,
including
instructive
discussions
of
the
Woolf
Report
and
the
Criminal
Justice
Act
and
even
com-
ments
on
evidence
submitted
to
Lord
Runciman’s
Commission.
All
the
essays
are
accessible
and
some
are
very
readable.
Some
contributors
have
managed
to
be
authoritative
and
(reasonably)
comprehensive;
others
have
managed
to
say
something
original;
some
have
even
met
all
these
objectives.
One
or
two,
perhaps,
are
rather
bland.
My
own
favourites
are
Rod
Morgan
and
Stephen
Jones
(Bail
or
Jail?)
and
Stephen
Shaw
(Prisons).
Susan
Edwards
(Perspectives
on
Race
and
Gender)
makes
some
important
points
-
her
emphasis
on
the
distinctive
oppression
experienced
by
black
women
is
par-
ticularly
valuable
-
but
the
task
she
set
herself
(or
the
editors
set
for
her)
is
over-ambitious
and
the
paper
would
have
been
stronger
for
a
sharper
focus.
Most
(not
all)
other
contributors
also
appear
to
have
felt
that
Edwards’s
essay
relieved
them
of
their
own
responsibili-
ty
to
consider
these
issues,
so
that
the
enti-oppressive
perspective
remains
safely
sealed
away.
More
generally,
there
is
very
little
connection
between
these
papers
and
a
more
assertive
editorial
influence
might
have
given
the
essays
morse
coherence
as
a
collection.
Perhaps
this
all
too
precisely
mirrors
the
problems
of
the
criminal
justice
system
itself!
Readers
of
this
Journal
will
be
keen
to
read a
former
editor’s
percep-
tion
of
the
Probation
Service.
David
Mathieson
writes
carefully
and
reliably,
although
he
moves
rather
uncomfor-
tably
between
an
enthusiasm
for
the
opportunities
which
CJA
1991
offers
the
Service
and
a
(well-founded)
scep-
ticism
about
the
compatibility
between
the
Act’s
philosophy
and
his ideal
of
restorative
justice.
It
is
probably
not
entirely
fair
to
complain
about
ommissions,
but
some
opportunities
have
been
missed.
A
paper
which
discussed
the
relationship
of
the
elements
of
the
system,
inherent
conflicts
and
the
potential
of
agencies
to
work
together
would
have
been
par-
ticularly
welcome.
There
is
no
essay
on
the
Crown
Prosecution
Service
-
the
least
studied
of
all
the
agencies
of
the
criminal
justice
system.
(If
it
has
yet
to
recognise
and
act
on
its
potential
to
transform
our
criminal
justice
system
and
is
still
struggling
to
establish
its
own
independent
professional
identi-
ty,
this
in
itself
is
worthy
of
discussion.)
Mike
Maguire
writes
wisely
about
Parole,
Joshua
Rozenberg
is
eloquent
about
Miscarriages
of
Justice
and
Mar-
tin
Wasik
is
admirably
concise
in
his
ac-
count
of
the
sentencing
philosophy
of
the
CJA.
General
texts
on
the
criminal
justice
system
are
relatively
few
and
there
is
much
useful
and
important
material
in
these
pages,
so
this
book
is
to
be
welcomed.
Whatever
Martin
Wasik’s
scepticism
about
deterrence,
though,
I
suspect
that
the
price
of
this
volume
will
deter
many
who
would
have
gained
from
this
book
and
deny
it
its
justly
deserved
readership.
Rob
Canton
SPO,
Nottingham,
Bullwell
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