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Book Review: A History of English Criminal Law and its Administration From 1750, Volume 5, The Emergence of Penal Policy, by Leon Radzinowicz and Roger Hood

York University, Osgoode Hall Law School

Osgoode Hall Law School of York UniversityOsgoode Digital CommonsArticles & Book Chapters Faculty Scholarship1987Book Review: A History of English Criminal Lawand its Administration From 1750, Volume 5, TheEmergence of Penal Policy, by Leon Radzinowiczand Roger HoodGraham ParkerOsgoode Hall Law School of York UniversityFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/scholarly_worksThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works4.0 License.This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Osgoode Digital Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Articles & Book Chapters by an authorized administrator of Osgoode Digital Commons.Recommended CitationParker, Graham. "Book Review: A History of English Criminal Law and its Administration From 1750, Volume 5, The Emergence ofPenal Policy, by Leon Radzinowicz and Roger Hood." Canadian Bar Review 66.4 (1987): 841-843.19871	Comptes-rendus 841minority rights with provincial rights . Nevertheless, his view of Cana-dian federalism did evolve from the centralist posture typical of the CCFin the 1930s to a more sympathetic appreciation of the provinces in thepostwar decades . Scott, however, never went as far in his defence of theprovincial role in the establishment and diffusion of democratic social-ism in Canada as did Trudeau in his famous article, The Practice andTheory of Federalism.6This volume ranges from ephemeral correspondence not intendedfor the public eye, through acid political commentary intended to hit thepublic and the establishment in the eye, to a few scholarly essays . Scott'sdeveloping views on federalism, on the relations between capitalism,socialism and democracy, on French-English relations, and on Canada'sinternational role are paraded before the reader in this volume. In twoshort articles his support for the 1970 invocation of the War MeasuresAct is crisply presented .Scott was a master of the English language . His graceful prose isan intoxicating delight for social scientists sentenced to read the outputof many of their colleagues .A History of English Criminal Law and its Administration From 1750,Volume 5, The Emergence of Penal Policy .By LEON RADziNOwicz and ROGERHOOD.London: Stevens & Sons . 1986 . Pp . xv, 1101 . (£75 .00)Reviewed by Graham Parker*Radzinowicz, and now Hood, are guilty of false advertising. This his-torical behemoth, running to five volumes and several thousand pages,is about crime, not criminal law. This fifth volume discusses criminol-ogy, penology, prisons, reformatories, police, vagrancy, drunkenness,transportation, borstals, juvenile deliquency, probation, ticket of leave,Victorian reformers and, inevitably, flogging .Radzinowicz is no Gibbon, Macaulay, Maitland or Toynbee; thereis no grand scheme or insightful synthesis. The history of English Crimi-nal Law reads like the work of a committee or a royal commission .uch of the text is made up of bland general statements, some of themore interesting material being relegated to the very comprehensive foot-notes and bibliography (264 pages) . ®n the other hand, the first three6 do Oliver, op . cit., footnote 2.*Graham Parker, of Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Ontario.842 THE CANADIAN BAR REVIEW	[Vol . CGchapters on theories of crime, describing the views of Lombroso, Marx,Galton et al . are excellent. The examination of criminal statistics is auseful discussion of a neglected subject . I enjoyed reading of the exploitsof the Victorian reformers . The chapters on habitual criminality, theestablishment of prisons and borstals, drunkenness, vagrancy and flog-ging are history as written by lawyers and sociologists, heavy on factsobtained from conventional secondary sources and rather lacking in inter-pretation. This volume does not hold together very well ; the chaptersseem like rather long entries in an encyclopedia . The book would makea good source-book for student essays .The intellectual origins of modern English penal theory are full ofparadox . While the rational and ameliorative views of Beccaria (andother philosophes of the Enlightenment) had their effects on Howard,Romilly and Mackintosh, the super-rationality of Bentham's views oncodification and "scientific" treatment of criminals was largely ignoredin England although very influential in Europe . Admittedly, the scienceof Galton and the statistical work of Rawson were taken seriously inEngland, but after the mid-nineteenth century the most impressive reformswere by the remarkable gallery of Victorians who were usually amateur,pragmatic and enthusiastic rather than scientific, organized and idealis-tic . These Victorians were not dreamers and they were not rigorousideologues . They were doers, such as the country squire Thomas BarwickBaker who was a prolific pamphleteer but who also built a boys' reforma-tory on his estate ; Matthew Davenport Hill, a judge who used his addressesto grand juries as a vehicle for reform ; Mary Carpenter, who devotedher life to better housing for the poor and establishing reformatories;Sydney Turner, who used his evangelical zeal to create more humanepenal institutions ; John Horsley, a temperance pamphleteer and prisonchaplain who undertook pioneering "criminological" research . Anotherfifty illustrious names could be added; they would include many clergy-men, usually with evangelical or social gospel roots; writers, such asCharles Booth and Henry Matthew, whom we would now call investiga-tive journalists ; public-spirited country squires ; barristers who were alsogood polemicists; and dedicated penal administrators and public servantssuch as William Crofton, Joshua Jebb, Edmund du Cande and EvelynRuggles-Brise. Radzinowicz and Hood present us with a good survey ofthese people who lived through a century of extraordinary energy andremarkable reform . I felt James Fitzjames Stephen and John Maconochiewere somewhat neglected . I was disappointed by the treatment of thedevelopment of the borstal . I thought the history of transportation wastrite but perhaps the authors looked upon that form of penal discipline asAustralian rather than English history .The most intriguing story in the book is the diminution of crime inmid-nineteenth century England. Statisticians and social historians couldhave a field day with this topic . Radzinowicz and Hood suggest the19871	Rook Reviews 843following factors could be the causes of this phenomenon (if it indeedhappened): the amelioration of social conditions, an increase in policemanpower and efficiency, a reorganization of the prison system withreformatory and industrial schools "reforming" criminals, the supervisionof habitual criminals, and the social hygiene consequences of emigra-tion . That list is fraught with potential controversies .I wish I had the space to cite many of the quotations that the authorshave culled from the authorities. There is an insightful comment fromEngels about the relativity of criminal statistics . Can you imagine finding Cardinal Manning more or less in agreement with Engels?- "Thosewho live among statistics, and have seldom, if ever, lived among thepoor, little know how poverty brings temptation, and temptation bothvice and crime . . . It would be an affectation of scepticism to say thatthis close relation is not by way of cause and effect" .' The authorsquote the perceptive interpretation of the popular Victorian phrase "dan-gerous classes" by a modern commentator, Fellow Chesney:2[T]hey were not talking about the labouring population as a whole, nor the grow-ing industrial proletariat . Neither were they referring to that minority of politicallyconscious, mostly "superior" radical working men on whom any sustained work-ing class political movement ultimately depended . They meant certain classes ofpeople whose very manner of living seemed a challenge to ordered society and thetissue of laws, moralities and taboos holding it together .I have reservations about this book because the authors do not offerme much nourishing food for thought on the crucial questions . Why,despite the good works of the Victorian reformers which had such promise, did the end of the nineteenth century see an expansion of crime anda great proliferation of penal institutions? What role did social class playin the history of crime and penal institutions? What was peculiar aboutEnglish legal and penal institutions and the thought that created them?Contract Law in Australia .By K.E: LINDGREN, J.W. CARTER and D.J . HARLAND .Sydney, Australia : Butterworths Pty. Ltd., 1986 . Pp . lxxvii, 817. ($A.54.00)Reviewed by M.H. Ogilvie*Until the publication in 1986 of Contract Law in Australia, Australianlawyers were without an indigenous textbook on the law of contract, butP. 45 .2 P. 69 .*M .H . Ogilvie, of the Department of Law, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario.

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Book Review: A History of English Criminal Law and its Administration From 1750, Volume 5, The Emergence of Penal Policy, by Leon Radzinowicz and Roger Hood

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