Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume 53 Article 10 Issue 2 June Summer 1962 Book Reviews Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons Recommended Citation Book Reviews, 53 J. Crim. L. Criminology & Police Sci. 233 (1962) This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. 19621 BOOK REVIEWS of views followed concerning the significance of the offenders' previous background which should be policies and decisions made by the Penitentiaries taken into account, together with the nature and Branch and the Parole Board to the initial assess- seriousness of the crime committed, in determining ment by the trial judge of what sentence he should the kind and length of sentence to be imposed. impose in particular cases. The final session of the conference was opened During the afternoon session, Chief justice by the Attorney-General of Nova Scotia, Mr. R. Ilsley opened a discussion on the effects which some A. Donahoe, who outlined the Provincial Govern- of the 1961 amendments to the Criminal Code may ment's responsibilities and plans for the future have upon the judge's responsibility of deciding development of the correctional system in Nova which of the alternative sentences now provided Scotia. Among the subjects later discussed were under the criminal law will best strike a just the implications, so far as Nova Scotia prisons are balance among the interrelated, but sometimes concerned, of decisions reached at the Dominion- conflicting, objectives of protecting society, deter- Provincial conference on correctional reform in ring other potential offenders, and the need to 1958, the case-loads presently undertaken by the deter or reform the individual prisoner. In the existing probation officers in the Province, and the ensuing discussion special emphasis was placed on need for an expansion in both the adult and the importance of providing the courts with com- juvenile probation staff now available to the prehensive and reliable information regarding the criminal courts. BOOK REVIEWS Edited by David Matza* THE REAL BoHEmA: A SocIoLoGIcAL AND Psy- in any rigorous consideration of the social and his- CHOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE "BEATS." By torical issues dearly implicated in the phenomenon Fraixis J. Rigney and L. Douglas Smith. New of "beatness." (Cf. the considerably briefer and York: Basic Books, 1961. Pp. xx, 250. $5.00 infinitely more provocative piece by Ned Polsky, "The Village Beat Scene: Summer 1960," 8 The reader of this book will be forgiven if, because of its title, he is misled to anticipate that, DISsENT 3 (Summer 1961).) at very least, he will read a serious study of the The research consists of a clinical psychological workup of fifty-one certified Beat colony in San Francisco's North Beach Beats plus a certain neighborhood. With only a cursory perusal of its amount of will o' the wisp participant observation by one of the authors. True, the data are here; contents however, he will quickly intuit that while this may at one time have been the intent of the in tedious excess, in fact-the MMPI profiles, the Rorschach and TAT protocols, the few research whence the volume derives, somewhere along the line it was laid aside in favor of the sketchy paragraphs on social class origins, the residential statistics, etc. headier rewards of popular success and cocktail But these too serve hour acclaim. What we are offered is essentially a mainly as window dressing, an intellectual loss glossy, "easily understandable," "informative" leader, as it were, designed exclusively for the account of the Beat condition and its human professional reader who, it is hoped, will find his personifications-an effort spiritually akin, though way into the premises along with the jostling journalistically inferior, to the Vance Packard mob of wholesome, wide-eyed tourists and thrill genre of social analysis, but one wholly as deficient seekers. For, having paid the price of" admission, it is at once evident that the data, such as they * Assistant Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology and Social Institutions, 206 South Hall, are, bear no dear or necessary relationship to the University of California, Berkeley 4, California. text, which reflects (as much as an ostensible BOOK REVIEWS (Vol. 53 work in social science can be made to reflect) the ATTFNDANCE Cmms. By F. H. McClintock, in aesthetic of the travelogue. collaboration with M. A. Walker and N. C. The telling traces of kitsch are all here: the Satill. London: Macmillan and Co.; New York: patronizing, cute, and "in" chapter titles ("Making St. Martin's Press, 1961. Pp. 148. $7.50. the Scene," "On the Road," "Kicks"); the be- tween-the-lines name dropping of prominent Beat Under the English Criminal Justice Act of personalities and publicists; the pandering to 1948, Attendance Centres were developed for professional audiences through, for example, the young offenders for whom prolonged training in facile "discovery" of six basic Beat personality an approved school or borstal seemed too drastic, types-"the Tormented Rebels," "the Lonely but for whom probation alone appeared Ones," "the Beat Madonnas," etc.; the liberal insufficient. The opening of the first experimental bracketing of all technical references by quotation centre in 1950 was followed by rapid expansion. marks (the "Project," the "structured" tests, There are now 40 centres in industrial areas, and "style of life," "raw" scores), as if to apologize to no fewer than 2,500 young offenders were sent to the lay reader for their unavoidable inclusion; and them in 1960. It. appears that even greater use will (in the sadly mistaken assumption that it is nar- be made of sentences to the centres in the future, ratively refreshing as well as documentative) the either as independent measures or in conjunction resort to reams of Beat poetry, prose, and protest, with probation orders. the vast bulk of which is merely thrown in for Attendance Centres reports upon an enquiry into presumed literary or human interest effect. One these centres carried out under the auspices of the whole chapter with the pretentious title of "The Cambridge Institute of Criminology. The staff Case for Creativity" consists entirely of such of the Institute visited and studied nine of the matter, save for a few lines of preface in which centres, interviewed magistrates, probation offi- the authors state, wholly gratuitously I might cers, and other authorities, and made a detailed add, "For some idea of what they [the Beats] analysis of all available data concerning 1,200 produce, we reprint here a small anthology of juvenile offenders sent to the centres. The conduct Beat poetry." of the offenders after discharge from the centres Why go on? Suffice it to say, the interested has been followed up, and predictive techniques student will not find here an original, systematic, have been applied, distinguishing between first or, for that matter, particularly informed treat- offenders and those with previous offenses, and also ment of any one of a number of significant issues between those who were on probation and those suggested by the book's title. Inter alia, there is, who were not. for example, no sustained or even implicit dis- ,The report consists of five chapters: "The cussion of such topics as the historical and socio- Emergence of Attendance Centres as a Measure logical connections of the Beat bohemia with other for Dealing with Young Offenders," "The Sen- American bohemias, past and present; the struc- tencing Practice of the Courts," "The Regime tural and functional significance of Bohemia in of the Attendance Centres," "Penal Records and general, and the Beats in particular, for an ad- Social Background of the Offenders," and "The vanced industrial society; the similarities and Effectiveness of Attendance Centre Orders and differences of this form of nonconformity to other the Extent to which Prediction Is Possible." forms extant in contemporary life; the induction Appendices contain additional information needed processes, life contingencies and distinctive kinds to understand the centres and the study. of ego identity that account for the recruitment The book is a useful guide to the background, of some but not other persons of essentially development and operation of attendance centres. similar social backgrounds to the Beat and re- With a few exceptions, the study and its interpre- lated demi-mondes. tations were carried out in a workmanlike manner. For the investigator in such fields as social It is a nonexperimental study; consequently it deviance and criminology these questions remain cannot provide safeguards such as random assign- in all their complexity and are in no measure ment of subjects to experimental and control resolved by the publication of this volume. groups, direct manipulation of experimental FRED DAvis variables, and control over some of the extraneous San Francisco Medical Center variables that might operate during the course of University of California the experiment. And even within the framework BOOK REVIEWS of a descriptive study, certain factors in the tiveness. Other issues about the organization of centre's operations mide it difficult to evaluate services for delinquent children will come to the the effectiveness of the centres' programs. reader's mind. First, should the police be involved First, the class of offenders is inadequately in rehabilitative" work to the degree of operating defined, as "juveniles guilty of the less serious centres? This reviewer considers that the police offenses and whose delinquency could be regarded can serve most effectively in delinquency control as still at an early age ...