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Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume 49 | Issue 4 Article 15 1959 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, 49 J. Crim. L. Criminology & Police Sci. 360 (1958-1959) 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. BOOK REVIEWS [Vol. 49 and insights to existing legal knowledge, as well as P. King of Haddonfield, N. J.; James S. Palermo useful proposals for reform, but it also gives law of Hazelton, Pa.; Frederic M. Reuss, Jr. of Hollis, students the chance to study the law in action as N. Y.; John W. Roberts of Stamford, Conn.; and well as the law in the books." Allen G. Schwartz of Brooklyn, N. Y. The seven students who participated in the JAmES C. N. PAUL, Director project are: George J. Alexander, Philadelphia, Institute of Legal Research, Pa.; Melvin D. Glass of Brooklyn, N. Y.; Michael Univ. of Penna. BOOK REVIEWS SIR JAMES FITZJAMES STEPHEN (1829-1894) AND husband by poison. He sentenced her to death but His CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE DEVELOPmENT OF the sentence was later commuted. CRrmiNAL LAW. By Leon Radzinowicz, LL.D. Stephen was a champion of criminal law codifica- Director of the Department of Criminal Science tion upon which he worked assiduously after his and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. return from India. London, Bernard Quaritch, 11 Grafton Street, Besides several hundred essays he published a W, 1957. Pp. 70, Price 6s. 6d. Digest of the Law of Evidence and a Digest of the Dr. Leon Radzinowicz, in this 1957 Selden Criminal Law. His magnum opus was the History Society Lecture on Sir James Fitzjames Stephen of the Criminal Law of England, published in 1883. (1829-1894) pointed out that one of Stephen's He also published the General View of the Criminal earliest essays was on the "Characteristics of Law and a Digest of the Law of Criminal Pro- English Criminal Law." "He was the first to in- cedure in Indictable Offences. terpret the present state of the criminal law by an Lord Goddard referred to Stephen as, "That examination of its antecedents and to blend the great master of criminal law." historical and expository mode of analysis; the Dr. Leon Radzinowicz said in summing up, first to turn his back upon the amorphous and dis- "Thus in the brief space of fifty years, between jointed structure of all the current text-books in 1830 and 1880, penal administration had under- which case was heaped upon case and statute upon gone many changes and a different attitude statute leaving the reader confused and bored." towards crime and punishment had developed. He proposed many changes in the criminal law. During this period of flux, Stephen, the barrister, codifier, writer and judge, was exercising his in- Among others was the removal of the distinction quiring mind in reflexions upon criminal matters between felonies and misdemeanors and a general of all kinds." re-grouping of crimes; a broadening of the concept "Perhaps we do not realize as we should, wrote of criminal insanity; to change the definition of Professor (Dean) John H. Wigmore, 'that in Sir broaden the definition an unlawful assembly; to James Fitzjames Stephen's History of the English of criminal contempts, and to restate the law of Criminal Law and Mr. L. Owen Pike's History of blasphemous libel in order to promote freedom of Crime in England, taken in combination, we pos- religious speech." sess an account such as no other single country "To him the retention of capital punishment possesses-except perhaps Italy!" was the keystone of all moral and penological There is a bibliography of Stephen's Publica- principles." tions and Selected Manuscripts, including Histori- He helped bridge the gap between the criminal cal, Biographical and Critical Publications. Those code of India and the criminal law of England. interested in genealogy will find a Table of the Among the cases he heard as judge was the cause Stephen Family. c~l~bre involving the American Mrs. Florence JOHN W. CURRAN Maybrick. She was charged with murdering her De Paul University 19581 BOOK REVIEWS PosITrIoN AND SUBJEcT-MATER o CRnuNoLoGY; the normative aspect of crime, we run the risk of INQUmY CONCERmNG TiEORETICAL CRM- mutilating reality beyond recognition." Thus he NOLOGY. By H. Biandzi. North-Holland Publish- clearly goes on record in favor of a broad multi- ing Co., Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1956. pp. disciplinary approach to the problems of crime and VIII + 216 (Paper bound). $3.25. the criminal. This monograph, by Hermanus Bianchi, was It is when Dr. Bianchi turns to proposals for originally published as a thesis in partial fulfill- the reconstruction of criminology that he gets into ment of the requirements for a degree at the Vrije serious trouble. Like some American sociologists, Universiteit, Amsterdam, where the author is now he believes that the term "crime" must be freed a member of the department of criminology. Its from its legal restrictions so that it may serve purpose, according to the author, is to promote ,science in an objective analysis of the norms of criminology as a science in its own rights and in- society. After dragging the reader through a morass dependent of the control of other sciences, such of verbosity, Dr. Bianchi defines crime as "a sinful, as sociology, psychology, and psychiatry. ethically blameworthy, defiant and erroneous act, The volume is divided into an introduction and eventually prohibited by penal law, at any rate five parts in which Dr. Bianchi examines the scope, deserving to be followed by conscious counter- theory, and contents of criminology and makes action on the part of society, which inits behavior- recommendations for its reconstruction. It also aspects is the evidence of a failure of reciprocal contains a list of references and an index of authors' socio-physical adjustment of society and the indi- names, but it has no subject index. However, the vidual, being a 'deficient' mode of expression by table of contents does have explanatory notes which man runs counter to his own self." While regarding the subject matter of each chapter. the reader is still trying to recover from this flood The task undertaken by Dr. Bianchi is a formi- of unbelievable verbiage, he is amazed to find the dable one requiring not only a broad understand- author saying: "It is, of course, not possible to ing of sociology, anthropology, psychology, and record all the appendages of crime in one defini- psychiatry, but also a firm grasp of the principles tion since such an attempt would indeed require of criminal law. However, there has long been a the whole of a book. We are, therefore, not deluded need of a searching examination of the funda- by the belief that, not even approximately, all the mental concepts of criminology, its position in the incidentals of crime have been considered." fraternity of sciences, and its relationship to the The author's unwieldy definition of crime not criminal law, and the author's inquiry is certainly only flies in the face of customary usage, but also a timely one. in effect removes the term "crime" entirely from Regardless of how Dr. Bianchi's recommenda- the domain of science by tying it to the concept tions for the improvement of the present situation of sin, for, as Dr. Bianchi naively admits, "the- may be received, he must be praised for his efforts ology of all times has after all not been able to to solve a most difficult problem and for the sound solve the problem of sin." How we are to advance position he takes with regard to some fundamental the cause of science in a field already crowded with issues in the field of criminology. Thus he believes difficult problems by introducing an even greater that criminology must focus itself on both crime unsolved problem the author does not make clear. and man and must therefore take into account all Dr. Bianchi's troubles stem from his avowed the social sciences as well as the criminal law. In purpose to create an independent theoretical his opinion, the days of criminology conceived as criminology. And yet to reduce the ills of crimi- merely a section of sociology are over for "a re- nology no such grandiose plan is necessary. What duction of criminology to 'sociology of crime' de- is needed is a clear recognition that our knowledge prives the subject-matter of criminology of very of human behavior is still decidedly limited, that essential phases of the crime problem and the all sciences must contribute to an understanding problems concerning the perpetrators of crime." of the origin, nature, and development of the norms However, Dr. Bianchi emphatically disagrees both of human behavior and the causes of their viola- with those who would label most criminals as tion, and that thus both the crime and the criminal victims of mental disease and with those who would must be taken into consideration in the study of explain crime largely in terms of the biological criminology. In order to avoid confusion and mis- factor because, as he explains, "whenever we omit understanding, it is wiser to retain the term BOOK REVIEWS [Vol. 49 "crime" for the violations of the norms that are especially helpful for students, police and public embodied in the criminal law and to use some such officials, parents and citizens who are truly in- term as deviant behavior for violations of all norms terested in the welfare of their communities.