Review

Author(s): Lois B. DeFleur

Review by: Lois B. DeFleur
Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Aug., 1969), pp. 584-585
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2091990
Accessed: 14-01-2016 06:50 UTC

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584 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICALREVIEW
istic incentive for putting the process in motion. Aspects of Social Control in Welfare States,
His description of experiences as a novice edited by NILS CHRISTIE. Volume II of
state legislator is an insightful account of prac- Scandinavian Studies in Criminology. Oslo,
tical politics. In his efforts to pass a bill through Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1968. 184 pp.
a factionalized legislature to give illegitimate No price indicated.
children the same type of birth certificate as This small book consists of nine separate
legitimate children, he reminds the globally articles, most of which were written by Scandi-
idealistic that many seemingly small battles for navians. The majority of the selections are
human dignity remain to be fought against research reports, which vary in both length
reactionary elements. and level of sophistication. There is no theme
Yet in sharing the virtues of the Humphrey or developmental organization apparent in thi
tradition, in which he was raised politically, volume; it is simply a collection of articles on
Rose also shares its dangerous fallacy: an ideo- a variety of aspects of social control.
logical anticommunism. Although his criticism For example, an article by Britt-Mari Pers-
is directed toward the extreme right (whom he son Blegvad titled "A Case Study of Inter-
mislabels "revolutionaries"), it is the rigid and Organizational Conflict" focuses on sources of
ideological anticommunism of the middle that conflict which arise in the two types of Swedish
contributes in no small measure to the oppres- organizations that handle delinquents-Public
sive and violent foreign policy this country per- Prosecutors and Child Welfare Boards. Such
petrates upon several smaller nations of the factors as different organizational structures and
world. differences in type of staff are cited as contrib-
According to Rose, communists are not enti- uting to the conflicts reported. There is also a
tled to academic freedom because they put brief discussion of possible solutions. The au-
ideology before objective truth. However, he thor does attempt to relate her case study to
employs his own ideology inaccurately to cen- more general organizational theory.
sure Marx for not being a humanist. One of the longer articles reports the results
Rose's conception of academic freedom is the of a study done by Ulla Bondeson in a large
pursuit of knowledge only within a specialty, girl's training school in Sweden. It focuses on
where students have no rights but must learn "Argot Knowledge as an Indicator of Criminal
what the faculty teaches the way they teach Socialization." After constructing and adminis-
it. This is the newly exposed technocratic tyr- tering an argot test, the author related argot
anny, which radicals rightly oppose, wherein knowledge to a number of other factors, in-
knowledge subverts reason. cluding time in training school, previous devi-
Almost a decade ago, in Political Freedom, ancy, age, and intelligence. A wealth of data
Meiklejohn refuted this anticommunist concep- are reported and analyzed through the use of
tion of academic freedom with sound scientific product-moment correlations. The conclusions
argument. Communists are alleged to have their are quite comparable to those reported by
thoughts controlled, i.e., to follow a party American researchers: that juveniles in institu-
"line". But if control means a set of reinforce- tions become increasingly socialized into a
ments, the declared American communist faces criminal subculture, and that girls with the
a sizeable number of rewards and punishments highest status in the inmate structure have
to relinquish his chosen pursuit of truth. Have greater argot knowledge.
the assertions of communist intellectual dis- Briefly, the remaining articles in the volume
honesty been verified, or is it with their inter- are the following: (1) An essay by Johns.
pretations of history that Rose and others dis- Andenaes describing the Scandinavian legal
agree? For Meiklejohn, in contrast to Rose, "our codes and legal processing. (2) A research study
final responsibility, as scholars and teachers, is by Ragnar Hauge on 15 Oslo probation officers
not to the truth. It is to the people who need concerning dilemmas in their role which the
the truth." author feels are created within their operational
This criticism of Rose notwithstanding, he system. (3) A questionnaire study of Oslo
has given sociology an unusual example of re- policemen by Donald Cressey and Elg Elgeser
search, a participant observer study that ex- focusing on operational difficulties of police as
presses human feeling as well as intellectual they attempt to follow a policy of discretion
insight. Hopefully, it will lead to similar works while enforcing the law. (4) A legal experiment
by students and faculty across the country. In carried out by Patrick Tornudd in three Finnish
his last book, Arnold Rose willed us an impor- towns, in which the fines ordinarily levied
tant part of his legacy. against drunks were largely abolished-but with
KENNETH J. REICHSTEIN no significant results. (5) Two Danish studies,
Temple University conducted in 1954 and 1962 by Berl Kutschin-

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 BOOK REVIEWS 585
sky, which investigated knowledge of, and at- to explain the great variety of police behavior
from one community to another. As a piece
titudes toward, law, crime, sanctions, and legal
authorities. (6) An essay by Nils Christie in of funded research by a political scientist at
which he argues that penal reform is basically Harvard University, assisted by his graduate
an effort to adapt penal policies to changes instudents, this is a good example of what sociol-
societal values. (7) Data from fifteen Scan- ogists might handle better as an organizational
dinavian prisons, gathered by Hugh Cline and study. The author relies heavily on a small
Stanton Wheeler, which probe origins of and amount of unpublished FBI statistics, but he
variations in prison social structures-and whichdoes not become mired in facts or mathematical
suggest that the values inmates bring to the tests. Well supported by interviews and field
prison are an important determinant of its observation, the analysis and presentation are
social structure. clearly and convincingly communicated with-
The selections in this volume vary consider-out jargon.
ably, both in content and quality. Perhaps more From a larger sample of surveyed communi-
crucial is the fact that some of them make ties, eight were selected for intensive study
important contributions to comparative crim- because they were somehow "different" or
inology, while others do not. For example, the "interesting" (and convenient); six were in
study of Oslo police by Cressey and Elgesem New York state, none were in the South.
could be used as a basis for significant com- Professor Wilson proposes that police opera-
parisons with police systems in other cultural tions in each area have a style of their own.
settings. On the other hand, the experiment In fact the book might have been more properly
with drunkenness fines carried out in three entitled Styles of Police Behavior, if "patterns"
Finnish towns makes little contribution to the is too prosaic. In an earlier study, "The Police
understanding of sanctioning systems and gen- and the Delinquent in Two Cities" (Stanton
Wheeler, ed., Controlling Delinquents), Profes-
eral programs for alcohol offenders. Like several
other studies in the volume, this research is sor Wilson suggested two such styles-fraternal
neither rigorous nor well-reported. Undoubtedly,and professional. In the present book, without
the works of criminologists in other countries foreclosing the typology, he adds another style.
are interesting and sometimes important, but He now proposes (a) the watchman (fraternal)
not all the selections in this volume are worth type exemplified by Albany, Amsterdam, and
reading. In the face of the abundance of mate- Newburgh-all in New York state; (b) the
rials in the field that are published just in legalistic (professional) type of Oakland, Calif.,
this country, a busy reader might be well Highland Park, Ill., and Syracuse, N.Y.; and
advised to skip most of this collection. (c) the service (new) type of Brighton, N.Y.,
One of the primary weaknesses of the volume and Nassau County, N.Y. Whether these repre-
is the complete lack of interstitial materials sent police styles or community styles is a
between selections. This shortcoming is com- good question. Nevertheless, by taking their
pounded by the superficial preface by the editorspecial frame of reference ("definition of the
of the volume. Thus, the book is really no dif- situation"?) one can better understand the way
(both "how" and "why") police operate and
ferent from an issue of a journal, except for its
hard cover. This work, as well as subsequent react to legal infractions, juvenile delinquents,
volumes promised by the editor, would be much traffic violators, drunks, assaulters, and thieves
more valuable to British and American audi- and burglars.
ences if some central theme or other type of The author takes a flexible position, disclaims
continuity were provided, and if more rigorous finality or "proof" (p. 13), and admits the in-
criteria were used in making the selections. sufficiency of some of the evidence; it is there-
Lois B. DEFLEUR fore difficult to fault the themes which he
Washington State University develops so well. The departmental "styles"
portrayed, he says, need not remain the same
over time, they are not the only styles, and
"many if not most departments (may) dis-
Varieties of Police Behavior: The Management play a combination of two or more styles"
of Law and Order in Eight Communities, by (p. 140). However, to assess the validity of the
JAMES Q. WILSON. Cambridge, Mass.: 1Har- material and its representativeness, one would
vard University Press, 1968. 309 pp. $6 50. have to be very knowledgeable about each of
Writing from a background of extensive con- the places described, -which is not a simple
tact and experience with police affairs, the task.
author seeks to find some organizing principles There is much more in this book than typo-

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