This book, first published in 1965, describes the British penal
system as it existed in the 1960s. It describes how the system
defined, accounted for, and disposed of offenders. As an early work
in criminology, it focuses on differences between, and changes in,
the views held by legislators, lawyers, philosophers, and the man
in the street on the topic of crime and punishment. Walker is
interested in the extent to which their views reflect the facts
established and the theories propounded by psychologists,
anthropologists, and sociologists.
The confusion between criminologists and penal reformers was
initially encouraged by criminologists themselves, many of whom
were penal reformers. Strictly speaking, penal reform, according to
Walker, was a spare-time occupation for criminologists, just as
canvassing for votes is an ancillary task for political scientists.
The difference is that the criminologist's spare-time occupation is
more likely to take a ""moral"" form, and when it does so it is
more likely to interfere with what should be purely criminological
thoughts.
The machinery of justice involves the interaction of human
beings in their roles of victim, offender, policeman, judge,
supervisor, or custodian, and there must be a place for human
sympathy in the understanding, and still more in the treatment, of
individual offenders. This book is concerned with the efficiency of
the system as a means to these ends. One of the main reasons why
penal institutions have continued to develop more slowly than other
social services is that they are a constant battlefield between
emotions and prejudices. This is a great empirical study; against
which the policy-maker and criminologist can measure progress or
regression in British criminals and punishments.
General
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