Criminal Violence, Criminal Justice

...Presumably these papers will be made available to other scholars who will draw completely different conclusions from them...

...One is followed generally by Lewy of interpreting the Pentagon's conduct to be rational and responsible even though unsuccessful...

...Paperback CN 627 $6.95 831 2 February 1979:57 GOD AND THE ASTRONOMERS BY ROBERT JASTROW Dr...

...He adopts a compassionate "professionalism" much like that of the Oakland, California, police style rather than Los Angeles' aloof and callous counterpart...

...Trial by cupidity & capriciousness I I I CRININAL VIOLENCE, CRININAL JUS'lICE Charles E. Sill~rnma Random House, $15 [540 pp.] Isidore Silver E VERY SEVEN years, Charles E. Siiberman appears like a plague of locusts to destroy overgrowths of "conventional wisdom" about our most pressing social issues...

...But it is possible that Lewy's book will be elevated into a popular tract by those who find America's loss of prestige painful...

...If not completely seflsfied I may I return the book(s) within 10 days for full ,m | refund...

...More than any other American scholar, Lewy has had access to the official documents which directed the war in Vietnam...

...Of course, his frank recognition that race is an important variable in violent crime (though not other forms) may offend some liberals who have not yet been mugged...

...yes, there are no simple solutions--indeed, his final chapter is a distressingly perfunctory one...

...Silberman's attack on the conventional wisdom(s) is not single-minded...

...The creeping moss infecting both common sense and academic expertise about crime is particularly impenetrable since it takes two potent forms: a conservative James Q. Wilson-Ernst Van Den Haag strain and a Neo-Marxist-radical chic variety of significant, though limited, appeal...

...Jastrow tells the story of the reactions of scientists when their own findings force them to confront the mystery that religions have immemorially called God...

...New York 10022 SOFT ENERGY PATHS Toward a Durable Peace AMORY B. LOVINS "Amory Lovins is the real thing: an anti-nuclear polemicist whose arguments are so well organized, clearly expressed and extensively documented that even the most enthusiastic partisans on the other side will have to take notice . . . . His contribution both enlivens and deepens the Great Energy Debate...

...Why not retain reasonable judicial sentencing discretion in a system where, more often than not, hapless victims rather than hardened criminals are convicted and where deft, nite sentencing proposals simply cannot distinguish between the two...

...Silberman has daringly told us much about just why we deserve what we have gotten...

...Although dangerous youths should be treated severely by the juvenile justice system (in some cases, transfer to adult courts is necessary), is not the real horror juvenile court capriciousness-especially where "status" offenses such as truancy and "incorrigibility" have become a prime obsession...

...It is the personal chronicle of the growth toward spiritual maturity of a woman who arrived in Chile as a fairly conventional middle-class doctor and left a confirmed Christian humbled by the total commitment of those who were prepared to die to change Chile's system of self-propagating social rnisery...

...9 . ." are just some of the juicier findings...

...A major problem with any conventional wisdom is that, right or wrong in particulars, it often tends to highlight and deal with the wrong problems...

...At base, Silberman shares William Muir's "tragic vision" of both crime and criminal justice...

...Publishers Weekly February, 1979 Paperback CN 659 $3.95 THE SOCIOBIOLOGY DEBATE A Selection of Readings on the Ethical and Scientific Issues Concerning Sociobiology Edited by ARTHUR L. CAPLAN This is the firstcomprehensive source book bringing together all the material necessary to understand the range and fascination of sociobiology...

...His analysis of the relationship between poverty and crime echoes traditional liberal laments--"The close association of violent crime with urban lower-class life is the direct result of opportunities that are not available...

...His powerful plea is that the tragedy of American life (often the dark side of our national optimism) be acknowledged and that such acknowledgment need not take the forms of either supine liberalism or harsh conservatism...

...For all the thefts it endures, American business is more sinner than sinned against . . . . " and "Some entire industries appear riddled with fraud...

...As Silberman's numerous critics begin to dismantle his analysis and conclusions from varying perspectives, they should understand that he has made a bold attempt to answer the questions once posed by a famous criminologist, "Why do all societies get the kind of crime they deserve...

...That blunt recognition, Silberman's endorsement of plea bargaining, a tentative acceptance of the deterrence theory of criminal law--"the threat of punishment deters at least some crime" -- may be hard for some liberals to swallow, but they may be comforted by the fact that their dosage of unpleasant medicine is much less than that administered to conservatives and neoconservatives...

...Since police don't spend most of their time catching criminals, since very few officers (mainly patrolmen rather than detectives) account for a disproportionate number of quality arrests, and since even rapid police response time is meaningless when most victims fail to call the police immediately, why continue to focus upon gimmicks such as improved investigative techniques and new technology...

...Silberman's most remarkable feat is simply to ask other, more relevant, questions...

...Come to think of it, he is not a plague of locusts but rather a Tocqueville who has come from the "outside" to tell us about ourselves...

...Perhaps there are even some academic studies that run counter to the blizzard of documentation rained down upon us, and perhaps a total survey of the "literature" in the field (Silberman seems to have read only almost everything) would qualify some of his bald conclusions9 But, the great bulk of the analysis should readily withstand attack, even from the ideologues...

...New York Times Book Review Paperback CN 653 $3.95 WHAT COMPUTERS CAN'T DO A Critique of Artificial Reason HUBERT L. DREYFUS "Skeptics and humorists have been casting doubts on the computer for many years: but few if any ,have scrutinized both the scientific and the philosophical origins of computer science as extensively, met, icuIously, and fairly as Dreyfus . . . . This book is'a valuable inquiry into a topic of crucial significance in education, engineering, and philosophy . . . . It should be examined by all intelligent people concerned about the future of mankind...

...the Pentagon to make avai.lable all its documents on Vie'.tnam "now...

...It should also be remembered that his breathtaking vision of this new nation was almost as tragic as it was optimistic--and that the tragedy was most apparent on questions of race and the criminal justice system...

...Audacity to Believe is a story of what happened to Sheila Cassidy--and to Chile--in the intervening four years...

...All police work, all criminal justice processes, are trade-offs, often of greater for lesser evils--and this is part of the tragic vision, perhaps its most significant part...

...If plea bargaining is not only normal but desirable, then why not seek to improve it--as Detroit has done by requiring experienced district attorneys to sift "garbage" from "real" cases soon after arrest and by open pre-trial bargaining conferences with not only the defendant but the victim present...

...ultimately that insight extends to the great social costs of race prejudice and poverty...

...A marvel of clarity on an apocalyptic theme:' -John Barkham Reviews ~6GOD AND THE ASTRONOMERS explores the theological implications of the Big Bang theory of creation...Dr...

...It is also an eye-witness account of the violent overthrow of the first democraticallyelected Marxist government in history and the coming to power of an oppressive military regime whose crimes against Commonweal: 58...

...If this develops, America in Vietnam will be the locus classicus of all the rationalizations, half-myths, false premises and misconceptions that tormented the American people from 1965 to 1974...

...I the British consul...

...This is true, especially in the realm of criminal justice...

...I I I I Name i I I | Address | I I I c~ty...

...Another approach, not yet suggested by any anti-war activist, would call for investigations and even trials of those who made those unbelievable mistakes which we are now coming to understand so well...

...While there is no doubt that the criminal justice system hARpER pApERBACkS Harper o) Row Paperback Oeot 10 E 53d St...

...On race, "We are not likely to secure any substantial and lasting reduction in black violence until [the income] gap is closed--until black Americans become full, participating members of American society...

...If America wants to enter a period of agonizing reappraisal of the Vietnam War there are two approaches...

...If that occurs, those who fought for years and years against the war in Vietnam may have to relive their nightmares and re-fight that war...

...Yes, much of the prose is overblown...

...l l), and theNew YorkReview ofBook~ (De...

...Jastrow traces the history of the diw pute imaginatively:' - - People Magazine Please send me copy(lea) of GOD I AND THE A81"RONOMERS by Robert Jas-, I trow at $7.95 each (publisher pays post- | age...

...I I !State & Zip m. == m-J I I . - - ~ l l I I i l n l i l l i l l l ~U i i m n i l I l l I ~ l n i l must concentrate upon the "hard core," it often does not, and even if it did, temporary expedients would be clearly insufficient...

...It is always hard to look back and try to discover the sources and causes of one's sin...

...Thus, he unabashedly advocates gun control-"This explosive increase in the number of guns has transformed the technology, and thereby the character of street crime...

...It is not now clear whether America will have the courage to demand a comprehensive inquiry into the longest war in American history...

...yes, some practices (such as sentencing) are too varying and complex to be reduced to easy formulas...

...Commonweal: 56 To these factors, Silberman adds other liberal concerns...

...It is not terribly important whether one agrees with everything in this compendious tract...

...Prison, long the bugaboo of liberal reformers, "plays much the same role in creating 'old boy' networks for crime that prep school or college does for diplomats or businessmen...

...Much of the book is, as Silberman concedes, not even original--for instance his argument that plea bargaining is in effect if not form "just" was anticipated by a wonderful, though little noticed, book, Justice by Consent, published only a few years ago by a law professor and criminologist...

...Muir's Police: Streetcorner Politicians defines the "good cop" as one who realizes that much of what he encounters is the result of society's brutalization of the poor...

...That analysis is essentially a liberal one, a critique of American culture and society, phenomena with rather than of capitalism--it is apparent that our capitalism, a particularly avaricious brand, was largely shaped by a broad heritage of what Tocqueville called "cupidity" and that capitalism in turn reinforced certain onerous tendencies (though Silberman is indirect about this...

...Indeed even from the generally benign interpretation placed by Lewy on the secret documents which he inspected, one is continually tempted to think that there are charges that should be brought--or at least investigations that should be made concerning those who led us into the war in Vietnam...

...Meanwhile, if this is not don~, the rni't!tar~?and specifically persons like" ('3eneral Westmoreland--will be ~pen to'the suspicion that they are guilty of serious misconduct in not insisting on adherence to the rules of war...

...19), the New Republic (Nov...

...Cassidy was expelled from Chile and returned to England by air carrying only the clothes she wore and a suitcase hastily packed for her by many juveniles caught up in the maw of a beneficently poisonous process, but to an intermediate one as well, the spiritual diminution of the personae of policemen, prison guards, and many inmates...

...7) may indicate that we are about to witness a literary autopsy on the April 30, 1975 death of the Republic of Vietnam...

...Silberman's pugnacious observation that "the follies of the right are at least as great as those of the left" demonstrates both a realization of the power of social myth(s) and a combative willingness to decimate the landscape...

...Lengthy reviews of Lewy's book in the New York Times (Nov...

...he refuses to become either cynical or withdrawn in the face of that tragedy nor does he become overly (and dangerously) sentimental...

...it should be remembered that Tocqueville's original mission to America a century and a half ago was to report upon the ambiguities of our "reformed" prison system...

...I enclose $ check or J_ | money order...

...Goodfield's discussions of the political-legal aspects of the controversy are first rate...

...Silberman's decrying of the "terrible waste of human potential that our society countenances" refers not only to its immediate context, the waste of lives of Trial by torture AUDACITY TO BELIEVE Sheila Cassidy Collins World, $8.95 [333 pp.] Brian A. Haggorty 1[ N DECEMBER 1971, Dr...

...One is tempted, after reading thi s prodigious book, to urge...

...yes, some generalizations (even, on occasion, important ones) are supported by rhetoric rather than real evidence...

...Sheila Cas9 sidy, weary of the "academic rat-race of surgery in England," gathered her dog and thirty-three pieces of hand luggage and set off on a cargo boat for Chile...

...Certainly his belief that "Crime and violence are rooted in American life," his masterful dissection of crime rates to show that the low criminality of the 1930-1950 period was an aberration in American history, and his conclusion that "American crime is an outg/owth of the greatest strengths and virtues of American society--its openness, its ethos of equality, its heterogeneity--as well as of its greatest vices, such as the long heritage of racial hatred and oppression" are valid and constitute a vivid introduction to the remainder of his analysis...

...Silberman is attempting to redress the balance between long- and short-term needs, a balance which has been dangerously thrown out of kilter by contemporary addiction to quick fix proposals--and he largely succeeds...

...Library Journal February, 1979 Paperback CN 613 $3.95 PLAYING GOD Genetic Engineering and the Manipulation of Life JUNE GOODFIELD "June Goodfield brings style, wit and humor to her telling of the ongoing 'revolution' in the biological sciences brought on by the first successful attempts at matching the DNA of disparate species . . . . She sees the urgent need for a new 'social contract' between science ('What can be done, must be done is no longer sacrosanct scientific doctrine') and the public at large...

...While the first style may encourage some corruption, the second's inhumanity will probably lead to widespread community cynicism...

...In December 1975...

...he is not foolish enough to eschew intermediate solutions--"Even band-aids have their uses...

...what 9is critical is that it will become the starting point and indispensable reference for all serious future analysis of both American crime and American Criminal and Social Justice...

...It is America's peculiar mix of macho frontier ethic, xenophobia in the midst of vast waves of immigration, and a physical restlessness (and rootlessness) that have combined with a virulent capitalism (untamed and unrestrained by even minimal aristocratic gracesy to create an unusual criminogenic mix...