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The excellent studies of Harry Elmer Barnes and his colleague, Professor Teeters, in the field of criminology and penology have long been known. Here they have produced a veritable encyclopedia, properly described by them in the preface as 'a comprehensive treatment of crime, criminals, punishment, and prisons'. Against a broad historical background they present the situation of today, always with the emphasis upon the individual offender, the reasons for his behavior and the humane and effective way to make him an orderly member of society. The anachronisms, the persistence of the vengeance motive, the stupidities and barbarities of prison administration, are clearly portrayed. At the same time, however, that which is progressive in the present machinery is not overlooked—as for example, the federal prison system.
Psychiatry is given a prominent place. There are discussions of the development of psychiatry, prison psychoses, the classification clinic, the child guidance clinic, drug addiction, and the psychopathic offender. On psychiatric matters related to courts and disposition, the only omissions this reviewer could find were references to defective delinquent (Massachusetts and New York) and sexual psychopath (California, Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota) laws and the Uniform Expert Testimony Bill of Harno recommended in 1937 by the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. The index of names lists fifty-two psychiatrists, ranging in time from Pinel and Ray to Menninger and Zilboorg. As illustrating their viewpoint, the authors quote James V. Bennett, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, as saying '… the future of penology may possibly lie not in the hands of the custodial force at all, but in the subtle insights of the analytical psychiatrist' (p. 958).
An extended bibliography is provided for each chapter, and the text is fairly well sprinkled with illustrations. The subject index is well prepared.
The authors have rendered a valuable service to the s