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Delinquency, Crime, and Social Process. and (Eds.). New York: Harper & Row, 1969. xv+1151 pp.
The author-editors have done an impressive job in producing this useful book of readings in criminology. On the basis of a well-defined and by now familiar point of view, they have distributed sixty-four carefully written papers into ten sections or topics. It is helpful to note how this particular book was put together. First, the “basic points of the book were laid out and linked together in ten essays, and then readings were selected to illustrate these points. …” This method has resulted in an unusually coherent book. The ten-part argument of Cressey and Ward does a creditable job of so persuasively preparing the reader that whatever discordant notes are sounded during or within some of the individual papers seem to be errors on the part of those performers. That they may be playing from a somewhat different score may not occur to the casual reader. If there are other viewpoints as internally consistent as the one presented in this book, this book offers few clues to their existence. This is entirely justified because the book is not intended as a survey of general theories in criminology. As Cressey and Ward state at the outset, “The selections are organized around a central theoretical position, which [they] elaborate progressively in the discussions that introduce each of the ten parts.” A rapid sketch of this ten-part argument reveals the following:
Parts 1, 2, and 3 say that the problem of establishing and maintaining in the United States a condition of law and order which is reassuring to the majority while fair to the minorities is difficult,