Crime and Punishment in American History - Lawrence M. Friedman [302]
There is, of course, a large literature on organized crime and on the struggle against it. John Landesco’s book, Organized Crime in Chicago, was originally part of the 1929 Illinois Crime Survey; it has been edited and republished (1968) with introductions by Mark H. Haller and Andrew A. Bruce. Some of the political aspects of the struggle against organized crime are deftly handled in William Howard Moore, The Kefauver Committee and the Politics of Crime, 1950—1952 (1974). See also Francis A. J. Ianni, A Family Business: Kinship and Social Control in Organized Crime (1972).
The modern literature on the causes and cures for crime is absolutely immense; the same is true of the literature on the criminal justice system. There are at least half a dozen books, and probably more, on plea bargaining alone, and dozens of articles and books on the operation of courts of criminal justice, high and low. There are popular and scholarly dissections of the police and police behavior; hosts of “true crime” stories, and so forth and so on. I am loath to single out individual instances. Still, I would recommend Samuel Walker’s sensible and well-written survey, Sense and Nonsense About Crime: A Policy Guide (2d ed., 1989), a masterpiece of debunking; and Charles E. Silberman, Criminal Violence, Criminal Justice (1978). Almost anything written by Marvin Wolfgang, Franklin E. Zimring, and Gordon Hawkins can be wholeheartedly endorsed. I also feel I must mention Hans Zeisel’s fine study, The Limits of Law Enforcement (1982); this is social research at its best. David Simon’s book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991), is another type altogether. This is an absolutely fascinating account of one year among the homicide detectives of Baltimore; it is journalism of the highest order. Another excellent study, more or less on the same subject, is Henry P. Lundsgaarde, Murder in Space City: A Cultural Analysis of Houston Homicide Patterns (1977)—another demonstration that social science training does not necessarily destroy one’s ability to write good, clean English. And for a fresh, quirky look at some aspects of crime, there is Jack Katz’s book Seductions of Crime: Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing Evil (1988).
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1 This account comes from Gail Sussman Marcus, “‘Due Execution of the Generall Rules of Righteousnesse’: Criminal Procedure in New Haven Town and Colony, 1638-1658,” in David D. Hall, John M. Murrin, and Thad W. Tate, eds., Saints and Revolutionaries: Essays in Early American History (1984), pp. 99, 115.
2 Susan P. Shapiro, Wayward Capitalists: Target of the Securities and Exchange Commission (1984), p. 22.
3 New York Times, Jan. 3, 1901, p. 1; Jan. 29, 1901, p. 3.
4 Most criminologists, but not all, would agree with this general formulation ; for an exception see Michael R. Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi, A General Theory of Crime (1990).
5 4 Blackstone’s Commentaries 7-8.
6 See the account in Johannes Andenaes, “The General Preventive Effects of Punishment,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 114:949, 962 (1966).
7 Lawrence M. Friedman, The Legal System: A Social Science Perspective (1975), p. 68. Apparently, whether there still exist societies that regularly practice cannibalism is in question; but the point remains, either way.
8 On this point, see Kai T. Erikson, Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance (1966), chap 1.
9 Gustave de Beaumont and Alexis de Tocqueville, On the Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application in France (1833; reprint ed., 1964), p. 140.
CHAPTER 1. THE SHAPE AND NATURE OF THE LAW
1 See, for example, John Phillip Reid, A Law of Blood: The Primitive Law of the Cherokee Nation (1970).
2 Yasuhide Kawashima, Puritan Justice and the Indian (1986), p. 15.
3 On the meaning and history of the grand jury, see Richard D. Younger, The People’s Panel: The Grand Jury in the United States, 1634-1941 (1963).