BOOK REVIEWS 267

Police Programs for Preventing Crime and Delinquency edited by Dan G. Pursuit, John D. Gerletti, Robert M. Brown, Jr., and Steven M. Ward.

Charles C. Thomas, Publisher (301-327 East Lawrence Avenue, Springfield, Illinois 62703), 1972, 490 pp., hardcover-$17.50, paperback-$10.75.

Seven sections divide this compendium of journal articles, papers and pamphlets into basically an idea sourcebook. The last section appears to identify the primary objectives of the text by focusing on funding sources and their requirements for obtaining funds to implement and experiment with innovative programs. Such objectives tend to quickly date the text due to the rapidly changing nature of federal funding programs and the constant influx of police programs in the prevention area.

The list of authors of the articles throughout the compendium reads like “Who’s Who in Policing” thus providing an excellent cross section of the programming inter- ests of contemporary police administrators and planners. The articles are public relations oriented, though, and put forth the positive aspects of the programs rather than a purely objective evaluation of each program.

The Delinquency Control Institute (DCI) at the University of Southern California, the original initiator of the compendium, conducted a survey of crime and delinquency pro- grams in police agencies in communities over 50,000 population and selected sheriffs’ departments throughout the United States seeking the prevention programs cited. The influence of the DC1 in programs selected for inclusion appears in the definitional range of ‘crime prevention’ as a concept. Crime prevention, especially since 1970 and the time the text was developed, has come to be identified in three approaches: (1) the target hardening approach, (2) the behavioral or crime causation approach, and (3) the environ- mental approach. Some concern is given to the target hardening or hardware approach in Section III, entitled “Prevention Programs for Specific Offenses,” but primary focus is on programs designed to cope with the behavioral causes of crime.

Secretary General Nepote of Interpol provides an excellent international comparative- descriptive chapter in Section I about “The Role and Future of the Police in the Field of Crime Prevention.” This comparison of prevention programs in Germany, Austria and France, with those in the United States gives crime prevention a cross-cultural perspective that makes the crime prevention problem universal, yet, at the same time clearly gives the reader the impression that crime is a neighborhood problem.

The second section, titled “Community Relations,” consists of articles describing pub- lic relations programs and programs designed to improve basic police services. The range of the articles thus vary from image building efforts to programs designed to improve the ‘products’ of law enforcement. Community relations-both the police-community and public relations types-receive major attention in the text varying from the “Of- ficer Friendly, ” “School Liaison,” “ Junior Police Leagues,” and “Be a Good Guy” type, to “Puppets for Moppets” and “Chests Out for Law Enforcement.”

Section III emphasizes prevention programs for specific offenses varying among family disputes, burglary, robbery, auto theft, and drug violations. The following two sections fo- cus on educational and school related programs, and recreational programs for youth. These three sections obviously stress juvenile problems. Conspicuously lacking throughout these sections is much needed discussion about what the police role should be in these problem areas. To imply what should be from these sections takes too much for granted.

Computers and helicopters occupy the section on technological programs. A chapter

268 BOOK REVIEWS

on the Security Unit of the Seattle Police Department illustrates the level of problem so- lution achieved by one of the major police departments in the United States. A part of the chapter is devoted to a “reevaluation of the police role” and interestingly credits criminol- ogists with being in agreement that some crimes are “inherently insoluble” in today’s society.

Section VII contains articles dealing with grantsmanship, program evaluation, and funding opportunities of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration and the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Control Act. Unfortunately, due to the vintage of the articles, the text does not bring the reader up-to-date with funding programs and recent changes in evaluation requirements and techniques. It does, however, provide a broad, general view of police programs for the new planning officer in a department.

In summary, Police Programs For Preuenting Crime and Delinquency is an idea book, a source book for the police grant writer and planning official seeking new programs for his agency and community. It is also an excellent source for the student of law enforcement and criminal justice seeking an acquaintance with police prevention programs in use during the past half-decade.

Vernon Rich Associate Professor

Administration of Justice Southern Illinois University

Carbondale, Illinois

Race, Crime and Justice edited by Charles E. Reasons and Jack L. Kuykendall

Goodyear Publishing Company, Inc. (Pacific Palisades, California), 1972, 345 pp., paperback.

‘Ihe increased demands by Blacks, Indians, Puerto Ricans, and Mexican-Americans that they be accorded more respectability and/or equitable treatment have had a no- ticeable effect on American institutionalism. Overt manifestations of this phenomenon would include: the multiplicity of organizations which have been established to articulate their aspirations, the pronouncements in the newspapers, protest movements, appear- ances before legislative committees, and the bringing of legal action to awaken our gen- eral society from its existing lethargic, and no doubt indifferent, attitude toward the status accorded members of racial minorities. Perhaps the Black Revolution of the last lilteen or twenty years has been the most noticeable and effective catalyst in bringing about changes both in societal attitudes and in behavioral patterns in situations involving racial minorities.

National legislation, such as the U.S. Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, 1965 (Vroting Rights Act), and 1968, state laws and municipal ordinances against racial dis- crimination in housing, employment, and the use of public accommodations, have been implemented by executive and administrative declarations, court decisions, and the work of various civil liberties organizations in their efforts to deal realistically with racial injustice in our society.