The official history of criminal justice in England and Wales. Volume II: Institution-building. Paul RockNew York: Routledge. 2020. viii+555pp. £29.59 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-73011-6

Abstract

Following on from his eminently successful first volume in this series, dealing with the end of capital punishment, the decriminalisation of male homosexual acts, and that of abortion, Paul Rock has completed this equally impressive second volume of the government-appointed, official history of this aspect of the criminal justice system. While the previous volume concentrated on ‘the liberal hour’, this volume moves onto the more mundane, but no less important, issue of institutional reform in the second half of the 20th century in England and Wales. Perhaps because, since the 1650s, England and Wales never really experienced a period that was genuinely revolutionary, there were aspects of its criminal justice system that were considerably dated and had experienced at best a haphazard development until well into the 20th century. This was certainly the case with the long-needed reforms to the assize system of justice. More recent, but no less necessary, had been the developments surrounding a truly independent prosecution service. Rock's book undertakes the mammoth task of writing the history of the origins of these problems and the solutions that created two new institutions.

The book, which is essentially two fairly distinct studies, first tackles the end of the traditional assize and the establishment of the Crown Court. The assize system can trace its origins back to later 13th century (not ‘early medieval times’, p.6)! with the incorporation of most Welsh counties into the English assize system in the 1830s. The criminal side had largely continued without any substantial administrative reform until the mid-20th century – near 800 years after its establishment. Even as England and Wales entered its period of post-industrial decline, the assize at Exeter still necessitated the stopping of traffic, javelin men, trumpeters, and a coach for the sheriff. The list of preparations for the assize at Caernarvon is particularly illuminating of how many rituals were still endured up to 1971 (pp.19–26). Most pressing in the matter was the fact that many of the county towns where hearings took place had long since declined in relative importance and particularly in population over the centuries – six assize towns had populations of less than 5,000, whereas seven non-assize towns had populations in excess of 200,000 people. A particularly strong light was shone on the situation during the Great Train Robbery trial of 1964 when the assize town of Aylesbury (population 34,000) had to facilitate a 51-day trial of eleven defendants with 240 witnesses in attendance, all paid for by Buckinghamshire Council. The location was purely by dint of where the train had been stopped – none of the defendants had any connection with the county.

Thus, a Royal Commission was established to consider the archaic system of the administration of criminal justice in the provinces and recommend a more modern solution. Lord Beeching was chosen as chair; his experience of modernising the railways made him the prime candidate. Derek Oulton, a substantial source for this part of the book, became secretary to the Commission, Vera Demerry the assistant secretary, and both were influential. Much like the reforms to the railways, there were to be winners and losers in this process. The Commission was thorough in its work and although it may have been that the resultant recommendations were always going to favour a radical reform to the system, it did take into account many practical matters of local concern – local populations obviously, but also the distribution of the members of the bar, the location of remand prisons, new court houses and attendant facilities, down to issues such as train timetables and the availability of parking.

The second part of the book, covering Chapters 5 through to 9, deal with the development of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, c. 23. Although the system of police solicitors and public prosecutors could hardly be called medieval in the way that the assize system described above legitimately could be, by the early 1980s there was clearly an outdated system in place. The original lawyer-less criminal trials as described by Langbein (2005) had been replaced with a system whereby prosecution in the 20th century tended to be undertaken by prosecuting solicitors with a relationship where the police played the role of client. The relationship between the police force and the prosecuting solicitors was not uniform across the country and could lead to ‘confusion of identity between investigator and prosecutor’ (p.210).

The issue was brought to a head in the aftermath of the killing of Maxwell (Michelle) Confait in 1972. Confait was ‘something of a demi-mondaine, a transvestite and a prostitute, reputedly promiscuous, a man who had had many liaisons’ (p.253), who was found dead in the aftermath of a fire in her south-east London home. She had been strangled before the fire. The two boys and an 18-year-old man with learning difficulties subsequently found guilty were sentenced to periods in a variety of places of detention, including youth and mental health facilities.

Their acquittal within three years, followed by an enquiry (Fisher, 1977) and then a Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure (1981), identified the need (accepted by many before this point) to have a reformed system whereby after detection, cases would be entrusted to independent public prosecutors. The chapters that follow deal with the membership and work of these panels, and their reception in the legal and policing community, as well as the influence and response by Whitehall. The resultant reforms were to produce, a few years later, the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 and the Crown Prosecution Service.

There are many strengths to this excellent book. The depth of this work, the availability of a considerable amount of government records, and the invaluable interviews conducted with many of those involved at high-level decision making combine to produce a comprehensive history of these two important reforms to the criminal justice system of England and Wales. In particular, the oral history aspect, allowing for the interrogation of unusually frank and open civil servants and others (perhaps because most are now retired), gives a convincing description of the events as they occurred on the inside of the administrative machine of governmental and criminal justice reform. Perhaps as criminologists and historians we should be more cynical of ‘official history’, but Rock's assured handling of the subject matter, his sources (both human and paper) and the careful analysis of the topic generally make for a very persuasive history. It is also particularly well written – it is not often the case that books on administrative history, citing enquiry reports, conferences, and committee make-up and findings can hold the reader's attention quite as well as this splendid work.