ISSN 1062-7421
Vol. 12 No. 4 (April 2002) pp. 217-219.

PENAL REFORM IN OVERCROWDED TIMES by Michael Tonry (Editor). New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 278 pp. Cloth $55.00. ISBN: 0-19-514124-5. Paper $19.95. ISBN: 0-19-514125-3.

Reviewed by Christopher E. Smith, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University.

In recent years, various members of the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association have commented on the need for American judicial scholars to give greater attention to laws and legal processes of countries other than the United States. For many of us whose graduate training focused exclusively on American judicial topics, the pursuit of this objective can create a significant challenge. Although we may periodically encounter comparative references to Great Britain, Canada, and other English-speaking countries, we are less likely to see references to non-English-speaking countries (with the exception of France, Germany, or Japan) in the course of our regular reading within our respective specializations. If we want to learn about other countries, we frequently must make a conscious decision to seek out material about a specific country, without necessarily knowing if we are choosing the country that may provide comparative examples most beneficial to our own work. Those of us who are handicapped by being monolingual obviously face challenges and limitations in seeking relevant materials from most countries, especially if we are interested in the technical details of law and public policy.

In light of the foregoing challenges, English-language works that cover a variety of countries can be especially attractive and useful for novice comparativists among scholars as well as for students. However, works that attempt to provide coverage of numerous countries frequently are unable to move beyond simple descriptions that provide a basis for asking questions about differences in formal law and institutionalized procedures. Fortunately, by limiting its topical focus to sentencing policies and attendant corrections trends, Michael Tonry's edited book PENAL REFORM IN OVERCROWDED TIMES succeeds in providing useful information and analyses about fourteen countries. In this 276-page volume, there are 37 articles in addition to Tonry's introductory essays. Thus, the numerous articles are
obviously quite brief. Despite their brevity, however, they generally go beyond simple description to provide analytical commentary about developments in each country.

The articles were originally commissioned by the Tonry-edited periodical OVERCROWDED TIMES (1990-1999), which sought to present "a series of short, nontechnical articles on particular jurisdictions in the hope that cumulatively over time they would offer something akin to policy histories" (p. vi). Tonry accurately observes that the articles are "idiosyncratic and incomplete, but for most jurisdictions they have no rivals" (p. vi). The articles discuss sentencing trends and impacts on correctional systems in the following countries: United States;

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Denmark; Sweden; Norway; Finland; Germany; France; Netherlands; Switzerland; Japan; Australia; Canada; England and Wales; and Ireland. The book's coverage is uneven. The first third of the book (eleven articles plus introductory essays) focuses on the United States. Several of these articles analyze specific American states (i.e., Washington, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina). There are five articles each about the Netherlands and England and Wales. Except for three articles about Australia and two about Canada, the other countries are each the focus of only one brief article. Although Tonry's volume does not examine the oft-neglected countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, the book's inclusion of individual chapters on each country in Scandinavia and multiple chapters on the Netherlands pushes its coverage beyond comparative volumes' usual limited focus on world economic powers (Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan) plus Western English-speaking democracies (Canada, Australia).

This book will appeal to two specific audiences. First, the book provides a wealth of useful data and comparisons for scholars and criminal justice professionals with specific interests in sentencing policies and trends in corrections. Second, the book could be very useful for use with students in college classes. Because the articles are brief and relatively non-technical, they provide readily understandable discussions that illuminate aspects of criminal justice in a variety countries. Like many
other comparative works related to courts and law, the articles demonstrate how the United States differs from other countries. Interestingly, however, the book also helps to demonstrate that some other countries are similar to the United States in increasing the severity of punishment and expanding their prison populations. The book is very useful in positing theories and raising questions about the roles of politics, public opinion, and other social factors in shaping developments affecting criminal punishments.

Because the articles are so brief, it is difficult to point to specific articles that stand out for their depth or insights. In general, readers will likely be attracted to articles because of their topical focus or because they present information that is surprising and unfamiliar. Within the articles on the United States, the book displays special strength in discussing the use of sentencing guidelines and the impact of structured sentencing on corrections populations, including populations within specific
states. The strength of the material on other countries depends, not surprisingly, on the number of articles that analyze a given country. Although countries that are the focus of merely a single article are less thoroughly analyzed, many of those articles manage to raise instructive comparisons. For those interested in gaining perspective on the tremendous growth in American prison populations over the past two decades, for example, the articles on countries moving in similar directions (albeit less drastically), such as England and Australia, provide useful bases for considering the effects of politics, public opinion, and social values. Equally interesting comparisons are available in the articles concerning countries with completely different experiences, such as Finland, where severity of sentences and the size of prison populations have decreased. The Finnish approach is described as a conscious policy decision made in reaction to an earlier realization that Finland's imprisonment rates exceeded those of other European countries in the 1960s (pp. 132-133). Obviously, the values, self-image, and goals of Finnish policy makers are different from those of their

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American counterparts. Despite such interesting contrasts, the opportunities for comprehensive comparisons are limited because of the short length of the articles and the lack of detailed attention to important relevant factors, such as the nature of crime in each society.

PENAL REFORM IN OVERCROWDED TIMES provides valuable information and the opportunity for limited cross-national comparisons concerning the topics of sentencing and punishment trends. Students can easily understand the book's short, non-technical articles so the volume could be used in college courses on sentencing, corrections, and comparative criminal justice. The book is also of interest to scholars seeking information about criminal punishment in the fourteen countries discussed in the various articles. However, the depth of analysis is uneven and often quite limited so scholars might only use the book as a starting point to guide further research on specific countries.

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Copyright 2002 by the author, Christopher E. Smith.