Criminal Justice in Crisis.

Edited by M. MCCONVILLE and L. BRIDGES (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1994. 334 pp. 25.00[pounds].)

The report of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, chaired by Lord Runciman and published in July 1993, has suggested an agenda for reform of the criminal justice system which is likely to be hotly contested for many years to come even though some of its proposals have already found their way on to the statute book. Whatever else may be said about the current debate it is certainly not boring. No other legal controversy is capable of arousing such intense passions among politicians, academic commentators, and members of the general public, nor of generating such emotive images as, for example, the scenes of jubilation outside the Old Bailey the day the convictions of the Guildford Four were quashed in October 1989, or those stemming from the violent confrontations between police and protesters against the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill in London in October 1994. …