The History of Australian Corrections.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Author: Biles, David
• Date: 01 August 2007

The History of Australian Corrections S. O'Toole. (2006) UNSW Press, Sydney, pp 236, ISBN 0 86840 915 4

Writing book reviews for scholarly journals is generally an enjoyable and rewarding experience, but sometimes it is also challenging. This book by Sean O'Toole certainly has some enjoyable and rewarding aspects, but it is especially challenging because of its many egregious omissions and errors. The challenge for the reviewer is to present a balanced assessment of the worth of the book while at the same time encouraging the writer to keep writing and also encouraging readers to see the strengths as well as the weaknesses in this work.

There have been many histories of the correctional systems of individual Australian jurisdictions and there have been a number of published memoirs of retired correctional administrators, but this work correctly claims to be 'the first national summary of the history of...