Diana Gordon's book is an extraordinary treatment of one of the most pressing issues facing a democratic South Africa—a high and seemingly uncontrollable level of crime. As Gordon demonstrates, the post-apartheid crime wave is closely tied to South Africa's democratic transition and the legacies of apartheid—socioeconomic and criminological. Her book ably presents the histories of pre-apartheid and apartheid “justice” and traces the “bitter fruits” this history has bequeathed the new South Africa (pp. 83–110). At the same time, Gordon does not simply blame the structural violence of apartheid. Rather, the book recognizes the challenges facing the democratic government while explaining and critiquing many of the policy choices that have been made in repeated attempts to reduce the crime rate in the time since South Africa's first democratic election.

While generally critical of the government's efforts, particularly in its failure to embrace the opportunities of public participation and accountability inherent in community policing, Gordon also highlights the enormous changes that have taken place. First, the police have been transformed from a paramilitary organization whose main purpose was to defend the apartheid state into a more professional organization whose behavior has changed dramatically even if some of the old ways of thinking about police work have been slow to change (pp. 140–8). Second, public order policing has, as a result of both “policy change and professional leadership,” been reoriented toward an understanding of the role the police must play in protecting the public, including those who are exercising their constitutional rights to assemble and demonstrate, rather than merely defending the political order of the day (pp. 146–7). At the same time, Gordon questions the emphasis on a depoliticized professionalization, arguing that the liberal promise of the new constitution will only be achieved through a repoliticization that highlights the role of the police in the protection of rights.

One of the most important contributions Gordon makes is her use of a comparative perspective to reflect on the attempts to introduce what she terms “public-empowering justice” into South Africa's democratic transition. The idea of public-empowered justice reflects an engagement between the public and official institutions that ties advocacy and service provision in a way that both empowers public participation and transforms “the roles of criminal justice operatives to a community orientation”(p. 196). Turning to the South African experience, Gordon demonstrates the continuing tension between various efforts to promote “citizen participation in public ordering” (p. 214) and the reluctance of the new government to provide adequate resources to ensure that these new mechanisms are not merely co-opted by the police, a problem that she argues is exacerbated by the degree of central control that the new government has continued to assert in the fields of criminal law and justice.

Although Gordon recognizes that addressing the broader problems of crime in South Africa will not be simply a matter of enhanced policing capacity or local control, she offers a stinging critique of the new government's embrace of the “tough on crime” politics that has come hand in glove with a neoliberal market orientation in government policies. This trend, she argues, fails to both address the basic conditions that fuel crime and uphold the promises of an enlightened constitution. At the same time, Gordon recognizes that the situation in South Africa is not static, and she points to evidence that the government is returning to a more integrated view of crime and even the possibility that the Community Peace Program in the Western Cape might offer an experimental model of “public-empowered justice” for the future (pp. 281–5). Supporting this possibility is the continuing national debate over crime. This ambivalence that Gordon identifies was evident most recently when President Thabo Mbeki, addressing a mass rally east of Johannesburg on January 13, 2007, once again announced that the South African government is going to be tough on crime. He argued that if the country does not deal with crime it would be an obstacle that would undermine “the ANC's [African National Committee] efforts to ensure that the country is able to realize its social and economic potential” (Sunday Times, 14 Jan. 2007, p. 1, col. 1). Speaking to thousands of ANC supporters celebrating the 95th birthday of the ANC, President Mbeki argued that “this scourge [crime] has continued to bedevil our young democracy … [t]hough progress has been made in gradually reducing levels of most categories of serious crime, crime continues to impact severely on the quality of life of our people” (Sunday Times, 14 Jan. 2007, p. 1, col. 1). Public response to the speech agreed that the President had acknowledged the problem of crime but castigated him for suggesting that progress had been made in bringing down the crime rate.

The annual January 8 speech has long represented a statement by the ANC leadership of its own analysis of the problems facing the organization and the country as well as its plans to address these issues. In this vein, President Mbeki argued in his speech that “[d]uring the course of 2007, we need to make every possible effort to decisively tackle this challenge, drawing on the resources and capacity of all sectors of society in a united front against crime” (Sunday Times, 14 Jan. 2007, p. 1, col. 2). Mbeki promised that the ANC would launch “an extensive mass campaign to mobilize communities to assume leadership in the struggle for peace, stability and safer places to live” (Sunday Times, 14 Jan. 2007, p. 1, col. 2). At the same time, a debate continues to rage in South Africa about the place of crime on the national agenda. While some argue that ANC supporters feel that unemployment and poverty are more important issues for the national government to address, others argue that denial of the effects of crime on ordinary people and economic development only hinders the country's progress. It is in this context that Gordon's book makes an invaluable contribution and will no doubt serve as an essential reference for anyone serious about the role of law and legal institutions in addressing one of the most difficult issues facing the new South Africa.