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18 How. J. Penology & Crime Prevention 70 (1979)
The Acceptable Pressure Group: A Review Symposium

handle is hein.journals/hjcj18 and id is 70 raw text is: The Howard Journal Volume XVIII 1979, pp. 70-84 The Acceptable Pressure Group? A Review Symposium Late last year, Mick Ryan published a book, The Acceptable Pressure Group (Saxon House 1978) which was subtitled Inequality in the penal lobby: a case study of the Howard League and R.A.P.. This contains, inter alia, a lengthy and largely critical assessment of the achievements and stance of the Howard League, especially in the period since the Second World War. The Editor and the Book Review Editor took the view that the League's journal should devote considerable space to this work, and have accordingly arranged for it to be considered by reviewers from a number of different backgrounds, each reviewer being encouraged to write especially from his own organisational or professional point of view. This is followed by a brief reply from the author of the book. Ryan's main thesis may be summarised as follows. The pluralism of Western societies has certain well-defined limits. Pressure groups which operate within these will be given a voice and may influence government policy, but those which challenge the ideological bases of the present social order will be defined out and their aspirations denied. The Howard League, because it obeys the ground rules, has long had access to the levers of power and has exerted influence, but in doing so it has been contaminated by the Establishment and acts as a buttress for those groups wielding power in a capitalist society. In contrast, R.A.P. disregards the rules and demands the abolition of the prison system. It gains little access to policy-makers and is largely ignored as long as it retains this uncompromising stance. Ryan concludes that the more overt R.A.P.'s political message the more it is defined out. . . . The politics of ambiguity might . . . be the only available tactic for a radical pressure group which wants to operate within the existing political system (p. 145). Comment From Martin Wright Director, Howard League for Penal Reform. Penal reform is a very political subject, but reformers are ambivalent about this fact. On the one hand they believe that the way in which members of society induce each other to behave decently to each other ought to have a place at the top of the political agenda, along with economics and welfare; on the other, when they see the issues over- simplified by politicians and especially the popular press into law-and- order, they want to keep out of that kind of politics. The Howard League has been concerned with the art of the possible; 70

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