Foreword

• Published date: 01 January 1962
• Date: 01 January 1962
• Author: Louis B. Schwartz
• DOI: 10.1177/000271626233900101
• Subject Matter: Articles

FOREWORD

This

volume

of

THE

ANNALS

grew

out

of

the

initiative

of

M.

Marc

Ancel,

Jus-

tice

of

the

Supreme

Court

of

France

(Cour

de

Cassation)

and

Secretary-General

of

the

Institute

of

Comparative

Law

of

the

University

of

Paris.

Some

years

ago,

M.

Ancel

undertook,

on

behalf

of

the

French

Center

of

Comparative

Law,

to

edit

a

collection

of

European

penal

codes,

the

first

volume

of

which

appeared

in

1956.

Having

thus

brought

together

the

legislative

texts

of

a

great

family

of

related

codes,

M.

Ancel

turned

his

attention

to

the

contrasting,

largely

uncodified

penal

systems

of

England

and

the

United

States.

Professor

Leon

Radzinowicz

of

Cambridge

University

was

invited

to

organize

a

collaboration

of

British

penalists

to

de-

scribe

their

criminal

law.

The

resulting

work,

Introduction

au

Droit

Criminel

de

l’Angleterre,

was

published

in

1959.

Thereafter,

the

undersigned

was

asked

to

supervise

preparation

of

a

similar

ac-

count

of

the criminal

law

of

the

United

States.

These

essays,

then,

were

prepared

for

European

readers

who,

though

trained

in

their

own

legal

systems,

are

likely

to

have

only

general

familiarity

with

Anglo-American

law.

The

authors

have

there-

fore

avoided

excessive

detail

or

technicality

as

well

as

any

effort

or

pretense

to

give

an

encyclopedic

restatement

of

the

law.

The

aim

is

to

present

a

picture

of

the

American

penal

system

that

will

be

interesting

to,

and

comprehensible

by,

the

educated,

nonprofessional

reader.

Publication

in

advance

of

the

French

transla-

tion

is

by

permission

of

M.

Ancel

and

the

French

Center

of

Comparative

Law.

LOUIS

B.

SCHWARTZ