Book reviews

Naum Jasny, Soviet Economists of the Twenties: Names to be Remembered. Cambridge: at the University Press, 1972. ix + 218 pp. £3.80. $12.50.

Leonard Joel Kirsch, Soviet Wages: Changes in Structure and Administration since 1956. Cambridge, Mass. and London: The MIT Press, 1972. 237 pp. $12.50.

Robert C. Stuart, The Collective Farm in Soviet Agriculture. Lexington, Mass. and London: Lexington Books, D. C. Heath & Co., 1972. xx + 254 pp. $12.50.

Mose L. Harvey, Leon Goure and Vladimir Prokofieff, Science and Technology as an Instrument of Soviet Policy. Monographs in International Affairs: Center for Advanced International Studies, University of Miami, 1972. xvi + 219 pp. $5.95 (hard cover). $4.95 (paper cover).

I. S. Koropeckyj, Location Problems in Soviet Industry Before World War II. The Case of the Ukraine. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971, and London: OUP, 1972. xiii + 219 pp. £5.75.

Chris Osakwe, The Participation of the Soviet Union in Universal International Organizations: A Political and Legal Analysis of Soviet Strategies and Aspirations inside ILO, UNESCO and WHO. Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1972. xvi + 194 pp. Dfl. 35.—

Dieter Pfaff, Das Sowjetische Transportrecht ah Teil des Wirtschaftsverwaltungsrechts. Hamburg: Hansischer Gilden‐Verlag, Joachim Heitmann & Co., 1970. 147 pp.

Roger Pethybridge, The Spread of the Russian Revolution; Essays on London: Macmillan, 1972. xii + 238 pp. £4.50.

Peter Kenez, Civil War in South Russia, 1918: The First Year of the Volunteer Army. Berkeley, Calif, and London: University of California Press, 1971. 351 pp. $10.00. £4.75.

George Lenczowski, Soviet Advances in the Middle East. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1972. 176 pp. $4.00 (paperback).

Robert C. Williams, Culture in Exile. Russian Emigrés in Germany 1881–1941. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1972. xviii + 404 pp. $14.50. £6.90.

Lucjan Blit, The Origins of Polish Socialism: The History and Ideas of the First Polish Socialist Party 1878–1886. Cambridge: University Press, 1971. ix + 160 pp. £3.00 $10.00

Andrew C. Janos and William B. Slottman (eds.), Revolution in Perspective. Essays on the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919. Berkeley, Calif, and London: University of California Press, 1972. (Russian and East European Studies.) x + 185 pp. $10.00. £4.50.     

A Hard Look at What We Know (and Still Need to Learn) About the "Costs" of the Exclusionary Rule: The NIJ Study and Other Studies of "Lost" Arrests

The controversy over a "good faith mistake" exception to the exclusionary rule and the 1982 National Institute of Justice study of the effects of the rule in California have focused attention on the "costs" of the rule. This article reviews the NIJ study and seven other relevant studies and concludes that the NIJ study's claim that the rule has a "major impact" on the disposition of felony arrests is misleading and exaggerated. California data show that prosecutors reject only 0.8% (8 in 1,000) of felony arrests because of illegal searches. The effect of the rule is concentrated in drug cases in which the rejection rate by prosecutors is 2.4% (not 30%, as suggested by the NIJ study), but the rejection rate for non-drug arrests is less than 0.3%, and the rate is even lower for violent crimes. Even if one looks at the cumulative effect of the rule through all stages of the felony process in California, only about 2.35% of felony arrests are lost because of illegal searches, and this is a high-side estimate based on potentially atypical samples. Moreover, studies of "lost arrests" have not differentiated between arrests resulting from bona fide crime investigations and arrests that resulted from arbitrary searches or arrests that were made to seize contraband, for harassment, or for purposes other than obtaining a conviction. The author concludes that available data show the cost of the rule is marginal, especially in view of the ambiguous nature of the lost arrests. Moreover, it is doubtful that a good faith mistake exception would save any substantial proportion of the arrests lost following illegal searches. In particular, an exception for searches conducted under an improper warrant would save only a negligible proportion of lost arrests.