Combining a vivid analysis of criminal records and public debate with theories from cultural studies, anthropology and social geography, this book contributes to current debates in history, criminology and violence studies.

Ranging from the middle of the eighteenth through to the end of the nineteenth century, Crime and Society in England, 1750–1900 explores the developments in policing, the courts and the penal system as England became increasingly industrialised and urbanised. Through a consideration of the difficulty of defining crime, the book presents criminal behaviour as being intrinsically tied to historical context and uses this theory as the basis for its examination of crime within English society during this period. In this fifth edition Professor Emsley explores the most recent research, including the increased focus on ethnicity, gender and cultural representations of crime, allowing students to gain a broader view of modern English society. Divided thematically, the book’s coverage includes: the varying perceptions of crime across different social groups crime in the workplace the concepts of a ‘criminal class’ and ‘professional criminals’ the developments in the courts, the police and the prosecution of criminals. Thoroughly updated to address key questions surrounding crime and society in this period, and fully equipped with illustrations, tables and charts to further highlight important aspects, Crime and Society in England, 1750–1900 is the ideal introduction for students of modern crime.

This four volume collection looks at the essential issues concerning crime and punishment in the long nineteenth-century. Through the presentation of primary source documents, it explores the development of a modern pattern of crime and a modern system of penal policy and practice, illustrating the shift from eighteenth century patterns of crime (including the clash between rural custom and law) and punishment (unsystematic, selective, public, and body-centred) to nineteenth century patterns of crime (urban, increasing, and a metaphor for social instability and moral decay, before a remarkable late-century crime decline) and punishment (reform-minded, soul-centred, penetrative, uniform and private in application). The first two volumes focus on crime itself and illustrate the role of the criminal courts, the rise and fall of crime, the causes of crime as understood by contemporary investigators, the police ways of ‘knowing the criminal,’ the role of ‘moral panics,’ and the definition of the ‘criminal classes’ and ‘habitual offenders’. The final two volumes explore means of punishment and look at the shift from public and bodily punishments to transportation, the rise of the penitentiary, the convict prison system, and the late-century decline in the prison population and loss of faith in the prison.

Taking the form of two companion volumes, Police Courts in Nineteenth-Century Scotland represents the first major investigation into the administration, experience, impact and representation of summary justice in Scottish towns, c.1800 to 1892. Each volume explores diverse, but complementary, themes relating to judicial practices, relationships, experiences and discourses through the lens of the same subject matter: the police court. Volume 1, with the subtitle Magistrates, Media and the Masses, provides an institutional, social and cultural history of the establishment, development and practice of police courts. It explores their rise, purpose and internal workings, and how justice was administered and experienced by those who attended them in a variety of roles. Special attention is given to examining how courtroom discourse was represented in print culture, the role of the media in providing a discursive commentary on summary justice, and the ways in which magistrates and the police engaged in a law and order dialogue with the press. Throughout, consideration is given to uncovering the relationship between magistrates, the courts, the police and the wider community, and to charting the implications of the rise of summary justice and the ’police-man’ state for the urban masses (as evidenced through prosecution, conviction and punishment patterns). Volume 2, with the subtitle Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies, explores, through themed case studies, how police courts shaped conceptual, spatial, temporal and commercial boundaries by regulating every-day activities, pastimes and cultures.

This study, first published in 1982, is concerned with the nature of crime in nineteenth-century Britain, and explores the response of the community and the police authorities. Each chapter is linked by common themes and questions, and the topics described in detail range from popular forms of rural crime and protest, through crime in industrial and urban communities, to a study of the vagrant. The author pays special attention to the relationship between illegal activities and protest, and emphasizes the context and complexity of official crime rates and of many forms of criminal behaviour. This title will be of interest to students of history and criminology.

Taking the form of two companion volumes, Police Courts in Nineteenth-Century Scotland represents the first major investigation into the administration, experience, impact and representation of summary justice in Scottish towns, c.1800 to 1892. Each volume explores diverse, but complementary, themes relating to judicial practices, relationships, experiences and discourses through the lens of the same subject matter: the police court. Volume 1, subtitled Magistrates, Media and the Masses, provides an institutional, social and cultural history of the establishment, development and practice of police courts. It explores their rise, purpose and internal workings, and how justice was administered and experienced by those who attended them in a variety of roles. Special attention is given to examining how courtroom discourse was represented in print culture, the role of the media in providing a discursive commentary on summary justice, and the ways in which magistrates and the police engaged in a law and order dialogue with the press. Throughout, consideration is given to uncovering the relationship between magistrates, the courts, the police and the wider community, and to charting the implications of the rise of summary justice and the ’police-man’ state for the urban masses (as evidenced through prosecution, conviction and punishment patterns). Volume 2, subtitled Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies, examines, through themed case studies, how these civic and judicial institutions shaped conceptual, spatial, temporal and commercial boundaries by regulating every-day activities, pastimes and cultures. As with Volume 1, Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies is attentive to the relationship between magistrates, the police, the media and the wider community, but here the main focus of analysis is on the role and impact of the police courts, through their practice, on cultural ideas, social behaviours and environments in the nineteenth-century city.

Taking the form of two companion volumes, Police Courts in Nineteenth-Century Scotland represents the first major investigation into summary justice in Scottish towns, c.1800 to 1892. Whereas Volume 1, subtitled Magistrates, Media and the Masses, analysed the establishment, development and practice of police courts, Volume 2 explores, through themed case studies, the role of police courts in moulding cultural ideas, social behaviours and urban environments in the nineteenth century.

Volume 2 of this two-volume companion study into the administration, experience, impact and representation of summary justice in Scotland explores the role of police courts in moulding cultural ideas, social behaviours and urban environments in the nineteenth century. Whereas Volume 1, subtitled Magistrates, Media and the Masses, analysed the establishment, development and practice of police courts, Volume 2, subtitled Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies, examines, through themed case studies, how these civic and judicial institutions shaped conceptual, spatial, temporal and commercial boundaries by regulating every-day activities, pastimes and cultures. As with Volume 1, Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies is attentive to the relationship between magistrates, the police, the media and the wider community, but here the main focus of analysis is on the role and impact of the police courts, through their practice, on cultural ideas, social behaviours and environments in the nineteenth-century city. By intertwining social, cultural, institutional and criminological analyses, this volume examines police courts’ external impact through the matters they treated, considering how concepts such as childhood and juvenile behaviour, violence and its victims, poverty, migration, health and disease, and the regulation of leisure and trade, were assessed and ultimately affected by judicial practice.

"In Certain Other Countries, Carolyn A. Conley explores how the concepts of national identity and criminal violence influenced each other in the Victorian-era United Kingdom. It also addresses the differences among the nations as well as the ways that homicide trials illuminate the issues of gender, ethnicity, family, privacy, property, and class. Homicides reflect assumptions about the proper balance of power in various relationships. For example, Englishmen were ten times more likely to kill women they were courting than were men in the Celtic nations." "By combining quantitative techniques in the analysis of over seven thousand cases, as well as careful and detailed readings of individual cases, the book exposes trends and patterns that might not have been evident in works using only one method. For instance, by examining all homicide trials rather than concentrating exclusively on a few highly celebrated ones, it becomes clear that most female killers were not viewed with particular horror, but were treated much like their male counterparts."--BOOK JACKET.

This book provides an introductory text for students taking courses in recent criminal justice history. Chapters cover the key issues central to an understanding of the historical background to the current criminal justice system, covering the crime of murder, the emergence, establishment and development of the police, crime and criminals, criminals and victims, the courts and punishment, women and children, and surveillance and the workplace. In addressing each of these issues and developments the authors explore a range of historiographical and criminological debates that have arisen, looking at the ways in which the disciplines of criminology and history are converging, and offering new perspectives on both modern and historical.