HISTORY OF CRIME AND LAW

"Police Museums in Latin America: Preface"

by Amy Chazkel

Contributing editor of "Forum: Police Museums in Latin America," in "Calling the Law into Question: Confronting the Illegal and Illicit in Public Arenas," Special Issue of the Radical History Review 113 (Spring 2012), 127-33.

Organized by the historian Amy Chazkel, who also provides the foreword, this forum gathers the work of three... more Organized by the historian Amy Chazkel, who also provides the foreword, this forum gathers the work of three historians of Latin America who have written extensively on the social history of crime, prompting them to reflect on a ubiquitous but little studied public history institution: the police museum. Alejandra Bronfman, Lila Caimari, and Robert Buffington, specialists in Cuba, Argentina, and Mexico, respectively, guide us through a selection of five police museums: one in Havana that played a crucial role in legal medicine and developing ideas about race during Cuba's Republican period but no longer exists; one in Buenos Aires that was founded as part of the early twentieth-century wave of police reform and modernization; and two in Mexico City and one in Guadalajara that mushroomed in the context of the Mexican police's public image hemorrhage of recent decades. This forum is a critical examination of not only objects on display but also the deeper logic of the categorizing schemes used in each museum. The official history of crime presented to the public, epitomized by police museums, provides a fascinating counterpoint to the contemporary academic history of crime in Latin America, which is remarkably diverse but converges on its use of historical analysis to challenge normative understandings of the law and the illicit. Far from “calling the law into question,” unsurprisingly, police museums naturalize and dehistoricize the criminal law. Yet this forum points toward ways in which further research on police museums can shed new light on how the public encounters the most problematic and controversial manifestations of state power.

The Moghia Menace, or the Watch Over Watchmen in Colonial India

by Anastasia Piliavsky

Forthcoming in Modern Asian Studies in 2012. WORK IN PROGRESS: PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION, BUT PLEASE COMMENT! (an379@cam.ac.uk)

This paper contributes to the history of ‘criminal tribes’, policing and governance in British India. It focuses on... more This paper contributes to the history of ‘criminal tribes’, policing and governance in British India. It focuses on one colonial experiment—the policing of Moghias, declared by British authorities to be ‘robbers by hereditary profession’—which was the immediate precursor of the first Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, but which so far altogether passed under the historians’ radar. I argue that at stake in the Moghia operations, as in most other colonial ‘criminal tribe’ initiatives, was neither the control of crime (as colonial officials claimed) nor the management of India’s itinerant groups (as most historians argue), but the uprooting of the indigenous policing system. British presence on the subcontinent was punctuated with periodic panics over ‘extraordinary crime’, through which colonial authorities advanced their policing practices and propagated their way of governance. The leading crusader against this ‘crisis’ was the Thuggee and Dacoity Department, which was as instrumental to the ‘discovery’ of the ‘Moghia menace’ and ‘criminal tribes’ in the late nineteenth century as to the earlier suppression of the ‘cult of Thuggee’. As a policing initiative, the Moghia campaign failed consistently for more than two decades. Its failures, however, reveal that behind the façade-anxieties over ‘criminal castes’ and ‘crises of crime’ stood attempts at a systemic change of indigenous governance. The diplomatic slippages of the campaign also expose the fact that the indigenous rule by patronage persisted—and that the consolidation of the colonial state was far from complete—well into the late nineteenth century.

‘Murder in Cavan, 1809-1891’ in Breifne: Journal of Cumann Seanchais Bhréifne, (2009)

by Georgina Laragy

La généralisation des enquêtes judiciaires et la construction du pouvoir princier dans le duché de Bourgogne (xiie-xiiie siècles)

by Armando Torres Fauaz

Sob o Signo de Maet. Considerações sobre o Direito no Antigo Egipto. Contexto, Mito e Sentido de um “Momento” Politico-Sacro-Normativo

by Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

in "Estudos em Homenagem ao Prof. Doutor José Amadeu Coelho Dias", Porto, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, 2006, pp. 289-312.

Most jurists have no historical background apart from the respective national history of sources and possibly of... more Most jurists have no historical background apart from the respective national history of sources and possibly of institutions, which comprises a very limited perspective, especially in the current times. Even those who had the opportunity to study the legal history of a different culture are normally restricted to the principles of Roman law, and even then, centred mostly on its practical cases (to some extent, they are redundant when compared to those today, in what concerns basic techniques), rather than its most important aspect: the spirit of the law. Therefore, the legal history of Ancient Egypt, in a context of stricto sensu pre-juridical norms, may provide an inspiring contrast which may prove a challenge to the regular objects of legal education. It may also help us to draw a less linear, more subtle perspective of Justice. Maet is thus a symbol of that hidden facet of Law and Justice. Even those who had the chance to study another culture’s law history are normally confined to Roman law, and immersed more in practical cases (in a way redundant with the contemporary ones in basic techniques) than in what really maters: the spirit. The Egyptian juridical history, in the context of pre-juridical “law” of the pré-classic civilisations, may help to find a challenging and inspiring contrast with the objects under the concerns of normal juridical education. And help us to conceive Justice in a more subtle way. Maet is a symbol of that hidden face.

The Stealing of the ‘Apple of Eve’ from the 13th century Synagogue of Winchester

by Evyatar Marienberg

Co-authored with David Carpenter (King's College, London).

Henri III Fine Rolls Project, Fine of the Month: December 2011

See also: http://frh3.org.uk/content/month/fm-12-2011.html

One of the co-winners of the "Fine of the Year" competition of 2011 (see http://blogs.cch.kcl.ac.uk/frh3/?p=771)

LES LONGUES MARCHES DES ARMÉES ROMAINES. REFLETS ÉPIGRAPHIQUES DE LA CIRCULATION DES MILITAIRES DANS LA PROVINCE D’ASIE AU IIIe SIÈCLE APR. J.-C.. Cahiers Glotz 20 (2009) 199-210.

by Michael Alexander Speidel

Römische Soldaten auf Abwegen – Amtsmissbrauch, Korruption und Fahnenflucht. In: GEFÄHRLICHES PFLASTER KRIMINALITÄT IM RÖMISCHEN REICH. Herausgegeben von
Marcus Reuter und Romina Schiavone. XANTENER BERICHTE Band 21 (Xanten 2011) 213-221.

by Michael Alexander Speidel

Paul Vladimir et le Ius Gentium polonais: un droit de résistance au début du XVème siècle ?

by Loïc Chollet

Published in "Mémoires de la Société pour l’histoire du droit et des institutions des anciens pays bourguignons, comtois et romands" (MSHDB), N° 69 (2012).
All rights reserved.
@ Loïc Chollet

The political crisis which occurred after the Christianization of Lithuania (1387) between King Jagiello’s Poland and... more The political crisis which occurred after the Christianization of Lithuania (1387) between King Jagiello’s Poland and the Teutonic Order provoked a crucial debate concerning the religious tolerance and the just war’s question. The issue was brought before the Council of Constance (1414-1418), where spokesmen from each side argued the rightfulness of their claim. Basing his speeches on the Polish school of “ius gentium” and on Christian authorities (mainly Innocent IV and Cardinal Zabarella), Cracow University’s rector Paulus Vladimiri (Pawel Wlodkowic) opposed the Order’s propaganda by showing the unjustness of the war waged by the Teutonic Knights on Lithuanian “infidels” and Polish “traitors”. Going further, he attacked the Order’s ideology and practices, stressing that hiding a cruel behaviour behind Christian disguise was nothing but lie, crime and heresy. Therefore, he asked for the Order to be dismantled, its men to quit and its subjects to rise up; thus, resisting this unjust and even heretic foe would become legitimate. Exploring his speeches and recalling the historical and ideological context, this paper shows that a peculiar right of resistance can be found in Vladimiri’s political thought, and analyses how such a theory emerged in early 15th century Poland, during the war against the Teutonic Order.

Actuación del Tribunal Episcopal en la villa de Huelma (siglo XVII)

by Amparo López Arandia

published in Códice, 17 (2003), pp. 59-73
ISSN: 0213-6236

‘The Third Degree’: Press Reporting, Crime Fiction and Police Powers in 1920s Britain', Twentieth Century British History, 21, no. 4 (2010): 464-85.

by John Carter Wood

The late 1920s saw a dramatic upsurge in popular concern about the abuse of police powers in Britain, the end result... more The late 1920s saw a dramatic upsurge in popular concern about the abuse of police powers in Britain, the end result of a longer-term trend. Various aspects of policing were seen as worrying, but the most important concerned illegitimate forms of questioning. The phrase ‘the third degree’—imported from America—came to encapsulate this unease. Before the First World War, the terminology began to be used in British coverage of American crimes and their investigation, typically accompanied by disparaging commentary on American methods as well as the confident assertion of the superiority of British policing. The war-time growth in police powers and broader state regulation caused some to see an erosion in the ‘liberty of the subject’, and a series of scandals seemed to reveal serious problems with police procedure. The popularity of crime dramas featuring ‘third degree’ interrogations also shaped public images of the police. Scandals in 1928 generated enough outcry to force the calling of the Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedure (1928-29). Even though few concrete procedural changes were undertaken, it appears to have successfully calmed worries about the police. Concerns about the police receded, not to reach a similar level until the late 1950s.

Pequeña nobleza y guerra en el Reino de Valencia durante la Baja Edad Media. Actitudes y comportamientos en el servicio militar.

by Frederic Aparisi Romero

Frederic Aparisi Romero y Vicent Royo Pérez

Get local: riots, youth and community

by Kate Bradley

History and Policy opinion piece, 16 August 2011

Editorial: Youth and Crime, Centennial Reflections on the Children Act 1908

by Kate Bradley

Co-authored with Simon Shaw and Anne Logan, Crimes and Misdemeanours 3 (2) 2009

Juvenile delinquency and the public sphere: exploring local and national discourses in England, c.1940-1969

by Kate Bradley

Social History, vol. 37 (1) 2012 pp.19-35 DOI: 10.1080/03071022.2011.651582

Official statistics would appear to show that there has been a dramatic and sustained rise in crime by the young since... more Official statistics would appear to show that there has been a dramatic and sustained rise in crime by the young since the Second World War. Youth crime became a consistent and potent theme in public discourse at the same time. This article explores the role of discourse around juvenile delinquency in England between 1940 and 1969, looking first at governmental responses to and national press reportage of youth crime. It then uses a case study of the East End of London to explore the ways in which the local press approached the matter, along with the recollections of those who grew up in the area at the time. It concludes that discourse at a national level tackled juvenile delinquency as an abstract, theoretical entity, often detached from the daily experience of youthful misbehaviour. In sharp contrast, the local East London newspapers were not preoccupied with concerns over a decline in the behaviour of young people in the area, and autobiographical accounts likewise suggest much continuity. The article argues that, if we want to understand changes in the behaviour of young people over time, the focus should on experiences on the ground.

Inside the Inner London Juvenile Court, c.1909-1950

by Kate Bradley

Crimes and Misdemeanours 3 (2) 2009 pp.37-59

This article considers the workings of an individual juvenile court – the branch of the Inner London Juvenile Court,... more This article considers the workings of an individual juvenile court – the branch of the Inner London Juvenile Court, which sat at Old Street from 1910 and Toynbee Hall from 1929. It examines the spatial environment of the juvenile court before using data sampled from the court registers between 1910 and 1950 to analyse the progress of children and young people through the court and the strategies used by the magistrates to deal with them. Finally, it looks at the social work backgrounds and connections of the magistrates at this court, the ways in which this impacted upon their practice, and the consequences of this for the development of youth justice and welfare policy since. I argue that the welfarist principles of the 1908 Children Act were worked out both at grassroots and policy formation levels during the interwar and early post-war periods, before becoming the mainstream position in youth justice by the 1960s.

Keywords: Juvenile court, Inner London Juvenile Court, Toynbee Hall, youth justice

Review of W.E. Vaughan, Murder Trials in Ireland 1836-1914

by Niamh Howlin

Interview with Tim Hitchcock, co-creator of londonlives.org

by William Farrell

Published on New Left Project, 06 July, 2011.

This interview with Tim Hitchcock, co-creator of the London Lives website, explores its implications for understanding... more This interview with Tim Hitchcock, co-creator of the London Lives website, explores its implications for understanding the history of the welfare state in Britain.

'The worst types of sub-human beings'? The myth and reality of the convicts of the Norfolk Island penal settlement, 1825-1855

by Tim Causer

To read, please visit http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1331354/, or click the 'view on discovery.ucl.ac.uk' button below.

Given as a keynote lecture at the Professional Historians Association (NSW) 25th Anniversary Conference, held at Norfolk Island from 18-25 July 2010.

Published in 'Islands of History', Sydney, 2011, pp. 8-31.

The Norfolk Island penal settlement (1825-1855) was – along with Macquarie Harbour – the most notorious of the... more The Norfolk Island penal settlement (1825-1855) was – along with Macquarie Harbour – the most notorious of the Australian penal stations, and has long been represented as a ‘hell-on-earth’. The historiography is dominated by the Norfolk Island ‘legend’, a convenient if misleading and sensationalised short-hand utilised to superficially describe the character of the convicts and the regime they experienced. This legend emerged from an over-use of several under-contextualised sources, uncritical acceptance of the official line, failure to engage with voluminous archival material, too credulous readings of convict narratives, and tacit acceptance of nineteenth century discourses of crime and morality.

In the public consciousness, Norfolk Islanders are ‘all, or nearly all’ doubly-convicted capital respites guilty of the most heinous crimes or, as Frank Clune memorably described them, ‘the worst types of sub-human beings’. This perception is false, and lies at the root of much misinformation relating to the second settlement. Using a database of 6,458 Norfolk Islanders, this paper will examine the origins of the convicts and their original crimes, before turning to the reasons for which they were detained at Norfolk Island itself. It will show that the reality is far more complicated than previous histories of the second settlement suggest, and challenge many prevailing myths.

Norfolk Island's 'suicide lotteries': myth and reality

by Tim Causer

Given as a paper at the Professional Historians Association (NSW) 25th Anniversary Conference, held at Norfolk Island from 18-25 July 2010.

Published in 'Islands of History', Sydney, 2011, pp. 61-68.

An enduring aspect of Norfolk Island’s mythology is that prisoners, in order to escape the penal settlement, often... more An enduring aspect of Norfolk Island’s mythology is that prisoners, in order to escape the penal settlement, often engaged in suicide lotteries, i.e. drawing straws to select a killer and a victim, such as the killing of Blind Mooney in Marcus Clarke’s His Natural Life. The only evidence put forward for this claim was the story told by Acting Commandant Foster Fyans (January-February 1834), and which was given such prominence in Robert Hughes’s blockbuster, The Fatal Shore. This tale certainly sticks in the memory and has been repeated by almost everyone who has written about Norfolk Island after Hughes, as though this was the definitive account.


If this ‘suicide lottery’ story is tested against the evidence, it is abundantly clear that it simply did not happen and, indeed, could not have happened. Despite being such a part of the Norfolk Island legend, this paper will demonstrate that ‘suicide lotteries’ did not happen and were rather an embellishment upon the truth added by middle class observers wishing to further condemn the prisoners of Norfolk Island. However, a handful of prisoners did appear to commit capital offences with suicidal intent, and the evidence for these will be explored.



To read, please visit http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1331355/, or click on the 'view on discovery.ucl.ac.uk' button below.