Criminology and History

© Joh n Lea 2006

What is the relev ance of history to crim inology ?

History of course is of immense v alue itself and needs no justification in terms of any other discipline.
The distinction between past and present is a relativ e one. The social sciences, including criminology ,
are usually oriented to the study of 'the present period'. Just when that begins and history ends is
ex tremely subjectiv e. Ex amination questions used to take the form: 'Describe and ex plain the main
dev elopments in penal policy since the Second World War' or 'Why has crime risen steadily since the
Second World War?'. The Second World War used to function as the beginning of the 'present period'.
Ev ery thing before that was history . But to the majority of today 's students the Second World War is
history ... and so are the 1 950s and 1 960s! So the distinction between history and the present is an
arbitrary one. It is not surprising therefore that a study of history helps us to understand the present,
This is as true of crime and criminal justice as of any other area of study . A study of history can do
sev eral things for us:

Help us ask the right questions

Students (and teachers) of criminology tend to take contemporary aspects of crime and crime
control for granted, seeking to understand and ex plain them as if they hav e alway s been apparent.
This can be easily illustrated with a couple of ex amples. Inter-personal v iolence (for ex ample
between two people brawling in a pub or two groups clashing on a football terrace) is now understood
as obv iously problematic. Y et historical study informs us that such behav iour was not only
commonplace but also largely accepted in the past. Perhaps therefore we need to ask not only 'why
people act v iolently towards each other' but also 'why was it that inter-personal v iolence became the
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 object of increasing social concern and of criminal sanction'? Today most people regard the Police as
hav ing an inev itable role in combating crime. How the Police actually function may be the subject of
debate and critical appraisal but the need for a professional Police Force is rarely questioned.
History , howev er tells us that the introduction of a professional and permanent Police (in the early
1 9th century ) ex cited considerable consternation and resistance. Many at the time felt that a
professional Police was unnecessary or ev en something likely to seriously undermine civ il liberties.
Why therefore was a professional police force introduced and how did it gradually gain common
acceptance throughout society ?

Help us in finding the answers

Comparing past and present can help us to clarify arguments and throw new light on current debates.
For ex ample:

1. the effectiv eness of punishm ents:

Many people argue that tougher punishments deter crime. Somehow this seems obv ious to them. But
in the Middle Ages and right down to the beginning of the nineteenth century many punishment
sentences v ery tough indeed and people could be hung for all manner of thefts and non-fatal
v iolence. But it was said, during the eighteenth century , that the place most likely to get y our pocket
picked was in the crowd at a public hanging of pickpockets. Why ? because although the penalties were
sev ere the chances of being caught were minimal. Thus if we want to deter crime, it might be better to
spend more time improv ing the efficiency of the police in detecting crime than on dev ising tougher
sentences and building more prisons.

2. rising crim e:

Crime rates until recently were steadily rising since the 1 960s quite irrespectiv e of ov erall lev els of
pov erty , education etc. Y et crime was falling during the nineteenth century , particularly during the
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 period 1 850-1 900 ev en though people were poorer. During the economic depression of the 1 930s
there was a fairly low crime rate by today 's standards despite heav y unemploy ment and destitution.
Study ing more closely what was happening during the second half of the nineteenth century , or the
1 930s, might prov ide some clues as to why crime is so high today . For ex ample during the second
half of the nineteenth century

liv ing standards were low but for substantial sections of the working class they were rising:.
Today they are higher but for many people in poor areas of our cities they are falling.

people were being drawn into steady work as industrialisation ex panded. Today many people
are being ex pelled from work or failing to enter the labour market further than badly paid dead
end and part time jobs.

urban working class communities were becoming more stable. There was less turnov er of
population in an area, people worked in the same industries and knew their neighbours well.
Today in many high crime areas there is a high rate of population turnov er, communities are
isolated and fragmented and few people interact with their neighbours.

road and railway building was knocking down the old slums - the criminal 'rookeries' which
were safe hiding places for criminals of all sorts. Today many run down areas and 'sink estates'
are neglected by social serv ices, by employ ers, and by police and criminal justice agencies.

During the 1 930s, ev en with high unemploy ment traditional working class communities, which had
grown during the nineteenth century around particular industries, docks or coal mines, held
together. Unemploy ment was a general ex perience for the working class as a whole and there was
much more solidarity and mutual aid. Where ev ery one is in the 'same boat' the ty pe of personal
frustration and marginalisation which leads to crime was, while not absent, less than in many of

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 today s fragmented communities. That is to say , the sense of relativ e depriv ation was lower.

3. the control of crim e:

Are the police an impartial force dedicated to the serv ice of all sections of society ? Before giv ing a
definitiv e y es or no, it might be useful to look at the origins and dev elopment of the police. Who set
up the 'new police' during the nineteenth century and why ? Why were they resisted for a long time
both by the middle classes and, in particular, in working class areas. What can this tell us about
relations between police and sections of poor communities today .

The dev elopment of the modern Criminal Justice Sy stem has meant that the power to respond to
crime has been gradually taken out of the hands of ordinary people and concentrated in certain
institutions of the state - professional police, lawy ers, judges, courts, prisons. The nineteenth century
saw the spread of police forces and magistrates courts into the working class communities. The idea
of 'taking the law into y our own hands' is now regarded as a recipe for anarchy . But in earlier periods
people might hav e responded: 'where else should the law be but in our hands!' Why did these changes
take place? were all these changes hav e been for the good? Wouldn't it be better if ordinary people
retained the right to respond to v iolence and to deliv er punishment? In recent y ears some of the
failures of the modern criminal justice sy stem hav e led to an increased interest in and dev elopment
of local mediation and 'restorativ e justice' schemes and an increased use of priv ate security . What can
we learn from the past about the conditions in which such institutions might work?

4. changing definitions of crim e:

History teaches us that definitions of crime change. Blasphemy or witchcraft are no longer criminal
offences. This change is a continual feature. Until the 1 960s homosex ual acts between consenting
adults in priv ate were criminalised. These changes are sometimes a matter of changes in cultural
attitudes but they often hav e a political and economic dimension as well. For ex ample, during the

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 eighteenth century many poor people suddenly found that things they hav e done for generations
were now regarded - by the powerful who make the laws - as crime. The common people found their
rights to hunt game or collect dead wood on common land, became criminal offences. This alerts us
to the question of who makes the laws, who defines crime, whose interests are reflected in the
criminal law? How are unpopular laws enforced? This of course has all sorts of comparisons for today .

It is of course not only the poor who commit crime. The emergence of the modern commercial
company during the nineteenth century gav e rise to modern forms of financial fraud and other forms
of 'white collar' and workplace crime. The prosecution and policing of such crime was quite
haphazard and ineffectiv e. Today it is claimed that white collar crime is less tolerated than in the
past. Why ? What's changed? Do the authorities actually take business crime more seriously than they
did during the nineteenth century ? A similar set of questions can be raised concerning what has
changed in the treatment of family v iolence.

Now, all these ex planations can be argued about. I'm not try ing to giv e the definitiv e answers here.
Rather the point is to illustrate that by comparing present and past we are helped to ask the right
questions. Past and present are intertwined. Comparing one with the other helps us understand both
better.

T he social relations of crim e control

There is one final aspect of the study of history which is of crucial importance to criminologists.
When we look at the present sy stem of crime control we are not just looking at the working of
institutions such as the police, prosecution and courts etc. From a legal perspectiv e this might be
sufficient. But the criminologist, especially the sociologically inspired criminologist, understands
that behind the effectiv e working of criminal justice processes -- or the lack of it -- stand important
relations of power and interaction between the state, the public and its v arious communities, the
v ictim and the criminal offender. In my 2002 book, Crime and Modernity I call these relations the

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 'social relations of crime control'.

Before proceeding further, go and read the first chapter of my book which describes these relations.

Now y ou hav e done this, y ou can understand some of the questions we might try and answer when we
study the history of crime and punishment:

How did the state and its criminal justice agencies achiev e sufficient power to enforce its laws and
procedures in all areas of the country : how were the old 'rookeries' of the early cities, or the rural
areas which were largely free from state interv ention, brought under control. These areas, as we shall
study later, were essential hide-outs and sanctuaries for old sty le bandits, smugglers, highway men
and pirates. How, in short, did the state become the most powerful agency in society : more powerful
than most criminal organisations or gangs?

How did communities come to accept the police and the courts as legitimate institutions to
whom conflicts and criminal v ictimisation should be handed ov er. Why did people lose interest in
settling disputes or crimes themselv es. Indeed, hav e they entirely done so? Occaisionally we here of
outbreaks of 'v igilante' action but see such action as a threat to law and order.

As we hav e already mentioned, at certain historical periods activ ities which are defined as offences in
the criminal law are not necessarily regarded so by the communities within which they take place. We
shall look at ex amples of this in some of the lectures which follow. We might ask how, historically ,
these ty pes of ambiguities hav e either been eliminated or effectiv ely relegated to marginal areas of
activ ity which don't undermine the legitimacy of the criminal justice sy stem as a whole. We might
also ask whether this situation is now changing.

Conclusion: why study the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?

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 Y ou might respond: that's all v ery well, but why study the nineteenth century ? It's now 2006 for
heav ens sake! Shouldn't we spend rather our precious time study ing a period nearer to our own: the
1 930s or 1 950s for ex ample? That question deserv es an answer. The first point to be made is that
during the period 1 7 50 - 1 900 we can see the modern sy stem of criminal justice and crime control
being put in place. We can see the social and political conditions that produced it. As Barry Godrey
and Paul Lawrence (2005) put it:

Put simply , during this period the 'modern world' was shaped. The dy namic dev elopment of
new forms of industrial production, the rise of the great urban towns and cities and
unprecedented population growth all changed the appearance of the British Isles. They also
created new social conditions and problems that policy makers attempted to ameliorate,
control or eradicate. The period witnessed the end of capital punishment and the
transportation to conv icts ov erseas, and the rise of a sy stem of mass imprisonment which is
now culminating in the highest number of people ev er imprisoned in this country and the
larges prison population in Europe. It saw the beginning of public uniformed policing, the first
mass-media moral panics about v iolent crime (from the 'garotters' to Jack the Ripper) and
changes to the court sy stem which ensured the rapid processing of offenders. During this
period the sy stematic recording of lev els of crime was begun by the Home Office (an
organisation which itself grew impressiv ely from six clerks in 1 81 7 ) to a v ast bureaucracy in
the twentieth century ). Perhaps, most importantly , this period witnessed the beginnings of the
'science' of criminology , and when 'crime' mov ed from being considered an accepted part of life
-- like the weather -- to a subject which today commands the highest political and press
attention (3)

Study the diagram below. I'v e represented the period since the middle of the eighteenth century as a
sort of cy cle.

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 Looking at the curv e y ou can see that to some ex tent the period 1 7 50-1 900 is the mirror image of the
present period, roughly defined as 1 97 0-now. During the first period the modern criminal justice
sy stem was being put in place, industrial society and the urban env ironment was being consolidated
and ex panded, and crime rates were, after 1 850, falling.

During the present period these processes are to a considerable ex tent in rev erse. The criminal
justice agencies are, many would argue, in crisis, industrial society is facing profound problems of
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 fragmentation, growing inequalities and political disaffection and crime rates hav e, until v ery
recently , been steadily rising.

By comparison the period in between: the first half of the twentieth century , is less interesting in
many way s. The sy stem was working, crime rates were fairly low and there was a relativ e consensus
around criminal justice. Remember howev er that this was the period of two enormous global wars.
The First World War (also known as the Great War) of 1 91 4-1 8 and the Second World War of 1 939-45.
In both these great conflagrations millions of people lost their liv es and v ast areas of Europe were
laid waste by bombing and warfare. So don't think of the first half of the twentieth century as one in
which not much happened! Indeed the period was one of major social and political catastrophe. It is
simply that as far as criminal justice and ordinary criminality were concerned, the period was fairly
stable.

If y ou want to read a general ov erv iew of this great cy cle illustrated in the diagram, I'v e written a
book about it entitled Crime and Modernity. If y ou go to the front page of this website (the one with
my mugshot on it) y ou can read about my book.

So we now embark on our study of the period of formation of the modern sy stem. But let's begin with
a look at what preceded it. The periods known to historians as the Middle Ages and the Early Modern
period. Let's also remind ourself that we are not professional historians and we are going to take a
v ery basic and elementary glimpse at these period from the limited standpoint of how they dealt with
crime and conflict

Refer en ces

Godfrey, Barry and Paul Lawrence (2005) Crime and Justice 1750-1950. Cullompton: Willan
Publishing

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