Teaching Responsibility

LJMU Schools involved in Delivery:

Justice Studies

Learning Methods

Lecture
Seminar

Module Offerings

4016LAWCJ-SEP-MTP

Aims

This module provides an introduction to the history of crime and crime control. It aims to provide the historical background that is essential for an understanding of contemporary criminal justice, and examines the historical context for current criminological debates. The module encourages students to begin to think critically about the history of crime and criminal justice and provides an introduction to historical sources and methodology, as well as an analysis of the background to contemporary debates. It aims to investigate the social and historical contexts of crime and criminal justice and explain how changes in society, over various historical periods, have moulded the criminal justice system of the time. More specifically, it will relate the changes in crime, criminality and criminal justice to the larger social, legal, economic and cultural changes which resulted from industrialisation, capitalisation and urbanisation in the 18th and 19th centuries. In addition, it aims to demonstrate the transformation and convergence of criminal justice systems during these two crucial centuries. As well as charting the changing definitions of crime, order and justice, this module aims to demonstrate how changes in criminal law and penal practice were related to the changing values of society and to illuminate society's wider attitudes and fears about criminal behaviour and the way in which these influenced the law and legal system over time. It will trace the development of the western system of prisons, police organisations, administrative and legal hierarchies of social control and chart the changing practice of punishment in Western society and the origins and development of policing. Finally, this module aims to explore a number of historiographical debates which have arisen in the interpretation of criminal justice history and to distil the current state of historical scholarship regarding crime and its social control.

Learning Outcomes

1.
Evidence an awareness of the changing nature and extent of crime and criminality.
2.
Demonstrate a clear understanding of the social, legal and economic factors that have affected crime and criminal justice in historical society
3.
Identify the main historical changes with regards to the purposes and practices of punishment.
4.
Explain the historical development of the police and policing.

Module Content

Outline Syllabus:Crime, Law and the Courts Crime and the Industrial Revolution The Criminal Underworld: Beggars, Thieves and Prostitutes The History of Punishment The History of the Prison and Penal Policy The History of Detection and Policing
Module Overview:
This module introduces you to the history of crime and crime control. It aims to provide you with the historical background essential for an understanding of contemporary criminal justice, and examines the historical context for current criminological debates. The module encourages you to begin to think critically about the history of crime and criminal justice and provides an introduction to historical sources and methodology, as well as an analysis of the background to contemporary debates.
Additional Information:This module reflects the growing interest in the history of crime and criminal justice on the part of both historians and criminologists. The social history of criminal justice is no exception to the massive expansion in historical scholarship that has occurred in the last 40 years. Crime in the UK and the institutions for its control are deeply embedded in, and shaped by, history. This means that any understanding of the contemporary situation requires historical context. All too often, current policy debates occur without proper historical background. As a result, old ideas that have been tried and rejected are reintroduced, or new and sometimes simple ideas and innovations are ignored. The years between 1750 and 1870 were an especially crucial period in the shaping of modern criminal justice. Urbanization and industrialization gave rise to a host of new social conditions and problems, engendering massive changes in the nature of both crime and its control. Key developments included: the end of capital punishment and the transportation of convicts overseas; the rise of a system of mass incarceration; the beginning of public, uniformed policing; the first mass-media moral panics about violent crime; and the introduction of the adversarial trial process we know today. Although there are as many interpretations of crime history as there are researchers, several areas of study have dominated, namely: the changing nature and perceptions of crime and criminality and how class, gender, religion and economy have all influenced this; the role of law as both ideology and power and the resultant changes to our court systems; the main historical changes with regards to the purposes and practices of punishment, from capital to corporal then carceral; and, finally, the historical development and reform of the police and policing and its varying role in society. In a nutshell, crime history therefore traces the dynamic interplay of politics and law, religion and morality, class and economy, culture and ideas that have all defined crime and criminal justice in our society.

Assessments

Centralised Exam