« Home

Home » Criminology & Criminal Justice » Maguire, Morgan & Reiner: The Oxford Handbook of Criminology 4e » Student resources » Selected further reading » Chapter 05

Maguire, Morgan & Reiner: The Oxford Handbook of Criminology 4e

Chapter 05

The issues raised in this chapter are taken up and explored a greater length in Clive Emsley, Crime, Police and Penal Policy: European Experiences 1750–1940 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). The book is a synthesis of recent work providing a broad sweep of the changing understanding of crime and the criminal, and of the resulting developments in police and penal policy across Europe. For a more theoretical critique of some of the theories deployed in assessing penal policy, however, see David Garland, Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).

Recent developments in the history of crime, violence, policing, and penal policy can be drawn out of the two bibliographical essays: Clive Emsley (2005), 'Filling In, Adding Up, Moving On: Criminal Justice History in Contemporary Britain,' Crime, Histoire et Sociétés/Crime, History and Societies, 9(1): 117–38; and John Carter Wood (2005), 'Criminal Violence in Modern Britain', History Compass, 3 BI 200: 1–14, www.history-compass.com/viewpoint.asp?section_5&ref_176. The latter's Violence and Crime in Nineteenth-Century England: The Shadow of Our Refinement (London: Routledge, 2004) also provides a stimulating introduction to the 'discovery' of violence in England that is usefully informed by theoretical perspectives, and the conclusions of which almost certainly have resonances beyond the English experience. For the patterns of murder, generally perceived as a significant measure of violence within a society, see the analyses of Manuel Eisner, especially 'Long-term Historical Trends in Violent Crime', in M. Tonry (ed.), Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, 30 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003). Debates on the value of the historical statistics of crime are best initially approached through the contrasting arguments of Howard Taylor and Robert Morris: for the former, see 'Rationing Crime: The Political Economy of Criminal Statistics Since the 1850s', Economic History Review (1998), 51(3): 569–90 and 'The Politics of the Rising Crime Statistics of England and Wales, 1914–1960', Crime, Histoire et Sociétés/Crime, History and Societies (1998), 2(1): 5–28; for the latter see ' "Lies, Damned Lies and Criminal Statistics": Reinterpreting the Criminal Statistics in England and Wales', Crime, Histoire et Sociétés/Crime, History and Societies (2001), 5(1): 111–27.

Most criminology journals and most history journals concerned with cultural, legal, and social topics regularly carry articles on crime, policing and punishment, and the theoretical perspectives used in such work. But it is also worth noting the specialist bilingual (English and French) journal Crime, Histoire et Sociétés/Crime, History and Societies which is essential for keeping abreast of the subject.