Historical context and the criminological imagination: Towards a three-dimensional criminology
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895818812995 |
| Author | Henry Yeomans |
| Subject Matter | Thematic Section: The Uses of Historical Criminology: Explanation, Characterisation and ContextThematic Issue |
812995CRJ0010.1177/1748895818812995Criminology & Criminal JusticeYeomans
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Thematic Issue
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2019, Vol. 19(4) 456 –474
Historical context and the
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895818812995
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Towards a three-dimensional
criminology
Henry Yeomans
University of Leeds, UK
Abstract
It is widely claimed that criminologists should exercise a ‘criminological imagination’ by connecting
individual experiences of crime to social structures and historical context. Despite such claims,
criminology is often guilty of a ‘presentism’ that sees the past neglected, ignored or misunderstood.
So why and how should criminological research be contextualized historically? This article
identifies and examines the functions and forms of historical research within criminology. The
article’s significance rests partly in the formulation of an original matrix of forms and functions
and its practical utility as a framework for supporting historical contextualization. Additionally,
it is ultimately intended that this framework will help construct a more historically sensitive
criminology, as attuned to historical context as it is to individual lives and social structures. The
creation of this three-dimensional criminology would entail a fuller realization of the criminological
imagination, thus significantly enhancing the analytical and socially transformative properties of
criminological research broadly.
Keywords
Context, criminological imagination, historical criminology, history
Introduction
Criminology is often characterized by preoccupation with the present and limited consid-
eration of the past (Churchill et al., 2018; Lawrence, 2012). Much criminological enquiry
seems to proceed on the basis that the sort of harms, injustices and wrongs that are taken
as problematic in contemporary society are new, worsening or somehow different to the
Corresponding author:
Henry Yeomans, School of Law, University of Leeds, Liberty Building, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
Email: h.p.yeomans@leeds.ac.uk
Yeomans
457
social problems that have existed in the past (Rock, 2005). The causes of these contem-
porary problems are frequently located within recent historical developments such as the
apparent hegemony of neo-liberalism, the arrival of post-political society or the seem-
ingly unprecedented social conditions taken as symptomatic of late modernity or post-
modernity (see Churchill, 2018; Savage, 2009). Furthermore, social responses to these
problems are often said to embody fundamentally new strategies that mark out the pre-
sent governance of crime as either more controlling, more punitive or more de-regulated
than in the past. In some instances, criminologists go so far as to demand new theories,
concepts and methods as existing ones are no longer believed to be capable of making
sense of a social reality that is radically different from the one in which they were created
(e.g. Garland and Sparks, 2000; Hall and Winlow, 2012). This tendency to position the
present as both unique and uniquely problematic is termed ‘presentism’ (Farrall et al.,
2009: 80; Inglis, 2014: 100). It elevates contemporary phenomena above any historical
antecedent and thus negates consideration of a longer-term perspective. The result of this
presentism is that, as Frank Williams (2015: 70) puts it, many criminologists are ‘likely
to see historical context as perhaps mildly interesting, but not relevant to modern
society’.
The sentiment that ‘we live in new and peculiar times’ is not confined to criminology.
Wider public and political debates about crime frequently identify novel or worsening
problems, indicative of a wider crisis or moral decay, that are divorcing society from an
age of order and stability that is presumed to have existed at some point in the past
(Pearson, 1983, 2002; Yeomans, 2014a). An assertion of the uniqueness of the present
has, furthermore, been identified as characteristic of much classical (Davis, 1986) and
recent sociology (Inglis, 2014; Savage, 2009). Wherever it is found, presentism is prob-
lematic. First, the emphasis on the novelty of the present may be inconsistent with the
actualities of the past (Braithwaite, 2003). Second, there may be instances in which the
object of study is indeed peculiar to the present but this characterization can only be held
valid once it has been demonstrated with reference to the past (e.g. Yar, 2005). Third,
whatever the extent of similarity and difference that exists between present and past, the
use of the past serves a range of useful analytical and critical functions which enhance
social scientific understandings of the present (Lawrence, this issue). Failure to ade-
quately consider the past thus has a detrimental, limiting effect on criminology.
So how should criminologists engage with the past? Historical research can add vari-
ous things to understandings of the present; for example, it can contribute to explanations
of some contemporary conditions or support cultural memory of historical experiences
that continue to hold relevance today. Pursuing such ends through empirical research
requires a detailed knowledge of the content, approaches and methods that constitute
historical studies. But, of course, criminology takes crime and social responses to crime
in contemporary society as its principal subject matter and largely involves social sci-
ence research methods. It follows that, while some engagement with the past is neces-
sary, criminologists cannot all be expected to empirically pursue historical explanation
or memorializing, undertake primary historical research or show an expert grasp of exist-
ing historical research. A potential solution to this quandary is provided within a burst of
recent scholarship on the ‘criminological imagination’ (e.g. Barton et al., 2007; Frauley,
2015b; Young, 2011). Borrowing from C Wright Mills (1959), the criminological
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Criminology & Criminal Justice 19(4)
imagination affords a crucial position to historical context as part of a trinity of factors,
alongside personal biography and social structures, that provide the foundations upon
which meaningful and socially beneficial research is based. Although historical context
is routinely included as one of the three components of the criminological imagination,
the means through which criminologists can and should engage with the past are not well
explained in this literature. More widely, working with history is not necessarily straight-
forward for criminologists. Social sciences have shared a fraught relationship with the
discipline of history (Burke, 1992; King, 1999; Lawrence, 2012) and historians have
often criticized social scientists’ treatment of history for being brief in scope, selective in
coverage or for failing to recognize the nuance and complexity of the past (e.g. Berridge,
2016; King, 1999). So, despite general consensus on its importance, it is not clear how
historical contextualization might be achieved in practice.
This article seeks to counter the shortcomings of presentism by advancing under-
standings of how the neglected third dimension of the criminological imagination, his-
torical context, can be attended to. The word ‘context’ derives from the Latin contextus
which means joining together (Goodwin and Duranti, 1992). It refers to the circum-
stances or situation in which something happens, the social conditions that frame an
event or object and offer a resource for the interpretation of its meaning (Goodwin and
Duranti, 1992; Scheff, 2005). This article explores historical contextualization by identi-
fying the analytical functions through which historical research can link together past
and present and thus add meaning to criminological assessments of the present.
Additionally, it links these functions to forms of historical research that are differentiated
according to how each situates the present in time. In doing this, the article lays out a
practical approach for historically contextualizing criminological research. Ultimately,
by fostering further engagement with the past, the article aims to advance the crimino-
logical imagination and thus enhance the analytical and socially transformative proper-
ties of criminological research.
The Criminological Imagination
In The Sociological Imagination (1959), Mills famously argued that society should be
viewed through a triangular prism of personal biography, social structure and historical
context. If individual lives can be structurally and historically situated, then the socio-
logical imagination can help people see ‘what is going on in the world, and to understand
what is happening in themselves as minute points of the intersections of biography and
history within society’ (Mills, 1959: 7). Mills contends that ‘private troubles’ will thus be
re-interpreted as ‘public issues’ in a manner that produces both more meaningful analysis
as well as the potential for tangible and positive social change. He further emphasizes the
specific necessity of a historical perspective in producing such outcomes, insisting that
‘every social science – or better, every well-considered social study – requires an histori-
cal scope of conception and a full use of historical materials’ (Mills, 1959: 145).1
Engagement with history is therefore an integral...
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