Historical criminology and the explanatory power of the past
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895818794237 |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Thematic Section: The Uses of Historical Criminology: Explanation, Characterisation and ContextThematic Issue |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895818794237
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2019, Vol. 19(4) 493 –511
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895818794237
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Historical criminology
and the explanatory power
of the past
Paul Lawrence
The Open University, UK
Abstract
To what extent can the past ‘explain’ the present? This deceptively simple question lies at the
heart of historical criminology (research which incorporates historical primary sources while
addressing present-day debates and practices in the criminal justice field). This article seeks first
to categorize the ways in which criminologists have used historical data thus far, arguing that they
are most commonly deployed to ‘problematize’ the contemporary rather than to ‘explain’ it. The
article then interrogates the reticence of criminologists to attribute explicative power in relation
to the present to historical data. Finally, it proposes the adoption of long time-frame historical
research methods, outlining three advantages which would accrue from this: the identification and
analysis of historical continuities; a more nuanced, shared understanding of micro/macro change
over time in relation to criminal justice; and a method for identifying and analysing instances of
historical recurrence, particularly in perceptions and discourses around crime and justice.
Keywords
Historical criminology, historiography, history, policing, the past
It does not seem to me that we understand the laws governing the return of the past. I feel
more and more as if time did not exist at all, only various spaces between which the living
can move back and forth as they like. (Sebald, 2001: 261)
Introduction
Building on prior investigations into the ‘utility’ of historical data within criminological
studies (Bosworth, 2001; Garland, 2014; Lawrence, 2012) this article seeks further to
Corresponding author:
Paul Lawrence, History Department, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK.
Email: p.m.lawrence@open.ac.uk
794237CRJ0010.1177/1748895818794237Criminology & Criminal JusticeLawrence
research-article2018
Thematic Issue
494 Criminology & Criminal Justice 19(4)
consider a deceptively simple question: to what extent can data from and about the past
– ‘history’ – explain and serve as a guide to action in the present? In doing so it draws on
Corfield’s (2007) representation of linear historical time as a trialectical ‘braid’ (com-
posed of continuity, gradual and radical change), on Koselleck’s (2004: 90) notion of the
‘contemporaneity of the non-contemporaneous’ and on much older assertions of the logi-
cal comprehensibility of the past from the standpoint of the present (Ayer, 1951–1952;
Buckle, 2011 [1857]). It argues throughout that long time-frame historical criminology
(the analysis of historical evidence over periods of at least several centuries) is the only
methodologically robust means by which to evaluate the potential for the past to help
explain the present.
Section I analyses some current uses of the past within historical criminology (and, to
a lesser extent, criminology more broadly), seeking primarily to identify and interrogate
the underpinning assumptions of the utility of historical data revealed therein. Then,
building on this and taking the policing of London from c.1750 as an exemplar case
study, section II considers three ways in which long time-frame historical criminology
can help to bolster confidence among criminologists to deploy historical data to explain
the present: by identifying continuities or historical persistence; by allowing periods of
both gradual and more radical change to be delineated (without falling into the methodo-
logical trap of periodization or stadial models of historical change);1 and by facilitating
the analysis of recurrent historical motifs or memes (locating periods of resurgence dur-
ing which specific historical social, economic and cultural conditions display a high
degree of congruence with those of a later era or of the present).
Overall, the article seeks to promote a new assertiveness concerning the role of his-
tory as a valid and valuable part of any criminological explanation of the present, see-
ing it not as ‘an esoteric luxury’ (Pratt, 1997: 62) but rather as ‘a vast reservoir of
experience and information’ (Corfield, 2010: 2). As such, the article may be seen as
contributing to recent efforts to counter ‘the spectre of the short term’ (Guldi and
Armitage, 2014: 1).
I
Towards the end of the 20th century, with certain notable exceptions (e.g. Garland,
1985), it was rare for sociologically trained criminologists to reference or incorporate
historical data in their research to any significant degree. To paraphrase Lawrence (2012:
314) the past was ‘not something most criminologists thought about very often’. This
aversion was highlighted by a number of authors at the time, who called for a greater
dialogue between the disciplines of history and criminology. Pratt (1997: 60), for exam-
ple, called criminology ‘a subject without a past’ and Davies and Pearson (1999: 6)
argued for greater ‘dialogue and interchange between criminologists and historians’.
Such calls have been answered since the turn of the century both by criminological
research seeking to incorporate historical methods and approaches (see, for example,
Godfrey et al., 2010; Knepper and Scicluna, 2010; Lawrence, 2017; Loader, 2006;
Neocleous, 2000; Rigakos and Hadden, 2001; Zedner, 2006) and by works reflecting at
a methodological or conceptual level on the challenges involved in this (Rock, 2005; see
Churchill et al., 2018 and Lawrence, 2012 for surveys). However, such ‘progress’ has
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