NCJ Number
146421
Date Published
1992
Length
265 pages
Annotation
This book traces the production and circulation of knowledge about the criminal in 19th Century discourse and shows how the delineation of deviance constructed cultural norms.
Abstract
The author shows how the understanding of crime and criminals was an important factor in the establishment of such key institutions as national systems of education, a cheap daily press, and various welfare measures designed to fight the spread of criminality. She focuses on three discursive practices: the emergence of criminology, the development of a mass-produced press, and the proliferation of crime fiction in England and France. Beginning where Foucault's work "Discipline and Punish" ends, the book analyzes intertextual modes of knowledge production and shows how the elaboration of hegemonic truths about the criminal is related to the exercise of power. The scope of the investigation includes scientific treatises such as "Criminal Man" by Cesare Lombroso and "The English Convict" by Charles Goring, reports on the Jack the ripper murders in "The Times" and "Le Petit Parisien," the Sherlock Holmes stories, Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and novels by Zola and Bourget. Chapter notes and a subject index