NCJ Number
161550
Date Published
1996
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This review of the social history of crime in Britain focuses on the role of the state and the police as an arm of the state in controlling crime.
Abstract
The discussion suggests that the modern understanding of the concept "crime" is different from that of the 18th century and that the extensive measures of state intervention now accepted in the name of crime control would at that time have been regarded as repressive and intolerable. Informal community-based social control dealt with deviant behaviors. Insisting that the history of crime is not so much about crime as about power, the author traces the evolution of the concept of "crime" in response to changing power relations over the past two centuries. The discussion also focuses on the emergence of "crime" as a symbol of "moral deterioration" in the early 19th century, a time of hectic social changes associated with industrialization and the emergence of the working class. The concept of crime developed further in response to growing anxieties about the threat to the established order that resulted from the weakening of respect for hierarchy. Once the law-breaker was identified as a threat to society as well as to the victim of his offense, the way was clear for the state to assume its current role as "policeman." 13 references