Crime, history and societies 

About: Crime, history and societies is an academic journal published by Librairie Droz. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Criminal justice & Politics. It has an ISSN identifier of 1422-0857. Over the lifetime, 348 publications have been published receiving 2264 citations. The journal is also known as: Crime, history and societies & Crime, histoire et sociétés.

Violence and the civilizing process : does it work ?

Abstract: Among historians, especially those investigating violence, Norbert Elias ' theory of civilization has received divergent appreciations recently. In the Anglo-Saxon world, notably in North America, it has obtained increasing recognition over the last ten years or so. In particular, many authors agree that he offers the only theoretical framework which easily accomodates the empirical evidence on the long-term decline of homicide. Conversely, in Continental Europe during the 1990s, a number of historians, notably German historians of crime, have criticized Elias' work. In this discussion, too, the subject of violence looms large.This discussion article confronts the criticism levelled at the theory of civilization, in so far as it pertains to violence. It deals with four broad clusters of problems : (1) the reliability and validity of the evidence for the long-term trend of declining violence ; (2) the character of violence, in particular its function as an indicator for the level of behavioral control ; (3) the interdependence of long-term change in the field of aggression and human emotions on the one hand and the overall development of society on the other ; (4) the new wave of interpersonal violence in the Western world in the late twentieth century.It will be concluded that research on the long-term development of homicide over the last twenty years has yielded impressive new evidence for the theory of civilization, which some historians nevertheless tend to ignore or attempt to explain away. The only objection to the theory not based on a misinterpretation refers to the historical study of honor and ritual. None of the data generated by this research, however, are incompatible with the processes first observed by Elias. Contrary to what his critics assume, the theory of civilization invites creative elaboration, which should be the aim of future research.

Justice, infrajustice, parajustice et extra justice dans la France d'Ancien Régime

Abstract: Dans la France d'Ancien Regime, une proportion importante du traitement de la criminalite n'est pas assuree par la justice, mais par l'infrajustice. Mais si l'attention portee a l'infrajustice constitue un progres essentiel de la recherche, on peut craindre qu'elle ne debouche sur une nouvelle « illusion historio graphique » : on a trop tendance a exagerer sa frequence et a en faire une sorte de panacee, oubliant ainsi qu'une part importante de la criminalite echappe au traitement non seulement judiciaire, mais aussi infrajudiciaire. Cette erreur decoule d'une definition a la fois imprecise et excessive de l'infrajustice, trop souvent confondue avec le traitement social de tous les ecarts aux normes. Cet article cherche donc a preciser les limites de l'influence de la justice dans le traitement des conflits, a definir precisement l'infrajustice et ses modalites, et a insister sur les comportements qui n'appartiennent ni a la justice ni a l'infrajustice, que je propose de regrouper pour les uns sous le terme de « parajustice », pour les autres sous celui d'« extrajustice ».

How violent were women ? Court cases in Amsterdam, 1650-1810

Abstract: Historians have found female violence, especially serious violence, to be uncommon. However, the uncommon is worth studying in its own right. The article first defines violence and then discusses women's share in total crime. While the proportion of women committing property offenses has been considerable in the past, women's involvement in violence has always been rather low. It may be hypothesised that the level of female violence is a function of the power balance between men and women. Unlike women's public manifestation, this balance has consistently been uneven throughout the centuries.The article then discusses the data on female violence in 17th and 18th-century Amsterdam, based on a sample of 25 assault cases and 12 homicide cases. Two exemplary incidents are presented first. From them it is concluded that the court had no tradition of dealing with serious female aggressiveness ; faced with the unfamiliar, the judges wavered from one extreme to the other. Next, the court cases are discussed thematically ; the principal findings are : (1) A sizeable minority of women made use of a knife ; in some respects they imitated male violence. (2) A few other women were tried for complicity in violence ; they were charged with encouraging the men they accompanied. (3) The ratio of female to male victims was 8 :1 ; women tended to attack other women, rather than men. (4) Female homicide differed in one respect from female assault : all but one of the homicidal incidents took place in a home, whereas in the assault file public places came to 50 %. (5) Women often sought male protection, which indicates that they did not disapprove of violence per se. It is concluded that women's violence, no less than women's abstention from violence, depended on a learning process. This is consistent with Elias' notion that in human emotions, learned ways have become dominant over unlearned ways. The women in question learned about the culture of violence through close contact with men participating in it. Yet, women did not step into the male world. Female violence was same-sex violence.

Counting crimes or counting people : some implications of mid-nineteenth century British police returns

Abstract: Police returns for the city of Sheffield, 1844-1862, underpin the case that the arrest is a better base for analysis than the ’crime’. The number of convictions for indictable offences is less than 5 % of the total of arrests, which are dominated by offences related to disorder rather than to property, violence, or regulation. Age profiles of those convicted on indictment are different from those arrested. Treatment through the criminal justice process - itself capable of constructing some measurements by retrospective labelling - differed markedly by gender, which was also differentially affected by the extension of summary jurisdiction in the 1840s and 1850s. Modelling the cumulative impact of arrests leads to the conclusion that by the 1860s, a surprisingly large number of men would have had experience of arrest.

A typology of nineteenth-century police

Abstract: Taking as its starting points the Bobby in Victorian England and some of the general conclusions of David H. Bayley's comparative work, this essay suggests that three basic types of police developed in nineteenth-century Europe. Focussing primarily on England, France, Italy and Prussia it argues that, in terms of accountability, control and form, state civilian, state military, and civilian municipal police can be delineated as Weberian ideal types. Individual states did not necessarily develop all three types ; but everywhere governments sought to learn and/or borrow from the police system and pratice of their neighbours, central governments were generality in negotiation with local government over policing matters, and were otherwise constrained by traditions and finance. The essay concludes by posing some very general questions for future work regarding police autonomy and police violence.