Crime

Early modern methods of execution were carefully calculated to inflict shame upon the condemned. 

Managing political enemies through forced exile and penal colonisation.

At its founding, Pennsylvania had one of the most tolerant criminal law systems in the world, but by the middle of the 18th century its capital Philadelphia was a ‘hell of the officials and preachers’.

The actions of lynch mobs during the late 19th century damaged the United States’ relationship with Britain and threatened its self-appointed role as the world’s moral guardian.

The resort to law was an integral and regular part of everyday life in medieval Britain – and not just for men. Town court records offer glimpses into the lives of hundreds of ordinary women, through the lawsuits they were involved in. 

Contradictions in Roman law left incurable headaches for its judges.

Rudy Giuliani’s ‘zero tolerance’ attitude to community policing was rooted not in right-wing talking points, but in the liberal politics of the Civil Rights era.

Brutality, corruption and abuses of power in the Metropolitan Police at the turn of the 20th century led to an inquiry – but no reform.

Turning chaotic havens of sloth and debauchery into systemised institutions of pain and terror, Victorian Britain’s ‘model’ prisons were anything but.