Crime

As preparations are made for Saddam Hussein’s trial in Iraq, Clive Foss examines the precedents for bringing tyrants to justice and finds the process fraught with political complexity.

The last woman hanged in Britain was executed on 13 July 1955.

Angela Brabin uncovers the gruesome tale of serial murder committed by a group of women in the poorest districts of 19th-century Liverpool.

How far, asks R.D. Storch, did the reforms in the system of law enforcement, and the detection, trial and punishment of criminals introduced in the nineteenth century make for better order and a real reduction in crime?

Jan Bonderson describes a bizarre series of assaults on London ladies in 1790, and explores the effects of this and other heinous crime epidemics on the capital.

William D. Rubinstein reviews the achievements of the Ripperologists and considers the arguments surrounding the so-called Ripper Diaries.

Robert D. Storch argues that the state of policing before Peel was not always as bad as the reformers liked to claim.

Richard O. Collin tells the story of Italy’s parallel police forces, and how they have contended with Mussolini, the Red Brigades – and the Mafia.

Beginning our new series on the history and development of policing, Clive Emsley sets the scene with a broad discussion of the origins and issues of early policing in Continental Europe.

Women as perpetrators of crime, rather than its victims, were figures of especial fascination and loathing in the Victorian popular press. Judith Knelman delves deeper.