The Oxford Handbook of the History of Crime and Criminal Justicebrings together researchers who work on crime and criminal justice in the past with an emphasis on the interaction between history and social sciences. Although working on similar subject matters historians and social scientists are often motivated by different intellectual concerns. Historians seek knowledge about crime and criminal justice to better understand the past. In contrast, social scientists draw on past experiences to build sociological, criminological, or socio-legal knowledge. Nevertheless, researchers from both fields have a shared interest in social theory, in the use of social science techniques for analysis, and in a critical outlook in examining perceptions of the past that shape popular myths and justify criminal justice policies in the present. TheHandbookis intended as a guide for both current researchers and newcomers to orient themselves on key aspects of current research from both fields. TheHandbookincludes thirty-four essays covering theory and methods; forms of crime; crime, gender, and ethnicities; cultural representations of crime; the rise of criminology; law enforcement and policing; law, courts, and criminal justice; and punishment and prisons. The essays concentrate on the Atlantic world, particularly Europe and the United States, during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. All of the authors situate their topic within the wider historiography.
