In discussing issues such as critical race theory, intersectionality, social deviance, and ethnocentrism, each of the papers in this panel look at ways in which criminologists might better use historicization and critical theories of temporality as means of more comprehensively addressing social problems. Drs. Miller and Seal will discuss the nature of, and moral panic surrounding, Critical Race Theory (CRT) in both the United States and the United Kingdom before explaining how scholars in the United Kingdom in particular might find the notion especially valuable in framing historical criminology studies. Dr. Yeomans will draw on the recent history of alcohol regulation in England and Wales to discuss the ways in which criminologists might transcend linear definitions of change by considering how time works along discrete lineages and co-existing temporalities. Dr. Tepperman will look at the way both English-speaking criminologists and historians have discussed the Jewish relationship to crime throughout the world since 1945, contending that the paucity of criminological research into Jewish crime today stems from global failures of sociological imagination. All of the papers for this panel draw on place-specific case studies – one in the United States and the United Kingdom, one in the United Kingdom alone, and one in the English-speaking Global North – while putting forth generalizable theoretical takeaways that are not tied to a specific time or place.

This presentation uses the example of alcohol regulation in England and Wales to explore how historical change can be understood within criminology. Pivoting away from criminology’s well-documented tendency to understand historical change as occurring in rapid, radical bursts followed by periods of stability (see Hutchinson, 2006; Goodman et al., 2015; Rubin, 2016; Churchill, 2017), it takes inspiration from the emerging use of historical institutionalist and Koselleckian approaches within historical criminology. Alcohol regulation in England and Wales is complex, overlapping and sometimes even contradictory. It is shown here that this regulatory messiness reflects the plurality of temporalities which, following Koselleck (2018), animate alcohol regulation in the contemporary historical moment. It is further demonstrated that historical institutionalist concepts – specifically, ‘transformation by accumulation’ and ‘layering’ (Thelen, 2003; Mahoney and Thelen, 2010) - can be used to help identify and analyse the non-contemporaneous origins and discrete lineages of these currently co-existing temporalities. The presentation thus provides a fresh account of the historical development and contemporary character of alcohol regulation in England and Wales. Moreover, its theoretical synthesis of Koselleckian and historical institutionalist ideas offers a theoretical framework which could be used more widely when examining the connections between historical change and crime or its control in contemporary societies.

This paper examines the case of Doret Legore, a Black woman tried for and acquitted of the murder of Cecil Taylor, the man with whom she lived, in 1962. It draws on documents from Doret's Central Criminal Court case file to discuss the racialised and gendered discourses at play in medical experts' reports, especially in terms of paternalism. It then reconstructs Doret's story by re-telling it in relation to the historical experiences of Black migrant women of the era, with attention to issues of housing, employment and welfare.

Recent moral panics about the role of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools have filtered beyond the American political scene to the British context. Indeed, British member of parliament Kemi Badenoch’s recent declaration that CRT is political and should be treated as such is one way to understand, (a), CRT’s relevance to the British context, and (b), how this relevance can be adduced in terms of the intersections with historical criminology. This chapter explains the importance and utility of critical race theory as a framework for doing historical criminology. We outline what critical race theory is, criminological examples of applying critical race theory, and its relationship with intersectionality. Critical race theory was developed by American legal scholars, including Derrick Bell and Kimberle Crenshaw. From this American criminologists have originated Intersectional and Black Criminologies to incorporate the analysis of race and racism. However, race is not only an American phenomenon and racism is not only an American problem. Focusing on the UK, the chapter argues that critical race theory has application for historical criminology beyond the United States and presents illustrative examples from the authors’ historical criminological research. It examines the significance of gender and the need for intersectionality in historical criminological research about (and with?) racialised women in the UK.

This presentation discusses the most common approaches that historical criminologists have taken in discussing Jewish populations in North America, Europe, and Oceania. While the scholarship varies in both focus and tone across place and time, research overwhelmingly hews toward covering the European medieval era and the Global North throughout the nineteenth-century, with a particularly strong focus on issues relating to fin de sciècle political and economic tensions. This presentation considers what assumptions and preoccupations scholars in the field bring to the subject of Jewish criminality, looking at the overlapping themes and concepts that make up the metanarrative of this literature. In noting the predominance of studies framing Jewish criminals either as unjust targets within hostile political environments, uniquely successful organized criminals, or as abstract subjects of debate within law and criminology, historical criminologists have mostly elided the existence of Jewish amkho (rabble/hoi polloi) from the overarching story of Jewish criminality. Given that petty criminals are a much more sizable group than serious offenders, however, this presents a significant weakness within the field, as it misrepresents the general nature of Jewish criminality. This presentation concludes that the study of amkho offers a significant growth opportunity for historical criminologists moving forward.