ABSTRACT
The historical development of a state’s criminal justice system can be viewed simply as a series of rational responses to ‘criminality’, as variously defined by successive governments through time. Alternatively, the criminal justice system can be described as the policies of a political executive (be it monarch, chief minister, council or parliament) which happened to hold power during the period under review. It is sometimes assumed that the historian relies on the collection and description of factual information to depict policy and its often lurid impact on those unfortunate enough to be ensnared by it. Tales of execution and blood on the axe and block vie with Dickensian stories of incarceration in Newgate, the Fleet prison or ‘Bedlam’ for the attention of the reader seeking fascinating tales of crime and punishment. Yet this is an inadequate means of understanding the meaning of criminal justice and punishment through the ages, and it disguises rather than examines the underlying structural issues. It is particularly weak as an explanation of policy. It fails to indicate the central importance of the range of interpretations and theoretical models that historians and sociologists of state punishment have established in their attempt to understand the development of a criminal justice system, its administration, and the impact on governors and governed alike. This chapter will select a variety of examples of state initiatives in penal policy from the medieval to the modern period and show how social theory can be effective in their examination.
