ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that there is a far longer and livelier engagement with technology by lawbreakers and lawmakers than thinking might suggest. Associations between the use of technology and criminality are arguably as intuitive as they are ancient. More concentrated or higher volume forms of violence have often been associated with a greater dependence upon technological means and the historical record appears to bear this out. The prototypical industrial technologies of the medieval world generated similar complaints about public nuisance and threats to health. Evidence within the pre-modern era that technology was not only a criminal tool but one integral to control is most obviously seen in its use as an enhancer of power. The rapid exploitation of communications technology for control purposes has stronger resonances with contemporary experience. The chapter offers the most limited introduction to the associations between technology, crime and control in the pre-modern and early industrial periods.
