ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 considers both criminal law and criminal justice from a historical perspective. It begins by considering the advantages of using such a historical perspective to understand both criminal law and criminal justice. The chapter then considers the history of criminal law in England in more depth, noting key trends in criminal law’s development through history. These trends include an increase in social control of people’s behaviour through criminal law, a gradual move towards centralised State control over the shape and extent of criminal law, and the emergence of what are now key criminal law principles, such as mens rea. The chapter then considers the historical development of criminal justice in England. As well as trends in centralisation of control over criminal justice, the discussion points to the academic debates between writers who believe that the powerful in society were dominant over criminal justice (Douglas Hay, for example) and writers who believe that other social groups also had some influence over how criminal justice operated (John Langbein, for example). The chapter concludes by linking the evidence in this chapter back to the theoretical roadmaps that were introduced in Chapter 1.
