Counting and Accounting for the Decline in Non‐Lethal Violence in England, Australia, and New Zealand, 1880–1920

This article contends that researchers have made two false assumptions about the history of violence and violent crime in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. First, that judicial statistics appearing to show an accelerating decline in violent crime towards the fin de siècle actually mirro...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:British journal of criminology 2003-04, Vol.43 (2), p.340-353
Main Author: Godfrey, Barry
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Assault
Assumptions
Australia
Crime
Crime Rates
CRIMINOLOGY
Domestic violence
England
Fear of crime
HISTORY
Life History
Magistrates
Masculinity
New Zealand
Oral history
Police
Public Opinion
Researchers
Sexual violence
Social history
Social problems
Society
Theoretical Problems
United Kingdom
VIOLENCE
Violent crime
Violent crimes
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This article contends that researchers have made two false assumptions about the history of violence and violent crime in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. First, that judicial statistics appearing to show an accelerating decline in violent crime towards the fin de siècle actually mirror a real fall, and that violence was becoming less prevalent in society. Second, that the prosecution figures evidence a changing public attitudes towards violence in the 1880–1920 period. These assumptions have helped to shape rather inadequate and schematic theoretical paradigms which link changing public sensibilities towards violence with the reformation of aggressive masculinity, and the ‘civilization’ of society. This article suggests that transcribed life histories can offer the researcher a greater understanding of public attitudes towards violence; and it therefore presents archival evidence from England, Australia and New Zealand to illustrate collective attitudes toward non‐lethal violence/violent crime at the turn of the twentieth century.
ISSN:0007-0955
1464-3529
DOI:10.1093/bjc/43.2.340