Bloomsbury Academic Combating Londons Criminal Class: A State Divided, 1869-95 (History of Crime, Deviance and Punishment)

About the Author Matthew Bach is an Australian historian, teacher and parliamentarian, who completed his PhD at the University of Melbourne. Heis currently a member of parliament in the state of Victoria, representing Melbourne's east Product Description The criminal class were seen as a violent, immoral and dissolute sub-section of Victorian Londons population. Making their living through crime and openly hostile to society, their lives were characterised by drunkenness, theft and brutality. This book explores whether this criminal class did indeed truly exist, and how effective were the measures brought against them? Tracing the notion of the criminal class from as early as the 16th century, this book questions whether this sub-section of society did indeed exist. Bach discusses how unease of Londons notorious rookeries, the frenzy of media attention and a general panic among the general public enforced and encouraged the fear of the criminal class and perpetuated state efforts of social control. Using the Habitual Criminal Bills, this book explores how and why this legislation was introduced to deal with repeat offenders, and assesses how successful its repressive measures were. Demonstrating how Metropolitan Police and London's Magistrates were not always willing tools of the British state, this book uses court records and private correspondence to reveal how inconsistent and unsuccessful many of these measures and punishments were, and calls into question the notion that the state gained control over recidivists in this period. Review "'This is an interesting case study of how one part of the legal system (that focused on the repression of habitual offenders) operated in the Victorian era. The theme of repeat offenders can speak to larger questions related to Victorian understandings of crime and criminality, the nature of the state, and the limits of governmentality. It will provide an in-depth look at how the system of policing and surveillance functioned in the Victorian era, and will be able to point out its inherent contradictions and failings.'" --Ellen Boucher, Associate Professor of History and Chair of European Studies, Amherst College, USA"'A really interesting, new take on nineteenth-century crime. It made me think differently about how I'd been studying the history of crime and policing. A key strength is the proposal's account of the need we have for a project of this kind. Even in the busy field of crime studies, the area of 'organised' crime is something we do not hear a lot about.'" --Andrew Mangham, University of Reading, UK"'I'm very taken by it. It's main virtue, as I see it, is the way it delves beneath the theories and legislation of the period with regard to recidivism, to the actual practice of the magistrates and police who were responsible for implementing them, to show how different they were; with both law enforcement agencies avoiding or tempering the more 'repressive' effects of the 1869 and 1871 Acts. So what Parliament enacted was not necessarily a guide to what happened on the ground; a lesson that historians in other areas of British social history might profitably take on board.'" --Bernard Porter, Emeritus Prof, Newcastle University, UK