Crime In Scotland 1660 1960

Scotland has often been regarded throughout history as "the violent north", but how true is this statement? Does Scotland deserve to be defined thus, and upon what foundations is this definition based? This book examines the history of crime in Scotland, questioning the labelling of Scotland as home to a violent culture and examining changes in violent behaviour over time, the role of religion on violence, how gender impacted on violence and how the level of Scottish violence fares when compared to incidents of violence throughout the rest of the UK. This book offers a ground-breaking contribution to the historiography of Scottish crime. Not only does the piece illuminate for the first time, the nature and incidence of Scottish criminality over the course of some three hundred years, but it also employs a more integrated analysis of gender than has hitherto been evident. This book sheds light on whether the stereotypical label given to Scotland as 'the violent north' is appropriate or in any way accurate, and it further contributes to our understanding of not only Scottish society, but of the history of crime and punishment in the British Isles and beyond.

This book attempts to cover all the important aspects of a woman’s life in Scotland, examining how and why it changed over the last 300 years. It walks us through the day-to-day existence of Scottish women and in doing so covers areas such as family and household, education, work and politics, religion and sexuality, crime and punishment. While sensitive to the differences among women, regarding colour, class and sexuality, the book seeks to establish a close and reciprocal relationship between women’s history and gender history; the first delineating the struggles of women for parity with men in economic, legal and political spheres; the second, as means of unravelling the continuing ways in which power is unequally distributed within the home, the workplace and in institutions, and in contesting the male-centred narratives of the past.

Using detailed case studies, Beyond Deviant Damsels undermines many of the conventional assumptions about how women committed crime in the nineteenth century. Previous historical accounts generally constructed gendered stereotypes of women acting in self-defence, being lesser accomplices to male criminals, committing crimes that require little or no physical effort, or pursuing supposedly 'female' goals (such as material acquisition). This study countersthese gendered assumptions by examining instances where women tested society's boundaries through their own actions, ultimately presenting women as far more like men in their capacity and execution of criminal behaviour. The book shows examples where women acted far beyond these stereotypes, and showcases theexistence of cultural discussion of open-ended female misbehaviour in Victorian Britain - leading us to question the very role of stereotyping in the history of criminality. These individual challenges to a supposed gendered status quo in Victorian Britain did not produce spontaneous outrage, nor were attempts at controlling and eradicating such behaviour coherent or successful. As such Victorian society's treatment of women emerges as uncertain and confused as much as it was determinedlymoralistic. From this, Beyond Deviant Damsels seeks to re-evaluate our twenty-first-century perception of female criminals, by indicating that historiography may have been responsible for limiting the picture of Victorian female criminality and behaviour from that time until the present.

Adopting a microhistory approach, Fair and Unfair Trials in the British Isles, 1800-1940 provides an in-depth examination of the evolution of the modern justice system. Drawing upon criminal cases and trials from England, Scotland, and Ireland, the book examines the errors, procedural systems, and the ways in which adverse influences of social and cultural forces impacted upon individual instances of justice. The book investigates several case studies of both justice and injustice which prompted the development of forensic toxicology, the implementation of state propaganda and an increased interest in press sensationalism. One such case study considers the trial of William Sheen, who was prosecuted and later acquitted of the murder of his infant child at the Old Baily in 1827, an extraordinary miscarriage of justice that prompted outrage amongst the general public. Other case studies include trials for treason, theft, obscenity and blasphemy. Nash and Kilday root each of these cases within their relevant historical, cultural, and political contexts, highlighting changing attitudes to popular culture, public criticism, protest and activism as significant factors in the transformation of the criminal trial and the British judicial system as a whole. Drawing upon a wealth of primary sources, including legal records, newspaper articles and photographs, this book provides a unique insight into the evolution of modern criminal justice in Britain.

Grounded in feminist scholarship, this book upends normative accounts of femme fatale violence to focus beyond the misogyny and the sensationalism and unearth the motivation behind women's roles in homicide, terrorism, combat, and even nationalist movements.

Using case records of prosecutions at the Scottish High Court of Justiciary between 1918 and 1930, this book takes a quantitative and qualitative approach to understand sexual violence in Scotland at this time. Analysing legal records alongside victim and witness testimonies, Louise Heren analyses who committed sexual violence against whom, where and how and, to an extent, looks to uncover the victims' voice. Assessing how the courts responded, Sex and Violence in 1920s Scotland reveals that, despite pejorative views of working-class female behaviour, the successful conversion of prosecutions to convictions was greater than what is seen in modern sexual assault cases. In a society adjusting to post-conflict stresses, there were fears expressed in middle-class circles that those most affected by the First World War might react with violence. However, the High Court archives suggest otherwise. Cases of incest, rape and sexual assault appears to have been endemic, an opportunistic crime against older victims yet often pre-meditated against the youngest; selfish crimes that suggest toxic masculinity among some working-class men. The book concludes with the ultimate question: why did these men perpetrate sexual violence?

An exploration of the diverse lived experiences of marginality in Scottish society from the sixteen to the eighteenth century. Throughout the early modern period, Scottish society was constructed around an expectation of social conformity: people were required to operate within a relatively narrow range of acceptable identities and behaviours. Those who did not conform to this idealised standard, or who were in some fundamental way different from the prescribed norm, were met with suspicion. Such individuals often attracted both criticism and discrimination, forcing them to live confirmed to the social margins. Focusing on a range of marginalised groups, including the poor, migrants, ethnic minorities, indentured workers and women, the contributors to this book explore what it was like to live at the boundaries of social acceptability, what mechanisms were involved in policing the divide between "mainstream" and "marginal", and what opportunities existed for personal or collective fulfilment. The result is a fresh perspective on early modern Scotland, one that not only recovers the stories of people long excluded from historical discussion, but also offers a deeper understanding of the ordering assumptions of society more generally. Specific topics addressed range from the marginalisation of people with disabilities in the domestic sphere to female sex workers, and the place of executioners in society.