A Dangerously Empty Space
Crime and Punishment on English Wastelands
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21720191 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sarah Collins (0000-0001-5129-0691, Newcastle University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 48-66 |
| Publication date | 2022-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Landscapes (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1466-2035 • E-ISSN: 2040-8153 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14662035.2022.2144256 |
| OpenAlex | W4309154176 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 20 |
This article examines instances of criminal activity and capital punishment occurring on English wastelands, such as commons, heaths, moors, and forests, between 1730 and 1830. A broad range of information drawn from newspaper reports, assize records, court proceedings and local histories enables comparison of human experience on wastes when encountering criminal activity and/or any resulting punishments. Detailed accounts of crime and punishment on historic wastelands are sparse, with the majority of information relating to public perceptions concerned with safety and place-making. This article considers the extent to which those perceptions were accurate, identifying entanglements between three discrete processes: elite desires to ‘improve’ wastelands; the use of wastes to reinforce ritualised punishments; and increased media reporting of crime that was often coupled with sensationalism. Examination of the sources above demonstrates a variable and highly localised place-making founded on negative emotions, which popularised tropes of wastelands being places of fear and lawlessness
Criminology · Lawlessness · Newspaper · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History of Emotions Research · Law · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Psychology · Social Psychology
Emotional Lexicons
The Hanging Tree
Gauging crime in late eighteenth-century London
Peasant perceptions of landscape Ewelme hundred, South Oxfordshire, 500-1650
An Archaeology of Town Commons in England
Newspaper reporting and attitudes to crime and justice in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century London
Ambivalent landscapes—wilderness in the urban interstices
State of the Field
Worrying About Crime
The Battle for Mousehold Heath 1857-1884
Rethinking the Bloody Code in Eighteenth-Century Britain
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |