David J. Cox is currently a Senior Lecturer at Wolverhampton University, specialising in Criminal Justice History and Policing History. Previously, David has worked at Keele and Plymouth Universities as a Research Associate/Fellow as well as being the former Editor of The Blackcountryman, the quarterly journal of the Black Country Society. He gained a PhD in Modern History from Lancaster University in 2006.

In a lively and immediately approachable style which includes a number of case studies, this book shows how the study of criminal justice history can be used to illuminate modern-day criminological debate and discourse.

1. Introduction 2. The impact of historical developments on the criminal justice system 3. Crime, 'traditional' and 'new' 4. Capturing the criminal 5. Punishment 6. Gender and the criminal justice system 7. Crime in contemporary literature and culture 8. Review and conclusion: beyond the eighteenth century Appendix: Timeline of events 1649-1815.