Historical crime
Historical crime is a broad topic area. Regardless of whether you’re doing research for your fictional stories or for factual pieces, there’s a fair amount of material available if you know where to look, says Tarja Moles.
Tarja Moles
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Getting started
Before you start your research, clarify your focus. What time period interests you? What aspect(s) do you want to explore: crimes in general, a specific type of crime, an individual criminal, criminal law, the penal system or perhaps something else? Once you know what you’re looking for, you can devise appropriate keywords for mapping out potential sources.
As crime has always held a certain fascination, your initial online and library searches are likely to lead you to a variety of secondary sources. For example, if you were interested in crime and punishment in Georgian Britain, you could read an introductory piece at writ.rs/georgiancrime, while research into the history of policing in the UK could lead to the UK Police Memorial site (writ.rs/policehistory) or The Victorian Web’s page on the Metropolitan Police (writ.rs/victpolice).