More than Horrible Histories: Engaging the Public with Criminal Justice Past and Present

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Rose Wallis  

In 2018 Dorset Shire Hall, an eighteenth-century courthouse, opened as a museum dedicated to the development of the criminal law, and as a centre for public engagement with notions of justice and injustice, past and present. As an academic historian, I was privileged to be invited to work as part of the interpretation team, an experience that stimulated the reflections at the root of this paper: how and why do we engage the public with histories of criminal justice? My research has focused on crime and the courts as a means to understand social relations in the past. The courts were, and continue to be, important regulatory mechanisms. Extending beyond the administration of the law as sites of social, and indeed political contest, they shape and reinforce acceptable and unacceptable behaviours and activities. They are a source of continued public interest and import both as heritage sites and active centres of government. Too often crime and punishment are represented to the public in ways that emphasise the sensational and salacious, or which offer didactic narratives of the law as oppressive or progressive. But these approaches prevent us from critically engaging with the relationship between past and present practices. This paper explores some of the problems inherent in representing criminal justice to the public, and considers the utility of incorporating historiographical approaches in its interpretation. Can we create an accurate, entertaining, ethical and accessible visitor experience that actively engages the public in the role of law past and present?