British immigrant children from Dr. Barnardo’s Homes at landing stage, Saint John, Isaac Erb / Library and Archives Canada / PA-041785
In June 2024, a group of historians, social scientists and legal scholars met at a conference organised as part of the AHRC funded project ‘Reconsidering Crime in Working-Class Homes and Family Life, 1918-1979’. The conference facilitated important discussions and shared research approaches, methods and findings on changing notions of care and criminality in modern British history. This blog will feature work from some of the contributors alongside others working in a similar fields to consider how these concepts have changed, clashed and coexisted in Britain across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and highlight their relevancy for current policy discussions. This blog addresses how certain concepts of care moved from being perceived as forms of criminality to becoming accepted methods of curative responses to crime and the rehabilitation of offenders and potential offenders, whilst other forms of care and rehabilitation have become seen as outmoded, damaging or corruptive. Taking case studies that cover Britain, Northern Ireland and the British Empire it addresses the impact of shifting legislation on the language and methods of care, uses press coverage, court cases and archival records s to compare how concepts of care, offending and the family shifted across the period. It highlights the complexities of the experiences of poor families in navigating legislation, the state and the police against their own notions of welfare and deviance and asks how we can share our findings to contribute to ongoing problems experienced by vulnerable families.
Care or Criminality? 