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SOLON Law, Crime and History (previously SOLON Crimes and Misdemeanours: Deviance and the Law in Historical Perspective)

Kim Stevenson

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This article is divided into two parts: the first highlights some of the difficulties and limitations for students and tutors who wish to explore the historiography of rape and sexual assault. In particular it addresses the problematic issue of accessing and interpreting the official records of such proceedings in the criminal courts. As an alternative it is suggested that nineteenth century newspaper reports written by professional lawyer-reporters can provide an effective substitute and can be justified as a primary research source. The second part offers a series of four case studies of sexual assaults as reported in The Times newspaper which students can easily access through the digital archive and analyse. These are presented with observations on how students might be directed to read and interpret the reports together with suggested learning points to enable them to understand how the criminal law and legal process operated in practice, and the real life implications and consequences for the parties involved.

Publication Date

2014-01-01

Publication Title

SOLON Law, Crime and History

Volume

4

Issue

1

First Page

36

Last Page

61

ISSN

2045-9238

Deposit Date

April 2017

Embargo Period

2024-10-22

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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