Reconnecting Genealogies of Criminal Justice and Tax Collection: A Historical Criminology of the British Excise

• In Event: EHC-WG Panel 3. Historical Perspectives to International and Modern Problems

Abstract

In 2003, John Braithwaite (2003) argued that criminology’s general orientation towards ‘crimes of the streets’ can be challenged by better accounting for the crime control work historically undertaken by agencies tasked with regulating businesses. Twenty years on, both criminal justice history and historical criminology mostly remain concentrated on the historical origins and development of contemporary criminal justice institutions, especially prisons and public police (Churchill, 2014; Emsley, 2021). This paper responds to Braithwaite’s call by presenting preliminary findings of an ongoing archival study of the history of the British Excise. It explores how, as well as collecting taxes, the Excise policed markets in taxed commodities (particularly alcohol), routinely using its extensive police powers against illicit distillation, adulteration of beer, and other tax or licensing offences. Importantly, by foregrounding the policing of tax and licensing offences, this paper shifts the criminological gaze away from the lower class offenders routinely processed by criminal justice agencies and towards a more diverse set of law-breakers, including middle class businessmen. By reconnecting histories of criminal justice and tax collection, it thus contributes to the creation of a future criminology that is geared more towards the ‘crimes of the suites’ and less towards the ‘crimes of the streets’.

Author

• Henry Yeomans, University of Leeds