19th century criminal laws

[Idola Mentis]

Hi!

First post here. I thought I'd get it over with and dip my foot in the shark-infested water as fast as possible

The thing is, I'm doing research for my masters in ideological history, and would love to hear the views of the people in here. I'm still reading secondary literature while trying to get a grip on the primary sources, so most things go.

The subject is the norwegian criminal law of 1902. Seen in context, it's actually pretty interesting; it was among the first of its kind, and has widely been regarded as a great success.

Some of you may be familiar with the criminalists, an international group of lawyers, psychiatrists and wardens which formed during the second half of the 19th century. They were the ones who made positivist science the foundation of the penal system, the dubious honour of founder going to Cesare Lombroso, author of "Criminal man".

You might already have seen where this is going.

During my studies, it quickly became clear that the ideology of this group, on which most western penal codes are based or heavily unfluenced, played right into the hands of the fascists. They may even be considered forerunners and scientific founders/legitimizers of the atrocious medical, psychiatric and penal practices introduced in the 30's, which blighted our history well into the 60's, including eugenics, forced lobotomies and torture in the guise of behaviour teraphy.

And their laws are still largely in effect - modified to take the most blatant idiocies out, but the basic principles have stood virtually unchallenged for a century. While it's not within my scope to take a stand against them or offer alternatives, reactions at bringing them out to be seen in the stark light of hindsight should be interesting.

So, while having worked on the local and international authoritative textbooks, as well as Foucault, Lombroso, the articles of Bjørneboe etc, I'm still searching for more viewpoints. Got any references to recommend? Any positions I might want to take into account?

[Idola Mentis]

Oh, damn. This maybe should have gone into the Research forum?