We have funding for two (UK/EU) PhD students, based at the University of Liverpool, to start in February 2014.
Application deadline: Friday 10 January 2014
Studentship 1: Digital Dark Tourism
The increased availability of digital resources has brought criminal justice data within easy reach of thousands if not millions of people. This has coincided with the commercialization of decommissioned gaols, courts and police stations. Gaol Museums often have highly visual publicity and online material. This thesis will examine the presentation of criminal justice history in museums and in printed material. It will explore the public interaction with these forms, and the motivations of the museum and heritage managers in digitizing, publicizing, and presenting former penal sites.
Studentship 2: Sentencing at the Old Bailey 1780-1880
This thesis on “Sentencing factors and disposals” will explore and examine all of the contextual linked-data on the life-course of the people sentenced to imprisonment at the Old Bailey. There are a variety of sentencing factors that must be taken into consideration when sentencing offenders: severity of the offence, whether the case is heard on indictment, and so on. There are also a number of other factors which may have played a part – the perceived social status of the defendant, the number of previous convictions, the perceived status of the complainant, and so on. This thesis will use data retrieved from a number of online digital sources to investigate the overt and hidden factors that may have influenced whether a convicted felon was found not-guilty, imprisoned or transported.