An arc of time through crime: representations of gypsies and travellers in police killings

Phillips, Coretta ORCID: 0000-0001-9796-7792, Becky, Taylor and James, Zoë (2025) An arc of time through crime: representations of gypsies and travellers in police killings. British Journal of Criminology. ISSN 0007-0955

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Abstract

This paper examines newspaper stories reporting on the killings by Gypsy and Traveller offenders of PC Leslie Meehan in 1960 and PC Andrew Harper in 2019. These media representations are used as heuristic devices to explore differing media discourses about this white minority ethnic groupSixty years apart, these stories demonstrate supportive media commentary in the earlier period and more corrosive coverage in the recent period. Making a contribution to historical criminology and its consideration of race, this paper draws from extensive archival analysis and the extant literature. It highlights the political-economic significance of home ownership, the partial inclusion of Gypsies and Travellers in the multicultural polity, and broader trends towards increasing punitivism in criminal justice, as key explanatory factors in these different media and political representations.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Social Policy
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races K Law
Date Deposited:	11 Jul 2025 07:30
Last Modified:	01 Aug 2025 03:12
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/128786

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