ABSTRACT
As key elements in the constitution and consolidation of empires, crime and criminal law promoted practices of exclusion and inclusion. The simple act of trying and convicting someone of a crime implied an act of inclusion by affirming the legitimacy of a claim to jurisdiction. This authority could not be taken for granted in empire but required the support of wider arguments about the scope of imperial authority and the status of colonial subjects. At the same time, the trial, sentencing and punishment of criminals created groups of political and legal outsiders. The tensions between inclusion and exclusion produced complex and fluid imperial legal orders. The expansion of the colonial state’s criminal jurisdiction developed alongside measures generating spatial and temporal variations in the treatment of crime and criminals. Acts of legal experimentation included the proliferation of penal colonies, declarations of martial law and campaigns to suppress piracy and banditry. Imperial bureaucracies enacted measures that created legally differentiated zones within empires and multiplied status distinctions among imperial subjects while also working to establish more systematic and nearly complete control over crime and criminal justice.
