Cadernos do Arquivo Municipal

The reconstruction of the church of São Domingos de Lisboa: Architects, painters, sculptors, and woodcarvers (1755-1791)

João Francisco Grave (Author) — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0100

The following study aims to present a significant number of manuscripts, with which the author is dealing with since 2017, related with the reconstruction of the Convent of São Domingos de Lisboa after the Earthquake of 1755. Based on the gathered data, this article is divided in two chapters. The first one focuses the years from 1755 to 1786, regarding the first moments of the rebuilding process, and discussing the authorship of the architectonical project. The second chapter deals with the period from 1786 to 1791, explaining the evolution of the construction site with Manuel Caetano de Sousa as architect.

Lock, stock and two smoking crimes. Two criminal figures captured by French criminal law in the 19th century: The insurance swindler and the fraudulent bankrupt

Louis Terracol, Eva Becquet (Author) — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0100

In the 19th century, to protect private property, the legislator sometimes had to be wary of dishonest owners. Faced with the resurgence of certain financial crimes, swindles and other frauds, legislative policy oscillated between rigorous repression, intended as a deterrent but deemed excessive, and more flexible sentencing, to make criminal law more effective. The legislator’s main concern was to define the contours of the criminal figures that were developing as a result of the century’s economic and social changes. Among these, two stand out: the insurance swindler, an owner who sets fire to his own property in order to defraud his insurer, and the fraudulent banker, who makes undue profit from mismanagement. In trying to catch them, French law tries, with varying degrees of success, to meet society’s need to identify and punish criminal scams fairly.

The accused children: The criminalization of “little bird-catchers” in Belgium in the 19th Century

Marie Chaidron (Author) — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The article explores the criminalization of “bird catchers” children in the 19th century in Belgium within the context of the enactment of bird protection laws. Shedding light on the emergence of environmental illegality, it examines discourses criminalizing this practice and social responses to account for the interactions between society, crime, and the environment, thereby contributing to the understanding of historical dynamics of the time. Indeed, during the second half of the 19th century, a certain discourse defining a new environmental criminality arises in Belgium, involving not only the act of bird hunting but also the children practicing it. The criminalization of children is based on two arguments: their impact on the natural balance and their immorality. The examination of bird hunting repression reveals that beyond avian conservation, it also aims to control rural populations and promote urban values.

Noir in the 1980s and 1990s: Decolonizing ideologies

Jean-Hugues Bita’a Menye (Author) — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0100

This article discusses the growth of noir in France and the United States of America (USA) in the 1980s and 1990s. Under its various forms such as the polar, the sub-genre embraces a leftist agenda, aiming at exploring the rise of domestic issues such as race, gender discrimination, and poverty to expose the dark side of neoliberalism and its ideologies of equality, prosperity, and justice. A decolonial reading of Didier Daeninckx’s Meurtres pour mémoire (1983), Daniel Pennac’s La petite marchande de prose (1989), and Walter Mosley’s Black Betty (1994) demonstrates how the process of narration and a conscious focus on “decent people” threaten ideologies of nation building, consumerism, and gender/racial equality. Through the works of Walter Mignolo and Achille Mbembé, we aim to show how neoliberal capitalism follows the same pattern of appropriation of resources and bodies that has been in place since the Industrial Revolution. A pattern deconstructed by noir writers with the aim of promoting more humanity.

An analysis of transnational networks of criminological studies based on the works of Dr. Francisco Ferraz de Macedo (1873-1907)

Fernando Fontes Cepulli (Author) — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article deals with the formation and maintenance of networks of criminological knowledge in the Atlantic World through the figure of Francisco Ferraz de Macedo, a Portuguese doctor and anthropologist who grew up and studied in Brazil, but whose professional path led him to work in some of the main European centres for criminological studies. From his various works, we will observe how his medical-anthropological discoveries relate to the international scientific debate at the end of the 19th century. In this way, we aim to analyse the importance of the historical study of the figure of Ferraz de Macedo in the process of understanding the mechanisms that promoted the transnational character of criminological sciences in this period.

Hunting the poor: A security obsession in France (late 18th-early 21st centuries)

Antony Kitts (Author) — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Since the end of the Middle Ages, the hunt for the poor has taken on repressive dimensions on an unprecedented scale. In this respect, the contemporary period is part of this long, centuries-old tradition. Three periods in particular stand out: the eighteenth and nineteenth, the nineteenth and twentieth and the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, when poverty, begging and vagrancy were on the increase. In the countryside as in the cities, these marginal figures panicked society and the public authorities to the point of becoming a veritable obsession with security. This was translated into law by a new and lasting criminalization of beggars and vagrants (Penal Code of 1810: articles 269-282) and by a whole arsenal of means of surveillance, identification, and control of mobility (passport, workers’ booklet, high police force, law of May 1885 on the relegation of repeat offenders, anti-begging decrees and law of 2003 on internal security, etc.).

Foreigners, crime and police repression in Portugal at the beginning of the Estado Novo (1933-1939)

Fábio Faria (Author) — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The interwar years were a period in which the debate on forms of illegal activity intensified, which transcended country borders due to the growth of political threats associated with communism and anarchism, and the development of new common criminal practices related to human trafficking, drug trafficking and counterfeiting of money, also witnessing an increase in the transnational movement of people. Among these individuals were political suspects and common criminals, who passed through Portugal, some of whom with the intention of reaching the American continent. Based on Portuguese police and diplomatic sources, this article addresses the police repression carried out by Salazar’s regime against the presence of foreign citizens in Portugal, focusing on the surveillance and control exercised by the political police over political suspects and criminals of other nationalities in its early years.

International policing in the Cold War: The case of Interpol

Gabriella Simantob (Author) — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article analyzes the political influences on the functioning of Interpol, the main institution of international policing, in the beginning of the Cold War, between 1946 and the mid-1960s. Initially, we seek to understand the origins of the relationships between national police forces and their subsequent influences on the establishment of the International Criminal Police Commission in 1923, as well as its reorganization after 1945, now known as Interpol. We then analyze the role of Interpol as an international organization from the end of the Second World War, in the context of the Cold War. This work explores how the institution develops as a center of police cooperation focused on Western interests. The notion of political commitment of its main members was reflected in the daily functioning of Interpol, allowing us to understand how this organization was used for purposes of political influence by powers of the capitalist bloc.

Romance fraud: Around a concept of victimization

Ana Guerreiro, Luís Costa, Ana Teresa Carneiro, Olga Souza Cruz (Author) — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article aims to contribute for the understanding of virtual social relationships and their malicious use, contextualizing romantic fraud as an emerging criminal phenomenon. By analyzing the interconnection between social aspects and criminal mechanisms, and with a particular emphasis on the underlying victimization processes, we seek to provide a solid knowledge basis for future research and interventions, promoting a holistic and informed approach, so that it is possible to mitigate its criminological impact on contemporary society, nationally and internationally.

Gonçalves, G. R. (2023). Fardados de azul: Polícia e cultura policial em Portugal, c. 1860-1939. Tinta-da-china.

Yvette Santos (Author) — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Subtil, J., Atallah, C. C. A., & Mota, M. S. (Org.). (2022). Criminalidades, Direito e Justiça no Mundo Ibérico. Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa/Editorial Teseo.

Cristina Nogueira da Silva (Author) — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

«Without Law there is no crime, nor punishment»: Administration of Justice in the city of Lisbon and its term (17th-19th centuries): Documents

Sandra Cunha Pires (Author) — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In this Documenta, we present the documentation relating to the Administration of Justice in the city of Lisbon and its surroundings, in the areas under the jurisdiction of the Senado da Câmara (Senate of the Municipal Council), namely the criminal proceedings linked to travessias (unlawful acts), devassas (inquests), regimentos (regulations), in the period between the 17th and the 19th centuries, existing at the Lisbon Municipal Archive.

Nota de Apresentação

Helena Neves (Author) — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Crimes, disorders, and transgressions: Lisbon at the end of the Monarchy

Maria João Vaz (Author) — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Lisbon has a central place when we analyse crime and transgressions, particularly between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, because it was in this city that crime had its highest incidence, unparalleled in Portugal as a whole. This article outlines a characterisation of crime in Lisbon in the last decades of the Monarchy. To this end, it makes use of existing studies and analyses a diverse range of sources, in particular crime statistics produced by the police and judicial authorities. The study of transgressions relies above all on analysing the documentation kept at the Lisbon Municipal Archive. The aim is to present a general framework of the imposition of the law and the municipal rules that regulated daily life in Lisbon and how the failure to comply with them by the population who lived and worked in the city, due to inability, ignorance, or refusal, contributed to a sharp increase in the number of crimes and offences recorded in Lisbon. In addition to the regulations to which the urban space was subject, Lisbon was also the place with the largest and most effective police force in the country, which favoured the detection and repression of illegalities that occurred there.

The League of Nations and Drug Diplomacy: Japan and the 1931 Convention for Limiting the Manufacture

Nathalia Belem Fagundes (Author) — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Drug trafficking became one of the main manifestations of transnational crime in the 20th century, and various attempts were made to regulate it. The aim of this paper is to present how Japan became directly responsible for the final shape taken by the 1931 Convention for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs, one of the most relevant international drug agreements of the first half of the 20th century. Subsequent agreements will demonstrate the concerns regarding the repression of the narcotics trade, which has become a central element in the affirmation of a transnational criminality. It analyses a set of printed sources produced within the framework of the League of Nations between 1928 and 1931, in particular the minutes of the meetings of the Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs, the technical body within the League of Nations where the national representatives of various countries debated international agreements on the global trade and criminalisation of narcotics, the minutes of the Conference that debated the construction of the 1931 Convention and the draft agreements and conventions debated during the Conference.