Photographing Crime Scenes in 20th-Century London: Microhistories of Domestic Murder. By Alexa Neale

Abstract

We are perhaps so used to ‘seeing’ crime scenes and being exposed to the minute details of murder investigations that its development as a method and process of criminal inquiry has been taken for granted. Neale’s excellent Photographing Crime Scenes provides a fascinating, valuable, and important insight into the use of forensic photographs to understand how crime scenes were understood historically. Focusing on domestic murders in London, Neale persuasively argues that the role of photography was most crucial in the courtroom and did not focus in detail, but ‘about visualizing a narrative in the courtroom than investigating and establishing that narrative in police detection’ (p. 2). Drawing attention to the cultural and social production of crime scene photography, Neale’s analysis emphasizes that these sources were not conceived of as visual facts, and draws attention to the ways in which class, race, and gender shaped these narratives and how crimes scenes were presented and received through the prosecution process and in court. Other sources, particularly the press and other forms of cultural media, are woven through Neale’s expert analysis of crime scene photography to demonstrate how these images were themselves a product of broader social and cultural processes.