Chapter 9: Conclusion

This book has used historical life-course analysis, which builds on the contemporary life-course method used by criminologists and sociologists of deviance. The use of archival data has enabled a retrospective longitudinal exploration of the individual, and collective, lives of pauper-emancipists. Doing so has enabled the decompartmentalized aspects of their lives, including criminality and criminalization; familial life formation; (un)-forced labor; and (ill)-health and disability, to be explored. As well as the micro- (life-course) level, both the meso- (institutional) and macro- (colonial context) levels are integrated for full comprehension of the lives of this population and how those lives interacted with structural constraints (and possible opportunities) in the form of charitable and penal systems. Using this historical life-course method has enabled an understanding of the offending of pauper-emancipists in the context of their whole lives, which has made it possible to uncover the role of the state in their life-outcomes, in the form of charitable and penal system control mechanisms.