Representations of Northern Identity in Yorkshire Crime and Punishment Museums

ABSTRACT Courtrooms and prisons have historically been the centres of local justice. A number of these buildings now house museums of crime and punishment. These sites often focus on local histories linked to physical structures to present this history to regional, national, and international visitors. For these museums based in the North of England, portrayals of convicts are affected by contemporary understandings of Northern identity and penal heritage. National representations of Northern identity, such as those described by Dave Russell, can feed into these museum interpretations due to the variety of visitors to these sites. The museums also play a part in the construction and encapsulation of identity for local visitors. This paper will focus on observation results from two case study sites in Yorkshire, Ripon Museums, and York Castle Museum, to examine the variety of ways Northern identity is represented within sites linked to crime and punishment history.