Become a Contributor

Do you have an existing interest in lock-ups, or the history of criminal justice in the British Isles? Or would you like to develop further expertise in this area? Would you like to become a project contributor?

We are actively seeking contributors for this project. Contributors are people willing to give us some of their time and/ or expertise to grow our database. They include, for example:

  • People who might already know about a collection of lock-ups – of a particular type, or in a specific locality – and are willing to provide us with that information;
  • Those who have care or the responsibility for one, particular lock-up (as a museum or business owner) and wish to curate the information collected on it and displayed through Your Local Lock-up;
  • People with no pre-existing knowledge of lock-ups, but are keen to learn more, and work their way through some historical collections that we have identified in order to pull out details of lock-ups that are not yet in this database.

There were many thousands of lock-ups that were used between 1500 and 1999; it is only through the help of contributors that we will ever have a chance of recovering enough of these to understand not only the entry point to the criminal justice system but also the local experience of criminal justice in the past.

By signing up as a contributor, we will welcome you on to our project team and we will work with you to find a way that you can contribute to this project that suits your circumstances. We will give you behind-the-scenes access to the records that you submit. And we will invite you to share your stories of the research process and what you have found out on the ‘Your Stories’ section of Prison History.

Interested? Please fill in the form below, and a member of the project team will contact you to discuss your potential role. Have some more questions for us first? Please get in touch.

Thank you for considering this. We hope to welcome you onboard!

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