What am I being asked to do?

Clicking here will take you to a transcription site built on Zooniverse, a platform that enables citizens to volunteer their time to help complete research tasks that would not be possible for an individual researcher or research team to do alone. When a lot of people pitch in, previously unimaginable research projects become possible.

Once in the Zooniverse site you will be able to choose between quickly transcribing just a small section of a prison record, or having the fun of transcribing an offender’s entire criminal history. From there the transcription work is fairly straightforward, but help buttons, tutorials and other assistive features are available throughout the process if you run into difficulties. No previous experience or expertise is required to take part.

What will happen to the transcriptions later?

Once all the records have been transcribed and the resulting data has been cleaned, a copy will be deposited with the Public Records Office of Victoria to be held in perpetuity for access by the general public. The data will also be made publicly available online.

Why volunteer?

Transcribing these prison records can be a rewarding and exciting experience, with opportunities to uncover interesting stories from the past and learn about how criminal offending fitted into the wider lives of prisoners.

The creation of this dataset will moreover bridge gaps between historical knowledge of crime and contemporary criminological research by providing insights into the contexts and patterns of offending across a period that saw significant legal and social developments likely to impact criminal activity, including mass migrations, changing technologies, war, economic depressions, the emergence of the narcotics traffic, and the evolution of new forms of punishment.

The scope of the data to be collected means it will enable almost limitless opportunities for research investigations across a variety of legal and social issues, ranging from the role of factors such as gender, race, age, class and physical/mental conditions in historical involvement in crime, through to the effect of shifts in sentencing practices on changing trends in criminal offending and reoffending. This will enable new understandings of crime relevant to both the past and the present.

If this sounds like something you want to be a part of, start transcribing now.