The Digital Panopticon is a collaboration between the Universities of Liverpool, Sheffield, Tasmania, Oxford and Sussex, with funding from the AHRC. Led by an international team of established researchers, it will use digital technologies to bring together existing and new genealogical, biometric and criminal justice datasets held by different organisations in the UK and Australia. It will explore the impact of different types of punishments on the lives of 90,000 people sentenced at The Old Bailey between 1780 and 1875, develop new and transferable methodologies for understanding and exploiting complex bodies of genealogical, biometric, and criminal justice data and create a searchable website.

This website is a work in progress! To find out more about the project, check the FAQs. The blog will have regular updates on project progress, and we’ll be adding useful resources related to the research themes. We look forward to opening public conversations, and will try to answer your questions: see below for various ways to keep up with project news!