Abstract
As tourists, when we visit any museum associated with prison or policing, when we seek out sites linked to infamous killings and killers, or when we tour a defunct jail cell, we are—in effect—consuming true crime narratives. Indeed, stories about ‘true’ crime continue to fascinate, titillate, and captivate tourists on a global scale. However, there is an inherent distortion involved within these spaces of non-fictional narrativity. Much like other mediated crime narratives, museums are no doubt partial and limited, forgetting as much as they remember, but this is unlikely to diminish their power or potency. This chapter then, will introduce the reader to some of the issues involved in crime-related tourism. Beginning with a typography of crime-related sites, it will then move on to examine the exhibits in one such site: the True Crime Museum in Hastings, England.
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Notes
- 1.
Please be advised this chapter refers to criminal acts including sexual assault, dismemberment, cannibalism, and other forms of violence. The second half of the chapter in particular includes images of (and written extracts from) the True Crime Museum which some readers may find distressing.
- 2.
Jack the Ripper Museum https://www.jacktherippermuseum.com/about-the-museum.html.
- 3.
Billy the Kid Museum: http://www.billythekidmuseumfortsumner.com/index.html.
- 4.
Ned Kelly Musuem (Trip Advisor): https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g552175-d1233736-Reviews-Ned_Kelly_Museum-Glenrowan_Victoria.html.
- 5.
National Justice Museum: https://www.nationaljusticemuseum.org.uk/education/.
- 6.
Medieval Crime and Justice Museum: https://www.kriminalmuseum.eu/?lang=en.
- 7.
Federal Police Interactive Museum: https://sic.cultura.gob.mx/ficha.php?table=museo&table_id=1578.
- 8.
Beijing Police Museum: https://www.chinatravel.com/beijing/attractions/beijing-police-museum/.
- 9.
Eastern State Penitentiary: https://www.easternstate.org/.
- 10.
Clink Museum: https://www.clink.co.uk/.
- 11.
The Abashiri Prison Museum: https://www.kangoku.jp/multilingual_english/.
- 12.
Beaumont Police Museum: https://police.beaumonttexas.gov/police-community-relations/police-museum/.
- 13.
Old Police Cells: https://www.oldpolicecellsmuseum.org.uk/.
- 14.
True Crime Museum: https://www.truecrimemuseum.co.uk/.
- 15.
Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and Memorial: http://auschwitz.org/en/.
- 16.
The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum: https://tuolsleng.gov.kh/.
- 17.
Pablo Escobar Tours: https://theboutiqueadventurer.com/pablo-escobar-tour-medellin/.
- 18.
Gangsters, Brothels & Lolly Shops tour: https://www.melbournehistoricalcrimetours.com/book-now.html.
- 19.
The True Crime Museum has given permission for the author to use photographs taken within the museum.
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Thurston, H. (2021). Feeding the Fascination: Crime-Related Tourism and the True Crime Museum. In: Mellins, M., Moore, S. (eds) Critiquing Violent Crime in the Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83758-7_12
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