Under the shadow of the persistent offender: Rethinking recidivism and criminal records beyond rupture narratives

Contemporary criminological scholarship often portrays criminal records as a distinctly modern institution —invented in the nineteenth century and radically transformed by digitalization and post-1970s penal change. This article challenges that rupture narrative by tracing the deep history of criminal records and recidivism through Braudel's (1958) concept of the longue durée , a framework for analyzing structures that persist across centuries. First, drawing on sources from Roman law to nineteenth-century French parliamentary debates, we re-examine five widely accepted historical claims and show that each is incomplete: the concept of recidivism predates Bonneville de Marsangy by centuries; systematic criminal record infrastructures existed under Napoleon by 1808; Bonneville refined rather than invented the casier judiciaire (the French criminal record register); recidivism was a long-standing policy concern, not a nineteenth-century novelty; and pre-Enlightenment practice relied on graduated sanctions rather than routine execution for minor first offenses. Second, we reconceptualize criminal record systems as successive technological adaptations to a persistent social problem: identifying and managing the persistent offender. From branding and tattooing to bureaucratic files and digital databases, the techniques change, but the underlying concern remains. Analysis of the French parliamentary debates of 1898–1899, together with contemporary record-clearance initiatives, shows how historically informed and offense-specific reforms can address enduring public concern about persistent offenders while mitigating the long-term harms of criminal records. The analysis supports a realistic reform agenda: graduated retention and disclosure by offense seriousness and persistence, time-limited access for less serious convictions, and safeguards against the expansion of records beyond their original purpose. • Rupture narratives about criminal records obscure deep historical continuity. • Criminal records are successive adaptations to one problem: the persistent offender. • From branding to databases: the function persists, only the medium changes. • French Senate debates of 1899 prefigure today's digital punishment dilemmas. • Criminal records reform requires engaging history, not just regulating digital access.