I think that it is important to study the history of criminal justice because often times I have imagined a world where people allocate a collective amnesia about what happened in the past. Every generation would be forced to recreate knowledge their intimates had. This would create humankind without history. The study of history dispels such mass amnesia by supporting the practice of historical memory that is a study of themes, ideas, and change. The past helps to forge our identities. History is the study of the past, not merely names and dates, but trends, changing
ideas, shifting social and cultural conventions. As such, the study of history helps us better understand who we are today and helps explain communications between peoples and countries. "Simply put, history seeks to explain change." It is not that events today are repetitions of the past, they aren't, but the underlying factors, stresses, beliefs, etc. are products of the past, and a failure to understand history thus has distressing implications. Moreover, the study of history can be fun. Under the rubric of history individuals can study almost anything: political, economic, social and environmental changes, and even the historical aspects of other things that could be of interest criminal justice, literature, religion-the list is endless. When asked how studying history helps us understand the present it brings to my remembrance a quote written by a very famous theorist George Santayana that Answers that question in a nut shell he said "Those who cannot remember the past are destined to repeat it." We as people usually fail to study history and we have predestined ourselves to repeat it I think that Nothing exhibits this better than the current situation in Iraq - but that is another assignment all by it self.