Latest in a long line of books for historian Chinn

LOCKDOWN helped Carl Chinn to write his new book in the daytime, instead of having to fit it in around lectures and tours.

Incredibly, Peaky Blinders: The Legacy is his 33rd history book in a career which began with more national issues.

Prof Chinn said: “I’m 64 now and I’d like to think I’ve still got another two or three history books in me first – I’d like to follow the Peaky Blinders into the 1930s, but not into the years when the likes of The Krays were around. That’s totally different for me and I wouldn’t want to get involved.”

Peaky Blinders: The Legacy explains how gangs rose to prominence in places like London and Sheffield, as well as Birmingham.

The book explores street wars across the country and the impact of the declaration of war on gangs by the Home Secretary after the ‘racecourse war’ in 1921.

Having researched all aspects of life in the 1920s, how could that knowledge be applied for the 2020s, which are also beginning with a global pandemic and increasing unemployment?

Prof Chinn says the message is to invest in young people and new ways of working to replace companies suffering from the decline of older technologies. And as for the way we treat criminals, he says: “Rehabilitation has to be done at a very early age, otherwise prisons just become universities of crime.”

Prof Chinn, a University of Birmingham lecturer and prolific columnist, says: “We spend a very large amount of money on punishment. Wouldn’t it be better to spend it on preventing crime?

“We need to work with youngsters who are in danger of falling into a life of crime.

“We don’t make enough of people who have been in gangs, the ones who have been there and understand it all.

“We should support people like that.”