The research shows how the notion conceived by criminal law on the history of crime has been a residual resource when it comes to scientifically understanding crime. The article analyzes the references to the history of crime that appear in the handbooks of criminal law published in the Colombian milieu from the 19^th Century until the present moment. Also, in this investigation are included monographs, theses and courses of criminal law that expose similar contents of the crime’s historicity in Colombia. From a critical methodological perspective, the text highlights how the concepts of evolution, the attachment to formalism and legalism, as well as the continuity of traditional pedagogical models, have shaped a notion of crime history that was embodied in this handbooks of Criminal law and which differs greatly from other historiographies of crime. It is then confirmed that the historicity of crime, besides the notion of historical time through which the past of criminal law has been interpreted, have been conditioned by determinisms and reductions that have been combined very well with the dogmatics of criminal law.