Crime, Policing and Punishment in England, 1700-1900

The Constable- two characteristics of a constable.

The Saxon Constable- Families were grouped and made responsible for their own behaviours.

Medieval Constable- A man appointed from within the community and charged with carrying out the duties of the office for no more than a year, it was his responsibility to make regular reports to the local court leet about felons 

• Responsible for maintaining peace within King's district.
• Acquired royal authority
• Patrolled at night
• Poorly paid
• Poor reputation
• Local men that continued living in the parish which they policed 
• Some were illiterate (also due to the times & low economic status of their parish) and some even had their own criminal background

Watchmen were local agents of law enforcement who had long been recruited by, and from among, urban dwellers

Justices of the peace-

• Royal officials from the outset to keep the peace.
• The Justices were the social superiors of the constables
• They were often lords of the manor 

Bow Street Runners & Fielding’s (1750s onwards)

• Assist in the detection and apprehension of offenders 
• They were a group of professional thief-takers
• By the 1790s an armed patrol of (Bow street runners) began to watch the main roads
• Watchmen into the centre of London
• Night foot patrol, Dismounted Patrol, Horse Patrol, Day foot patrol.

Justices of the peace

• Royal officials from the outset to keep the peace.
• The Justices were the social superiors of the constables
• They were often lords of the manor 

Bow Street Runners & Fielding’s (1750s onwards)

• Assist in the detection and apprehension of offenders 
• They were a group of professional thief-takers
• By the 1790s an armed patrol of (Bow street runners) began to watch the main roads
• Watchmen into the centre of London
• Night foot patrol, Dismounted Patrol, Horse Patrol, Day foot patrol.

Background to change:

Why 1829?- 

• Gentry weren't happy with the creation of the met police because it undermined their discretion
• old system seemed to be working 
• need to maintain authority and control, almost paternalistic view on the local magistrate in his own parish as opposed to giving authority to the state

1780-1829-

• Rising tension in society e.g. Post Napolenonic wars: rise of crime ,shortage of food supply, riots, 
• Political movements/reform:  industrial revolution-luddities, swing riots, waterloo massacre.

Path to professional police

• 1785- London & Westminister Police Bill
• 1792- Middlessex Justice Act
• 1798- Wst India Force- Set up by P. Colquhoun to police the Thames on trade from West Indies to Britain 

More of a pressure to have a police system outside London than in London because London was already well policied. 

The 'New Police' :

Metropolitan Police Act 1829 features:

• Uniform- deliberitlety make unifrom look civil, dark colours 
• Bowstreet Runners- London's first prof. police force
• Hierarchy (dual commissioners in charge of police drawn from law and other military)
• Disiplined
• Recruited policemen from other areas so that they ont bump into criminals they know
• Principles- deter, investigate, prevention, patrolling, stop+search 

Policing England: Gradual change not revolution

• 1829- only really in london
• England + Wales- 1856- when they got a policeforce
• Great Reform Act 1832- Extending the Franchise to the Municpal Corportations Act 1835
• Poor Law 1834- Indoor relief
• Chartism-1830s (Violent+ Not violent) e.g. Newprt Rising 1839
• Rural and Constabulary Act- Allows rural areas to raise money through taxation to create own rural policeforce (one of the first- Northampton)

Emergence of the detective branch

• 1842- Detecitve department
• 1878- CID (Criminal Investigation Department)

Triggers to change:

• The detecive in fiction e.g. Sherlock Holmes, Charles Dickens...
• Rise of the criminal class
• High profile criminals e.g. Daniel Good
• Irish Fenians - Nationalists wanting home rule

Historians and the Police

Orthodox, Revisionist, Neo-Reithian

Orthodox

• Idea: Criminals=bad, Police=great
• Quite biased entries, tend to be Whig history, if you read 1950's-60's

Revisionist (60s-70s)

• Marxist Historians (e.g. Robert Storch)- focused on oppression and that the police was reinforcing it.

Revisionists

• Say that police are being hated, not just criminals
• New engine of force to oppress people
• Police are new tool to knock down 19thc society as opposed to gallows in 18thc
• Police are now seen as another oppressive institution like the prisons, workhouses and factories.

Neo-Reithian (70s onwards)

• People like Inwood set out investigations of police.  
• Findings: police not oppressive, but specifically targeting and not acting against the lower class, just pragmatic. Moral/ sympathetically working.

The causes of youth crime:

• Post Napoleonic war- alarming increase of juvenile delinquency- therefore, greater focus on criminality 
• Once Met police created the met police was created it began to deal with a lot of j.crime
• alarming increase committee created to look at the problem- tells us what contempories thought juvenile sentencing
• Unstable home 
• Economic conditions e.g. poverty
• Faminly environment 
• Education
• Gambling
• Homeless

6 Main features of the CJS to Juvenile crime in the 18thc

• No sperate courts for hearings
• J. awaiting trial in same prison wards as adults
• J. subjected to same range of sentences as adults
• No seperate penal institutions for j.
• J. Punishments were based on the same principles as adult offenders
• Age of criminal responsibility was very low- @7

6 Main changed to the CJS for J. 18thc (1969)

• Separate courts developed for j.
• Awaiting trial on remand (not guility yet) not held in same cells as adults
• Sentences began to change
• Penal institutions set up
• Ideological basis for j. changed from punishment-welfare 
• Age of criminal responsibility doubled

Separate courts for J.

• 1847-1850- powers given to magistrates to hear thefts caes of those aged 7-14

Separation of J. from Adult prisoners

• Separate wards.
• Problem: overcrowding in j.prisoners-solution= 1834 JPs used workhouses then passed law to do this in 1866

Other changed to punishment policy

• By early 19thc children were no longer hanged 
• 1907-probation and offenders act
• 1933-abolition of capital punishment for under 18yr olds

Separate institutions

• Marine society 1756-- Try to help young criminals & youthful poor chnage their lives and train them to work in navy (charity)
• Philanthropic society- Train youths away from crime, taking them out of criminal environment

Other institutions- Transportation & Parkhurst Prison 1838

Mary Carpenter and the J. Reformatory movement 

• Believed that young people got in trouble because of their environment 
• She set up residential institution that trained them & helped find better position in society
• Under funded

Reformatiories in Action:

• Under funded- could not meet ideals Carpenter set
• 1914- 43 reformatories. 132 industrial schools, 12 truant schools-30,000 children
• Post war dentention centres- short, sharp &shock.

Ideological shift from punishment to welfare:

• Reformaties- breakthrough
• Probation- alternative non-custodial 
• J. courts- judical space
• 1933- welfare of children

The rise of the prison 

18thc gaol

• Newgate- would be a holding place for debtors & other types of crimes 
• houses of correction- very small prisons, short period of time, element of rehabilitation because people set to work- for people who committed minor offences e.g. ******* bearer, theives or vagabonds
• Prisoner had to pay for own accomodation to the masters

Newgate and Barking house of corrections e.g

• diseases
• mismanaged
• overcrowding
• bribery and corruption

The decline and fall of the bloody code

Why punishment?- Setting example, revenge, new concept of rehabilitation in 18thc (part of enlightenment thinking)

Early modern punishment (medieval-end of the war of the roses-stuart)

• public illustrations of punishment
• individual is elevated for view
• humiliation, painful
• not designed for rehabilitation 

Bloody code of Hanoverian England

• The Waltham Black Act (1723)- Established the system known as the Bloody Code which imposed the death penalty for over two hundred, often petty, offences. Its aim was deterrence.

Early 18thc- Hanging, pillary, whipping- all public

Mid 18thc:

• Increasingly juries dont want to convict people of crimes they could be executed for.
• Increasing concern for effectiveness
• Prison us just to hold you to decide, not punishment in itself

End of 18thc:

• New ways of punishment 
• transportation (trans act of 1718)- used to get trans to America but lost colony so now Australlia
• Hulks (floating prison)
• Penitary act (1779)- prisons used to rehabilitate offenders, not just holding, new form of punishment

Murder act of 1752- make punishment worse rather than finding new ways 

• Response to moral panic
• Arg: cant hang everyone for everything
• decided on post execution punishment- dissection and anatomisation

Why dissection ?- Religious reasons, body should be intact for the rupture & for scientific reasons due to enlightenment era

Jeremy Bentham panopticon- inspection house- people know they are being watched so they would act different.

The rise of Prisons 

Imprisonment as rehabilitation- George Onesiphorus Paul- pioneered ideas of how prisons should run 

• Prison reformers- John Howard, Elizabeth Fry- religiously motivated- argue that prisoners dont have sense of morality (Bible, parents, poverty, education)

Competing prison systems of the 19thc

Separate v silent

Separate- isolated convicts, segmented cubicles, convicts wore hoods over heads. Bad- mental health issues, higher suicide rates. Good- Self-reflection.

Silent- together, uniform in rows, being lectured at.

Conclusion- Nothing much changed in terms of the effects to the individual (18th-19thc.)

Establishing the Victorian prison system 

• Increasing role of the state e.g. penitentary act- allows to build prisons rather than using old castles- 1779 - Beginning of state being involved in prison systems

1865 Prison act- Official declaration of the Victorian state taking control of the running of prisons, no unfair treatment.

• Diet- scientific starvation- no more than 5 a day (impact: different sizes)