Violence And Crime In Nineteenth Century England

Combining a vivid analysis of criminal records and public debate with theories from cultural studies, anthropology and social geography, this book contributes to current debates in history, criminology and violence studies.

In the years between 1750 and 1868, English criminal justice underwent significant changes. The two most crucial developments were the gradual establishment of an organised, regular police, and the emergence of new secondary punishments, following the restriction in the scope of the death penalty. In place of an ill-paid parish constabulary, functioning largely through a system of rewards and common informers, professional police institutions were given the task of executing a speedy and systematic enforcement of the criminal law. In lieu of the severe and capriciously-administered capital laws, a penalty structure based on a proportionality between the gravity of crimes and the severity of punishments was erected as arguably a more effective deterrent of crime. This book, first published in 1981, examines the impact of these two important developments and casts new light on the way in which law enforcement evolved during the nineteenth century. This title will be of interest to students of history and criminology.

This study, first published in 1982, is concerned with the nature of crime in nineteenth-century Britain, and explores the response of the community and the police authorities. Each chapter is linked by common themes and questions, and the topics described in detail range from popular forms of rural crime and protest, through crime in industrial and urban communities, to a study of the vagrant. The author pays special attention to the relationship between illegal activities and protest, and emphasizes the context and complexity of official crime rates and of many forms of criminal behaviour. This title will be of interest to students of history and criminology.

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"Crime is an important and persistent theme in the social history of the nineteenth century, always in the public eye and a source of controversy, yet even today lacking an objective literature. Dr Tobias approaches his subject through a wide selection of contemporary documents. After a general introduction, the first section shows that the people of the nineteenth century were as familiar as we are with the social causes of crime. The second gives descriptions of the criminals, their methods of work and the places in which they lived, some from criminals themselves; the third section presents some statistics of nineteenth-century crime with contemporary discussion of the problems of enumeration in this field. The fourth describes the changing policing systems of the era; the fifth portrays the debate about the penal theory and the actual penal practices of the century. Dr Tobias has succeeded in blending the less well-known with the familiar in selecting his extracts. Each document is accompanied by linking paragraphs and full bibliographical notes"--dust jacket

Hard Men is the leading authority on Britain's historic culture of violence. It is dispassionate in tone, and includes discussion of domestic violence against women and political protest.

"The essays in this book set out to explore the ways in which Victorians used newspapers to identify the causes of bad behavior and its impacts, and the ways in which they tried to "distance" criminals and those guilty of "bad" behavior from the ordinary members of society, including identification of them as different according to race of sexual orientation. It also explores how threats from within "normal" society were depicted and the panic that issues like "baby-farming" caused." "Victorian alarm was about crimes and bad behavior which they saw as new or unique to their period - but which were not new then and which, in slightly different dress, are still causing panic today. What is striking about the essays in this collection are the ways in which they echo contemporary concerns about crime and bad behavior, including panics about "new" types of crime. This has implications for modern understandings of how society needs to understand crime, demonstrating that while there are changes over time, there are also important continuities."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

How was law made in England in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? Through detailed studies of what the courts actually did, Peter King argues that parliament and the Westminster courts played a less important role in the process of law making than is usually assumed. Justice was often remade from the margins by magistrates, judges and others at the local level. His book also focuses on four specific themes - gender, youth, violent crime and the attack on customary rights. In doing so it highlights a variety of important changes - the relatively lenient treatment meted out to women by the late eighteenth century, the early development of the juvenile reformatory in England before 1825, i.e. before similar changes on the continent or in America, and the growing intolerance of the courts towards everyday violence. This study is invaluable reading to anyone interested in British political and legal history.

McLynn provides the first comprehensive view of crime and its consequences in the eighteenth century: why was England notorious for violence? Why did the death penalty prove no deterrent? Was it a crude means of redistributing wealth?