early modern

• New crimes

  Heresy - increased during religious changes

  Vagabonds

  Witchcraft -Matthew Hopkins and james 1 daemonologie

  Highway robbery

  Smuggling

  Poaching

  Increased concern of treason
• Continued law enforcement


  Tithings, Hue and Cry
• Parish constables


  Local man that led chase for criminal during and after hue and cry and had power to enforce law such as whipping vagabond
• Thief takers


  unofficial constables that took payment for finding criminal.
• Continued punishments


  fines, whipping, hanging, stocks and pillory, prisons (for holding trials)
• Bloody code


  1688 - imposed the death penalty for eventually over two hundred, often petty, offences. Its aim was deterrence.
• Transportation


  Criminals shipped off to participate in hard labour in North America.
• House of correction


  punish and reform offenders by hard labour.
• Continued courts/trials


  Judges, Juries and Justices of peace
• Justices of peace


  People of local importance that judged in manor courts and sentenced minor crimes. Four times a year (quarter sessions) they meet at county level to judge serious crimes.
• Manor courts


  dealt with minor crimes
• County assizes


  1293 King Edward ordered that royal judges from London would visit each county two or three times a year to try cases of serious crime from that area. These courts were called county assizes.
• Habeas corpus


  prevented authorities from locking up a person for more than a certain period of time without charge of a crime.
• Church courts


  now only for minor crimes.
• Gun Powder Plot


  1605 plot, at the beginning of James 1 reign, to blow up the king and Parliament by Catholic group.
• Factors effecting society

  Religious turmoil - Henry VIII change to protestant then change between catholic

  Political change - civil war

  Landowners attitudes - wanted laws to defend their property and power.

  Population growth -harder to find work

  Economy - rich poor divide and vulnerable to poor harvest.

  media - new printing press influence fear of witch craft and vaga bondage