History (C&P)

• Saxon Crimes: 1000-1066

  Crimes against person - assault, murder

  Crimes against property - theft

  Crimes against authority - treason

  Moral crimes - drunkenness, adultery
• Saxon Policing:

  Largely community-based, hue & cry where whole community chases a criminal or gets a fine, tithings where men over 12 were responsible for actions
• Saxon Trials:

  Manor courts - local, for small cases

  Royal courts - serious crimes

  Local jury judged based on character

  Oaths, trial by ordeal, god decides, church dominates
• Saxon Punishments:

  Stocks, pillory, corporal & capital, blood feud, wergild, fines

  AIMS: Retribution
• Norman Crimes 1066-1200:

  Laws retained, Murdrum and Forest Laws added
• Norman Policing:

  Coroners, sheriffs, JoPs to deal with cases Kings court had no time for

  Church courts, benefit of clergy, sanctuary, neck verse
• Norman Punishments:

  Wergild replaced with Kings peace

  Increase in capital

  AIM: DETERRENT
• Later Medieval Crimes 1200-1500:

  Murdrum abolished 1350

  Heresy introduced 1382

  Incresaed focus on treason
• Later Medieval Policing:

  Assize courts created 1166 for serious crimes

  Trial by ordeal abolished 1215
• Later Medieval Punishment:

  Hung, drawn & quartered in 1305

  AIM: DETERRENT
• Medieval England 100-1500 Factors for Change:

  • Role of church
  • Role of King
  • Changing attitudes
  • Poverty & Wealth
• Early Modern Crimes 1500-1700:

  Heresy, treason - Gunpowder Plot

  Witchcraft

  Poaching

  Smuggling

  Highwaymen
• Early Modern Policing:

  Town Constables - turn in criminals and made arrests

  Night Watchmen - overseen by TC, take turns patrolling

  Decline in community-based effectiveness due to growing population

  Habeas Corpus Act 1679 prevented imprisonment without charge
• Early modern punishments:

  Women could be convicted as scolds

  Houses of correction built (hard labour)

  Transportation to America

  Beginning of Bloody Code 1688
• Vagabondage (Early Modern):

  • Due to rising population and unemployment
  • Feared as vagrants thought to spread disease, steal. Seen as undeserving poor by Protestants and too lazy to work.
  • Books published e.g. Harmon fearmongered
  • In 1531, they were whipped and in 1547 were sentenced to slavery. In 1572 they were burnt, then for 2nd offence executed
• Witch Craze 1645-1647:

  • Demonologie James I spread fear
  • Matthew Hopkins, witchfinder general, exhausted subjects claimed any mouse/spider/fly was a familiar and any scar/boil a devil's mark
  • East Anglia saw 100 executions
• Gunpowder Plot 1605:

  • Catholic persecution under James I.
  • Plotters hid 34 barrels in a cellar under houses of parliament
  • Anonymous letter sent to Lord Monteagle to not go to HOP, Fawkes arrested
  • Taken to ToL, tortured for 3 days until he gave up names of plotters
• Early Modern Factors for Change:

  Growing population

  Printing - spread fear of crime

  Religious changes - reformation (break away from Rome)

  Political instability - English Civil War (1642-1649, parliament defeated Charles I and he was executed, created insecurity and fear)

  Landowner's attitudes (richer, defended their land, threatened by poor)
• Industrial Period Crimes 1700-1900:

  • Treason, vagabondage but witchcraft no longer a crime
  • Smuggling of luxury goods to avoid duties, hard to combat
  • Poaching seen as social crime, people sympathetic, John Lightwood killed 80 hare in one year. Black Act of 1723 made it capital, but repealed 1823
  • Highway robbery fell due to laws on inns where gangs resided and banking
• Industrial Period Policing:

  • Continuity: Parish constables, watchmen
  • Change: Bow Street Runners 1749, MET police 1829, CID 1878

  Greater emphasis on police organisation and deterrence through prevention
• Industrial Period Punishments:

  • Bloody Code - 225 crimes punishable by death in 1810 - ineffective, juries reluctant to sentence
  • Transportation to America 1620-1776 (American Independence)
  • Transportation to Australia 1787-1868 (long voyage, strong until gold rush)
  • Decline in death penalty - enlightenment (science, morality)
  • Imprisonment became method of punishment for REFORM
• Industrial Period Factors for Change:

  • Population growth
  • Industrialisation
  • Fear of Rebellion - French Rev 1789
  • Changing attitudes
• Fielding Brothers:

  Henry and John, magistrates. Introduced a horse patrol to stop highway robbery, effectively ended it.

  Bow Street Runners established - professional thief-takers who patrolled London in evenings

  Newspaper The Hue & Cry published information about criminals, crime and stolen goods - created network of information
• MET:

  Had 3,200 unarmed men, set up due to increased fear of crime and revolution and growing towns made community-based inadequate as well as constables and watchmen

  
  

  Met detective force reorganised into Criminal Investigation Department in 1878
• Prison Systems:

  • Early 1800s, old system - all prisoners together, "schools of crime", able to pay for better conditions, had to pay to be released, Newgate Goal, 275 lived in area for 150
  • Goals Act 1823 - Proper food, separate by gender and crime, attend church, healthy with fresh water. Act due to influence of Elizabeth Fry and John Howard
  • Howard - wanted healthier accommodation, no fees, separation, decent diet
  • Fry - Quaker, highlighted exploitation of female inmates from male warders, encouraged prayer groups in prisons
• Prison Systems cont.

  • Separate System - 1842-1877 90 new prisons built. Prisoners almost always alone. In 8 years at Pentonville, 22 went made, 26 had nervous breakdowns, 3 committed suicide
  • Silent system from 1860 - Silent at all times, if not followed, could be whipped, hammocks replaced with hard wooden bunks, prisoners did hard, pointless labour
• Tolpuddle Martyrs:

  George Loveless asked employers to increase wages, but they refused and cut it again. They set up a union: Friendly society of Agricultural Labourers. Farmers used a law meant for the navy to prevent mutiny against them and martyrs were sent to Australia for 7 years.

  Widespread outcry in Britain, petition demanding release signed by 250,000

  March 1836 Government granted pardon.
• Modern Period 1900-present Crimes:

  New definitions of crime e.g. Hate Crime

  New technology, ways of crime

  Domestic crime - rape, abuse

  Driving offences
• Modern Period Policing:

  Better police training - police training college set up 1947

  Increased used of science and technology - fingerprinting 1901, DNA, photo evidence

  Specialised departments
• Modern Period Punishments:

  • Abolition of Death Penalty 1969 for all crimes - due to changes in government, public attitudes and controversial cases
  • Prisons made for reform - focus on rehabilitation, separate institutions for young offenders
  • Non-custodial punishments e.g. electronic tagging, community service
• Controversial Cases:

  Derek Bentley - severe learning difficulties. When he and Craig were caught burgling, a police man asked Craig to give him his gun, to which Bentley replied "let him have it" and Craig opened fire. Bentley was hung but Craig was only imprisoned. Caused public outcry, made law look cruel

  Ruth Ellis - Hanged in 1956 for shooting her abusive boyfriend

  Timothy Evans - Asked John Christie to perform an abortion on his wife but Christie killed her and blamed it on complications. Feeling guilty, Evans turned himself in for a crime he didn't commit and was hanged.
• Governmental Role in Abolition of Death Penalty:

  Sydney Silverman introduced a Private Member's Bill in 1965 to suspend death penalty for murder.

  Passed on a free vote in House Of Commons by 200 to 98 votes

  Passed in House Of Lords by 204 to 104
• Young Offenders:

  • Victorian Era - tried as adults, harsh
  • First borstal opened 1902 as ideas shifted from punishment to reform
  • Approved schools set up in 1932 for younger than 15, taught job skills but closed in 1956
  • Attendance Centres set up in 1948 to teach life skills, literacy
  • Borstals abolished in 1952 and 60% that were released reoffended
  • Youth Detention centres introduced in 1982, harsh and military-like, failed to deter
• Conscientious Objectors:

  • In WW1 - faced tribunal to decide if genuine, but were made up of ex-soldiers. 6000 refused tribunal's decision and faced solitary confinement and hard labour. COs lost right to vote until 1926
  • In WW2 - 59,000 registered as COs, greater effort made to give alternate work to alternativists, sent to prison as a last resort. Public more sympathetic but still seen as cowards
• Modern Policing:

  Female Officers first introduced 1920

  Training introduced in 1947 - 14 weeks long

  Computer records

  ANPR, CCTV

  Two-way radios introduced 1930s
• Modern Prisons:

  1922 - Solitary Confinement ended

  1933 - Open prisons, leave during the day

  1972 - community service introduced

  1980s - overcrowding at its peak