attitudes to punishment

• T: retribution


  make criminal suffer

  murder = execution/capital punishment

  lesser crimes e.g. begging = corporal punishment
• T: deterrence


  harsh and humiliating punishments

  rural welsh areas criminals were paraded through town on a cefyl pren
• T: welsh examples


  1555 bishop Robert Ferrar burned for heresy in Carmarthen market square

  battle of st fagans 1648 240 captives found guilty of treason, transported to the west indies
• I: attitudes to the bloody code


  pious perjury

  crime rate rose ( petty crime)

  execution = entertainment so not a deterrent
• I: prisons


  by 1860s >90% serious offenders imprisoned

  90 new prisons 1842 -77

  marshalsea prison >300 near starvation

  privately owned: gaolers charge for food, release fee
• I: gaols act 1823


  prison in each county, wage for gaolers, prisoners classified on age gender offence
• I: prison act 1865


  "hard labour, hard fare, hard board"
• I: prison act 1877


  all prisoners under home office control
• I: gladstone committee 1895 


  isolation had a bad impact on mental health

  young prisoners 16-20 shouldn't be subjected to harsh punishments

  taught worthwhile skills
• I: separate system


  under the prison act off 1839

  isolate in cells - rope 4.5m apart when exercising

  work machines like the crank

  meant to make them reflect and reform

  1st 8 yrs Pentonville 22 went mad 3 suicide

  Ruthin prison Wales 1878
• I: silent system


  break criminals through harsh discipline

  pointless tasks: picking oakum

  deter: make prison life as unpleasant as possible
• M: death penalty


  19th century 10% hung

  abolished in 1965

  last person = welshman Timothy evans 1950, murder of wife + daughter

  • was innocent, people question the penalty, given a posthumous pardon in 1966
• M: prisons

  1902 hard labour ends

  1907 probation services

  1922 solitary confinement ends
• M: young offenders


  borstals set up 1902 for 15-21 yr olds to reform

  juvenile courts

  young offenders institutes set up 1988 - Parc prison bridgend