DEVELOPMENTS IN PUNISHMENT TUDOR

1. DEVELOPMENTS IN PUNISHMENT TUDOR Focus of Tudor punishments. (Deterring others from committing the crime, use of public humiliation and removing the criminal from society.) PUBLIC EXECUTIONS (Marian persecutions; John Penry; MQS) CORPORAL PUNISHMENT (Stocks; flogging; pillory; carting) IMPRISONMENT (Bridewells; debtors prisons; houses of correction) HOW EFFECTIVE WAS IT? Quite effective as there was not a massive issue with crime during this period, and the population was small, however some crimes, such as ones associated with poverty or religion, were very hard to stamp out.

2. Fines Stocks Flogging Tudor Punishments Carting Pillory Executions Can you describe each punishment? Ducking stool Prisons What was the purpose of punishment in the Tudor period?

3. Usually took place on market day so it could be as public as possible. Purpose was to humiliate the criminal in public. Whipping was ordered for a wide variety of offences. Vagrants were whipped before being turned out of the parish. Thieves who had stolen goods worth less than a shilling were whipped; so were regular drunkards and those who refused to attend church, or seriously misbehaved in church. Flogging The Ducking Stool was used to punish women who had been convicted of being scolds, which meant swearing or arguing in public, trouble making or disobeying their husbands. Purpose was the humiliate them in public. Ducking stool Many minor offences such as swearing, gambling, drunkenness and failing to attend church were punished by the criminal having to pay money as a consequence for their crime. The purpose of this was to allow the criminal to compensate the community for their crime and to deter others from committing this crime. Fines

4. Used to punish crimes such as cheating at cards, selling under-weight or rotten goods, and persistent swearing. It was a humiliating [punishment, where offenders placed their head and hands through a wooden stand in the village square. Crowds would often gather and throw things such as rotten vegetables and occasionally stones at the criminal. The humiliation was aimed at deterring others from committing these crimes. Pillory Similar to the pillory but the criminal’s feet would be trapped in the wooden device. Used mainly for those who could not afford to pay fines or for drunkenness. This was a humiliating punishment and would take place on market day in the village square to draw attention to the criminal. Crowds would often gather and throw things such as rotten vegetables and occasionally stones at the criminal. Stocks Carting Carting meant being paraded around the streets in a cart and was used to punish vagrancy, adultery or running a brothel. The purpose of this was to humiliate the criminal.

5. Public hanging drawing and quartering, for acts of treason such as Guy Fawkes. Used as a warning to others. Public burning, high profile heretics such as Latimer and Ridley. Used most often under Mary Tudor during the ‘Marian Persectutions’. Purpose was to scare others into not committing the crime. Private beheadings, such as that of Mary Queen of Scots were rare. This was done in private as Elizabeth was worried about being seen to kill a monarch. Tudor executions Public hanging, was the most common form of execution. These executions took place most often at Tyburn in London and Lancaster Castle n the north. Done to prohibit others from committing these crimes.

6. DEVELOPMENTS IN PUNISHMENT INDUSTRIAL Focus of Industrial punishment: INITIALLY to deter people with harsh punishments for crimes. GRADUALLY a small shift towards ‘reforming’ criminals. Constant focus on punishment by removal. Public hangings to entertain people banned. Bloody (criminal code) Transportation Criminal code reform (work of Peel; Samuel Romily) Prison reform (G.O. Paul; John Howard; Elizabeth Fry; separate and silent systems) HOW EFFECTIVE WAS IT? Developments initially were from a humanitarian focus, also, new police force helped reduce crime dramatically. HOWEVER, crime still quite high, and although there were huge steps towards reforming criminals, crimes of poverty continued.

7. The Bloody Code • Capital offences included: • Murder, treason or piracy. • Stealing anything worth 25p or more • Cutting down trees in certain areas. • Shooting a rabbit. • Stealing a fish from a river. • Wearing a disguise. • Being out at night with a blackened face • An unmarried mother concealing a stillborn child • arson It was known as the 'Bloody Code' because of the huge numbers of crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed. In the years after 1660 the number of offences carrying the death penalty increased enormously, from about 50, to 160 by 1750 and to 288 by 1815. Developed because: Land owning classes feared for their property. Perceived increase in crime in newspapers. Development of new crimes such as smuggling and highway robbery. Once they’re dead they don’t tend to reoffend! As many of the crimes holding the death penalty by the 1700s and 1800s were crimes of necessity crime did rise. The Bloody Code was ineffective.

8. The policy of ‘transportation’ was introduced in 1718 under the ‘Transportation Act’ and lasted for about 140 years. It provided a partial solution to the problem of overcrowding in British prisons and also enabled the country to rid itself of some of its least desirable citizens. Also a more ‘Christian’ alternative to the ‘Bloody Code’. Convicts in initially transported to the new colonies in America to be used as free labour to build up infrastructure for free. People who were transported were usually made to work for a period of seven or fourteen years. They had to labour under very harsh conditions, for no wages, and were often forced to work in chains. Many died whilst serving their sentence. The policy of transportation also caused an upsurge in crime and disorder in the American colonies. Those who survived were given a small piece of land to start a new life on. Those colonists who had travelled to America to start a new life soon began to resent the increasing presence of convicts in their new homes. The American colony rebelled. England had to think of somewhere new to send it’s convicts.

9. In 1787 Eleven ships left Portsmouth carrying 1026 people, 736 of whom were convicts sentenced to transportation for seven years, fourteen years or life. The youngest was nine, oldest was 82 years old Transportation to Australia became very common as prisons were overcrowded and many judges were unwilling to sentence young criminals to death for minor crimes. Australia received many more convicts that America ever did. As with America these convicts were put to hard labour building up settlements in this new colony. Conditions were harsh and many died both in Australia and en route. Transportation from Britain and Ireland officially ended in 1868 although it had become uncommon several years earlier.

10. Criminal Code Reform • Key players: Samuel Romilly, Robert Peel • By nineteenth century over 200 crimes are punishable by death. • Despite use of ‘Bloody Code’ crime still increasing. • Romilly campaigned for pickpocketing to no longer be a capital crime. • Eventualy Peel reduced number of capital crimes to five. • In the mid nineteenth century all executions became private NOT public. • Focus of punishment becomes more about rehabilitation/reform of prisoners.

11. Prisons in the Industrial Revolution • Problems • Purpose to ‘remove’ criminals. • Poor sanitation, many died from disease in prison. • Jailers not paid, so made money from extorting prisoners. • Had to pay a ‘jailers fee’ to leave prison regardless of innocence or guilt. • No access to medical care. • No efforts to reform prisoners to stop them reoffending. • 1823 Gaols Act • Sir Robert Peel (Home Secretary) got this act through Parliament. • Introduced regular visits by prison chaplains • The payment of gaolers (jailers) • women warders were put in charge of women prisoners • Prisoners could no longer be put in heavy irons. • HOWEVER, THIS RULES NOT ENFORCED UNTIL THE INTRODUCTION OF PRISON INSPECTORS UNDER THE 1853 PRISON ACT.

12. High Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1733 he had to inspect the county’s gaols and was shocked by what he saw. He made it his life’s work to report on every prison in England, Wales and Europe. He made tours of prisons across Britain and abroad and was so shocked by what he saw that he published his findings in a book called the “State of prisons in England and Wales in 1777”. He measured everything — the size of cells, the weight of food, the numbers and types of prisoners and recorded deaths from disease. He recommended more space, better food, paid gaolers, separation of types and genders of prisoners. He also gave evidence to Parliament. John Howard’s book showed how dangerous prisons were. They were often schools for crime, turning young prisoners into hardened criminals. • He recommended: • Clean running water • Prison doctors appointed • Food for all prisoners • The end of fees paid to jailers • Regular visits by churchmen • Prisoners to work hard and spend lots of time in silence so they can change their attitudes to crime He found:  Disease is common There aren’t enough people employed to look after the prisoners The jailers earn no wage so make their money by charging the prisoners for bedding and food Many prisoners learn about crime from other prisoners. Many prisoners found innocent cannot afford the jailers’ fees to be let out so stay inside. John Howard’s work was important because he wanted to address the problems that he encountered in prisons and to show that they could reform as well as punish offenders. He wanted prisons to be healthy places, where the genders were separated and where gaolers were trained to help prisoners to reform themselves. His work inspired others, like G O Paul and William Blackburn, to improve the prison system.

13. Firstly, she visited the prisons and encouraged other middle class women to do so, overcoming official opposition and setting up education classes for women.  She was ahead of her time in the way she treated the prisoners as human beings.  Elizabeth did not impose discipline on them but instead proposed rules and invited the prisoners to vote on them, and she put an educated prisoner in charge. • Fry encouraged prisoners to keep their cells clean and found them work knitting stockings for 2p a week. She also helped prisoners to read and write, began a school for prisoner’s children and held Bible readings. • Set up the ‘Association for the Improvement of the Females’ at Newgate prison. The focus of this group was to reform female prisoners through religious instruction and preparing skills to help them gain legal employment when they left prison. • In 1835, she testified before the House of Commons Parliamentary committee, established to investigate "The State of Gaols in England and Wales." Elizabeth also spoke before a House of Lords Select Committee in the same year. Elizabeth Fry was a Quaker (type of Christian) who can from a rich family. In 1813 a visiting fellow-Quaker showed her the conditions in which women prisoners were kept in Newgate prison.  Newgate was a prison which held both men and women awaiting trial, sentencing, execution, and transportation.  Elizabeth found women and children living and dying in conditions of horror, filth, and cruelty.  She resolved to do something about it.  Fry’s work was important because she was the first prison reformer to focus her efforts on the plight of family and female prisoners. Fry’s campaigning especially in Parliament encouraged the ‘Gaol’s Act (1823)’.

14. Sir George Onesiphorus was a leading county magistrate in the late eighteenth century who was inspired by the work of John Howard. • Promoted reform and rebuilding of prisons on lines advocated by Howard, including the provision of separate cells. Given powers to create four new prisons in Gloucestershire to replace old Bridewells under the Gloucestershire Act, 1785. • Prisoners were separated into different types and he paid attention to the rules as well as the buildings. The extensive, three-storeyed buildings were ranged around three quadrangles and housed a gaol, penitentiary, and house of correction; in the perimeter wall on the east side was a gatehouse. • Prisoners were to be reformed through work, education and religion. • Prisoners had to wear a yellow and blue uniform and keep clean. They spent long periods of time on their own thinking about their crime. SEPARATION of prisoners from each other was later taken further. Paul’s prison and rules became a model for other prisons. Provided a working model of the new seperate prisons which were now focused on reforming criminals . G.O. Paul’s prisons led to design of new Pentonville prison.

15. SEPARATE SYSTEM • Pupils kept isolated from each other. • After weeks of non-contact, the prison chaplain would persuade the prisoner to lead a better, godlier life. • Pentonville prison opened in 1842 as a model “separate prison” and by 1850, there were 50 others using the system. • It was believed that this separation would give criminals time to reform through reflection. • SILENT SYSTEM • Silent involved a prisoner doing a boring task in complete silence. They were forced to walk around “treadmills” like hamsters in a cage, unravel old rope or turn handles that scooped up and emptied cups of sand. • The idea was to allow a prisoner time to reflect on their crime, and not allow them any chance to corrupt each other. • From the 1850s the crime rate was falling. The new, more lenient, prison system was well suited to a less crime-ridden society.

16. DEVELOPMENTS IN PUNISHMENTS MODERN Massive focus on reform and a growing awareness of the moral implications of punishments. Still some focus on removal but also reform and restitution. Abolition of corporal and capital punishment Changes to prisons (open prisons; Borstals; Young Offender Institutes; Conditions in prisons) Alternatives to imprisonment (suspended sentences; tagging; ASBOs; probation and parole; community service.) HOW EFFECTIVE WAS IT? Murder rate did not drop massively after removal of capital punishment nor did it rise massively. Some success with reforming criminals both through community service and prison reform/education programmes. Overcrowding in prisons is also an issue with modern punishments.

17. WHY WAS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ABOLISHED? • Focus of punishment was now on reforming criminals. • Several high profile cases including that of Derek Bentley highlighted the flaws in the use of capital punishment. • After all the death and suffering of WWII many people had seen enough death. • Prisons were improving. • HOW WAS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ABOLISHED? • Under the terms of the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 hanging was suspended for an experimental period of five years. • After there was seen to be no major change in the murder rate the Murder Act was adopted permanently in 1969. The abolition of the death sentence everywhere under British rule marks the end of a long road of reform since the early 19th century, when Britain’s “Bloody Code” imposed the death penalty for 200 offences. • WHAT WERE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS CHANGE? • Focus of punishment was now on reforming criminals. • Led to further focus on use of prisons. • Led to the creation of new punishments such as community service, suspended sentences and tagging to take the strain off overcrowded prisons.

18. Changes to prisons in the early 20th Century • In 1902 hard labour on the crank and treadwheel was abandoned. • In 1922 solitary confinement was ended. Prisoners were allowed to talk to each other. The convicts’ arrow uniforms were replaced by ordinary clothes. Prisoners were allowed more visitors. • From 1922 onwards, diet, health and conditions in cells improved gradually. Teachers were employed in prisons in order to give prisoners a better chance of finding work after being released. • In 1934 the first open prison was started. In an open prison the rules were more relaxed. Prisoners were allowed to leave the prison to work. • Crime and fear of crime had reduced, so there was less pressure on prisons to be seen to be harsh. Between 1910 and the 1930s the prison population halved because more people were put on probation instead and because from 1914 people were given more time to pay fines. Eighty percent of prisoners were on short sentences or were one-off offenders. • The old belief that criminals inherited their criminal tendencies was declining. Instead criminals were regarded as ordinary people who had the misfortune to be brought up in poverty, or who had criminal families who led them astray. • Issues in prisons in the later 20th Century • Overcrowding became a serious problem in the 1980s, Leeds prison was designed to hold 624 prisoners. In 1981 it housed 1200. It had sixteen baths and three showers and the water supply was so variable that only four baths could be used at once. • In some prisons overcrowding combined with a shortage of staff meant that prisoners had to spend 23 hours a day in their cells, and reform and education programmes were cut. • 40% of all prisoners in Britain were serving long sentences for violent crime. • The Government decided to build more prisons, including for the first time since the 19th century, prison ships. These private prisons were run by security companies who were paid by the Government per prisoner. They housed mainly low-risk offenders and they operated under a strict set of rules.

19. Open prisons • In 1934 the first open prison was started. In an open prison the rules were more relaxed. • Open prisons hold a mixture of prisoners serving a few weeks or months and long-termers on anything from four years to life. • Focus on gradually introducing long-term prisoners into the outside world again. Offer a measure of freedom and personal responsibility that is denied in closed prisons. • Prisoners, many of them white-collar criminals doing time for fraud and deception, can spend most of the day roaming the facility. • Activities include academic classes, business studies or technical training, as well as work in the community. But they are expected to show up for daily roll calls.

20. If a prisoner is found guilty of breaking prison rules, they can be kept in their cell for up to 21 days (adults) or ten days (young offenders) given up to 42 extra days in prison on top of their original sentence. Prisoners who follow rules can earn privileges. This is called the ‘Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme’. A prisoner may be able to: get more visits from family or friends be allowed to spend more money each week  Privileges are different in each prison - staff can explain to the prisoner how the scheme works. Courses are normally available to help prisoners get new skills, eg learning to read and write, use computers and do basic maths. Most prisoners get an Individual Learning Plan listing courses and training. Many prisoners get the chance to work while carrying out their sentence, eg making clothes and furniture or electrical engineering. This is done in prison workshops and is normally paid work. Prisoners can also work around the prison itself - eg in kitchens and laundries. Closed prisons Each prison has its own rules about what a prisoner can keep in their cell. They may be able to keep things such as: newspapers, books and magazines, a stereo, or something to play music on, and earphones, writing and drawing materials. All prisoners have certain rights, which include protection from bullying, the right to food and water, to be able to contact a solicitor and healthcare. Focus on removing criminal from society and attempting to reform them, with limited success. More than one in four criminals reoffended within a year, according to the most recent Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures, committing 500,000 offences between them.

21. The first institution was established at Borstal Prison in a village called Borstal, near Rochester, Kent, England in 1902. The system was developed on a national basis and formalised in the Prevention of Crime Act 1908. Borstals were created to separate young offenders from more experienced criminals. The focus of these institutions was designed to be "educational rather than punitive", but it was highly regulated, with a focus on routine, discipline and authority. The use of whipping (birching) was used but only male inmates over 18 might be so punished. This power was very rarely used – there were only 7 birching cases in borstals in the 10 years to 1936. This birching power was available only in England and Wales (not in Scottish borstals). Borstals Despite their purpose there were accusations of abuse and some said that "more often than not they were breeding grounds for bullies and psychopaths." The Criminal Justice Act 1982 abolished the borstal system in the UK, introducing youth custody centres instead.

22. Prisoners serving sentences at young offenders institutions are expected to take part in at least 25 hours of education per week, which is aimed at helping them to improve their behaviour, to develop practical skills for use in the outside world and to prepare them for lawful employment following their release. There are also opportunities for prisoners to undertake work in Community Service. Young offender wings also exist within adult prisons. Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) are prisons for 15-21 year olds. Lack of resources and intimidating atmospheres are said to hamper rehabilitation work. Indeed, some critics argue that the effect of incarceration has the opposite intended effect: with little to occupy them and in the company of other offenders, detainees may be put on the road to a life of crime. Focus on reform through education but poor staffing ratios mean that this education is often limited.