Victorian Crime, Punishment, and the Criminal Classes

Victorian Crime, Punishment, and the Criminal Classes By Kevin Collins, Chase Harrison, and Hank Woodard

Types of Punishment • Hanging-common and most severe punishment. Could only be ordered by Assize judges (highest court). Criminal would die of strangulation and wouldn’t lose consciousness for several minutes. Were done publically until 1868 • Transportation-replaced hanging, criminals would be sent to the colonies for several years to serve their punishment • Penal servitude-replaced transportation- imprisonment that involved hard labor and was served in the country. • Imprisonment-until the late 19th century when many new prisons were added, they were just used to hold criminals awaiting trail, debtors, or those serving petty offences • Hard Labor- included quarrying, building roads or laboring on the docks. Could also be carried out in theirs cells. • Whipping-in the early 19th century the amount in public decreased but the amount in private increased. Was not abolished until 1848. • Sending to Armed Forces- often sent to the navy where the conditions were much harder. Sometimes those that enlisted in the navy would receive a pardon. • Fines-not common since most criminals were very poor

Treatment in Prison and Court • In prison- had to pay for every service, even being put in shackles for punishment • Prisons were squalid, overcrowded, and unsanitary • Food was poor and conditions uncomfortable to make prison a deterrent • Conditions improved near the end of the 19th century • In court- often not treated well due to lack of organization

Typical Arrests • Common Serious and Violent crimes- Garroting- street robbery, murder, rape, treason • Offenders were usually young males • Serious non-violent crimes-financial scandals and frauds • Common Victimless crimes (petty offences) -soliciting, drunkenness, and vagrancy. • Most common crime of women- prostitution

Capital Offenses • Criminal offenses went from 5,000 a year in1800 to 20,000 per year in 1840 • Since Queen Victoria came to the throne fewer crimes carried compulsory death sentence • Serious crimes often resulted in transportation instead of hangings. • Transportation was an alternative punishment to hanging Convicted criminals were transported to the colonies to serve their prison sentences. It had the advantages of removing the criminal from society and being quite cheap - the state only had to pay the cost of the journey.

Garroting • Garroting- was the popular term for street robbery • The 1862 panic began when an MP was robbed on his way home from a late sitting of the House of Commons; the press began to see garotters everywhere, • Also, garroting refers to the strangulation of a victim in the course of a robbery

Criminal Classes • By the middle of the century the term 'criminal classes' was more in vogue; it was used to suggest an incorrigible social group – a class - stuck at the bottom of society. Intrepid explorers of the slums and the 'rookeries' of the poor, like Henry Mayhew, often wrote of this 'class‘ as if its members belonged to some distinctive, exotic tribe of Africa or the Americas. • Towards the end of the century, developments in psychiatry and the popularity of Social Darwinism had led, in turn, to the criminal being identified as an individual suffering from some form of behavioral abnormality that had been either inherited or nurtured by dissolute and feckless parents. All such perceptions informed the way that criminals were treated by the criminal justice system. • There were also concerns about 'the dangerous classes' who were thought to lurk in the slums waiting for the opportunity for disorder and plunder.

Bobbies and Peelers • British police came to be known as Bobbies after Sir Robert Peel, with Bobby being short for Robert, who set up the first organized police service in 1829 in London. Peelers came from his second name Peel.

Scotland Yard • Colonel Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne were in charge of organizing the new police force. Mayne’s house opened onto a courtyard; the Great Scotland Yard. The name was inspired by its site, a medieval palace that housed Scottish royalty on their visits to London. • Responsible for protection of important individuals, community patrols, public affairs, and recruitment and personnel management • Although at first uncomfortable, several successful cases and attitude of many detectives changed the publics mind.

Old Bailey • The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street on which it stands, is a court in London and one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court. The Crown Court sitting at the Central Criminal Court deals with major criminal cases from Greater London and, in exceptional cases, from other parts of England and Wales. Part of the present building stands on the site of the medieval Newgate goal, on Old Bailey, a road which follows the line of the City of London's fortified wall (or bailey), which runs from Ludgate Hill to the junction of Newgate Street and Holborn Viaduct

Newgate • So unsanitary, physicians would often refuse to enter. • 30 died a year on average • Fines had to be paid by prisoners for everything • Weren’t supplied many basics such as bedding or clothing • The Ordinaries of Newgate would document accounts of the lives of the prisoners • Most well documented prison in 18th century England

Crime and Punishments in Literature • Before 1800’s, crime literature focused on “sympathetic hero”. Changed with the Publication of Newgate Calendar. • Charles Dickens’ Bleak House was the first Victorian detective story about Inspector Bucket who solves the murder of a lawyer. • Victorian Period is considered to be the “golden age” of detective fiction. Largely due to Sherlock Holmes • Sensational novel followed. Focused more on amateur sleuths but never became as popular as detective fiction

Famous authors who wrote about crime Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes Fergus Hume The Mystery of a Hansom Cab Grant Allen Strand • Charles Dickens Bleak House • Wilkie Collins The Woman in White • William Russell Recollections of a Police Officer

Jack the Ripper • Killer who murdered 5 women in Whitechapel, London in 1888. • All of the women killed, except one, were prostitutes. All were mutilated. • Thought to be a doctor or butcher based on the weapons and mutilations thinking he had some knowledge of the body. • Victims: Mary Ann Nichols, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddoweson, Jane Kelly, Annie Chapman, and Mary Jane Kelly. • Suspects: James Maybrick, Francis Tumblety, Walter Sickert, Joseph Barnett, and George Chapman.

Other Famous Criminals William Palmer- Britain’s “Prince of Poison” Amelia Dyer- baby killer • Dr. Neill Cream- serial killer • Burke and Hare- murderers • Mary Ann Cotton- Britain’s first serial killer

Bibliography • http://www.casebook.org/suspects/suspect_av.html • http://www.umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/bonifield/newgatepic.html • http://www.crimeculture.com/Contents/VictorianCrime.html • http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/ripper_jack_the.shtml • http://listverse.com/2013/02/16/top-10-villainous-victorians/ • http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/world-history/brief-scotland.html • http://www.thepeelsociety.org.uk/robert_peel.html • http://vcp.e2bn.org/library/1181812823/australia_transport.casestudies.jpg • http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/crime_01.shtml • http://vcp.e2bn.org/justice/

Victorian Crime, Punishment, and the Criminal Classes