Crime and Punishment in the Queen Victorian Era

575 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Changes in the criminal justice system

Out of 1.4 million people that were trialed for a crime 900,000 were imprisoned while 97,000 were sent to transportation, the other 10,300 people were put to death by the guillotine or were hanged .Though the types of crimes occurring during this Era varied the punishments can be seen as somewhat severe and should have been made more fair to the person being trialed. Many things from this Era emerged an example is the idea of long term imprisonment which is just one of the ideas that started then but also can be seen occurring in today’s society.
During the Queen Victorian Era many crimes were going on. The most uncommon crime that was going on was Capital crimes (Mitchell). Capital crimes are any crimes that would be sentenced to death as a punishment with either no trial or a very quick trial. The top 3 capital crimes that occurred in this Era were Piracy the act of stealing at sea, second is setting fire to a arsenal or a dock, and finally murder of any one. The most common crimes that were serious but not serious to be considered as a capital crime were public riots, Robberies that ended up assaulting another individually physically, abduction of kids for their clothes ,and finally poaching in rural and urban England(Mitchell). Capital crimes would either be sentenced to a short term imprisonment or fine to the person that had done the crime.
Crimes occurring during the Victorian Era can be seen happening now, even the names of the categories used to categorize the crimes are still used to label the crimes today .Crimes that were going on during the Queen Victorian era were classified in to two categories(Mitchell). One of the categories was Indictable crimes. Indictable Crimes were crimes that would lead to being put to death or being thrown into jail for long term imprisonment. Examples of Indictable Crime today and then are the murder, armed robbery, larceny, fraud, and finally Rape. The next type of crime is a Summary crime. Summary Crimes are crimes that are less than a felony and would usually lead to a short term imprisonment. Examples of this type of crime then are Vagabonds wandering around without a job. Summary Crimes then that are considered Summary crimes now are poaching of animal when not in season or on private property, Petty theft which is a lesser version of theft, and finally vandalism (Mitchell).

Show More
Related

  • The Guillotine: An Enlightened Way To Kill People

    878 Words  | 2 Pages

    The guillotine made people die a lot faster. Before there was even a guillotine, people would be executed in numerous, horrible ways. In the 5th century with the Romans, “Death was often cruel and included

    Read More

  • Lizzie Borden

    1977 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Lizzie Borden case has mystified and fascinated those interested in crime forover on hundred years. Very few cases in American history have attracted as much attention as the hatchet murders of Andrew J. Borden and his wife, Abby Borden. The bloodiness of the acts in an otherwise respectable late nineteenth century domestic setting is startling. Along with the gruesome nature of the crimes is the unexpected character of the accused, not a hatchet-wielding maniac, but a church-going, Sunday-school-teaching, respectable, spinster-

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Guillotine And The French Revolution

    1770 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Guillotine brought equality in death to the French Revolution. Sometimes people of higher classes would receive quick deaths whereas people of the lower classes would receive slow, torturous deaths. People of many classes were being killed and the Guillotine allowed everyone to receive equal punishments rather than being tortured. The tribunals were self-selected revolutionaries that dictated who was guilty and who needed to be executed. There were 44,000 of these councils. During the tribunals, most people were prosecuted bases on suspicions and no hard evidence. The Guillotine was also depicted on pins which were worn by supporters of the French Revolution. The Guillotine was a very significant tool and a minimum of 440,000 were executed via the Guillotine. In my analysis, the Guillotine added to the motto of the French Revolution “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death.” The Guillotine made death equal and assured liberty and

    Read More

  • Crime And Punishment In The Elizabethan Era

    546 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Crime was met with violent, cruel punishments.” For something as simple as stealing an apple a commoner would lose their hand. They did this for embarrassment. If someone saw them with one hand, they would know you had stolen. “Many executions were witnessed by hundreds of people.” An execution only happened if a threat was made on royals or murder. An execution day was many commoners favorite day. They got the whole day off of work. On these days the whole town would gather and watch as the criminal got his head chopped off. Everything in this time had more painful punishments, but not because of their lack of technology; but because the leaders wanted you to learn your lesson. If someone lost a hand for stealing, they would most likely not do it again.

    Read More

  • jack the ripper

    826 Words  | 2 Pages

    From 1888-1891 a portion of London England known as Whitechapel was terrorized by a rash of murders. In total eleven women were murdered, five of those are thought to be the victim of one of the most well-known serial killers whom was never identified, Jack the Ripper. Out of the murders committed in the two year period, the five had like backgrounds, they lived in boarding houses and were prostitutes, alcoholics, or both. The women were found with their bodies lying on their backs with the legs spread apart. The victims were also found to have been murdered in like fashion with their throats had been slit and their bodies mutilated. This gave Jack the Ripper a specific modus operandi narrowing down the field of likely victims from the original total. Those five murders also took place in a time span of ten months.

    Read More

  • Punishment In The Middle Ages

    673 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many common crimes from the early Medieval period, known as the Dark Ages, included adultery, intentional murder, robbery and kidnapping. People were even punished harshly for trivial crimes such as stealing a loaf of bread. . This was considered a serious offence in this time period. These crimes were mainly executed people who had no job. So they resorted to these crimes to get

    Read More

  • Katherine Watkins Vs Common Law

    1154 Words  | 3 Pages

    In colonial America, the court structure was quite different from that of their mother country, Great Britain. The system was a triangle of overlapping courts and common law. Common law was largely influenced by the moral code from the King James Version of the Bible, also known as moral law. In effect, these early American societies were theocratic and autocratic containing religious leaders, as well as magistrates. Sometimes these men were even one and the same. The criminal acts in colonial America were actually very similar to the crime prevalent in our society today. However, certain infractions were taken more seriously. Through the documents provided, we get a look at different crimes and their subsequent punishments in colonial

    Read More

  • Old Bailey Records Case Study

    963 Words  | 2 Pages

    This account of Mary Brown provides historians with insight into the social and legal practices of the 18th century. This case identifies the social unrest and anxiety regarding the popularity of theft, and in this case shoplifting. This case reiterates this units themes, including, the gendering of crime. London society believed shoplifter most often to be women. The Old Bailey records, reaffirm the notion of gendered crime, and that women were more often than men accused and convicted of shoplifting. However,

    Read More

  • Prison Reform In America

    1883 Words  | 4 Pages

    "Today's system, where imprisonment is a common penalty for most crimes, is a historical newcomer." Many crimes during 1718 and 1776 were punishable by death. This was usually done by hanging, sometimes by stoning, breaking on the rack and burning at the stake. Towards the end of the 1700's people realized that cruel punishment did little to reduce crime and their society was changing the population grew and people started to move around more frequently. There had to be a search for new punishments. "New punishments were to rely heavily on new ideas imported from Europe in the writing of such social thinkers of the Enlightenment as the baron de Montesquieu, Voltaire, Thomas Pain and Cesare Beccaria". These thinkers came to believe that criminals could be rehabilitated."

    Read More

  • The Rage to Kill Those who Kill

    1370 Words  | 3 Pages

    Parts of the criminal justice system are straightforward, requiring little interpretation or subjective thinking to understand their meaning. For example, law enforcement officials must properly collect and introduce evidence to determine whether a subject did in fact commit a crime. And once a suspect is apprehended, very clear rules are followed on the process of his or her arrest. Crimes themselves are clearly defined, as well: murder, arson, robbery. The constitution is specifying that the death penalty may be used, but warns that there are certain stipulations that must first be met.

    Read More

  • Vanessa George and Sex Offending

    2311 Words  | 5 Pages

    This essay will explore reasons why females such as Vanessa George turn to the crime of sex offending. Demonstrating my knowledge and understanding of classical criminological theory, exploring biological theories such as penis envy and more contemporary views such as liberation theory within feminism. The essay will then go on to look at the inequalities female sex offenders face within the criminal justice system in comparison with males, using chivalry theory and evil woman theory to explain this.

    Read More

  • Crime and Punishment in Medieval Europe

    1021 Words  | 3 Pages

    The aim of this lesson will be to develop students understanding of crime and punishment in Medieval Europe. As outlined in AUSVELS, this will include investigating different kinds of crime and punishment utilised and the ways the nature of crime and punishment has either stayed the same throughout history, or changed over time.

    Read More

  • Punishment In Australia Essay

    546 Words  | 2 Pages

    Punishment occurs to individuals who break the law. It is also used to maintain the level of crime and to protect community members in Australia. To determine that society is content with maintaining the crime rate, this essay will discuss punishment types given to offenders and how society justifies the use punishment. Additionally, providing a brief overview of the community correction and prions rates to show that communities prefer to incarcerate lawbreakers. Highlighting that crime rates are being maintained by looking at the personal crime rate for assault before concluding that Australian society feel safe enough to allow the criminal justice system to sustain the crime rate.

    Read More

  • Laws, Lawyers, and Punishment in the Victorian Period

    753 Words  | 2 Pages

    However, this system of laws changed much throughout the century. The Chancery became merely a joke for there you could not present evidence during trials and Parliament came to view it as necessary for matters of will and divorce to be referred to new civil courts instead of the church. In 1873 the 3 common law courts and the Chancery were combined to make the Supreme Court

    Read More

  • Comparing Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground

    490 Words  | 1 Pages

    Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground   Fyodor Dostoyevsky's stories are stories of a sort of rebirth.  He weaves a tale of severe human suffering and how each character attempts to escape from this misery.  In the novel Crime and Punishment, he tells the story of Raskolnikov, a former student who murders an old pawnbroker as an attempt to prove a theory.  In Notes from the Underground, we are given a chance to explore Dostoyevsky's opinion of human beings.

    Read More

More about Crime and Punishment in the Queen Victorian Era

Open Document