Crime In Industrialized England

Crime in Industrialized England Draft

In 1761, at the beginning of the industrial revolution, England’s population consisted of 6.3 million inhabitants whereas 80 years later the population rose to 14.9 million, rising even with war and emigration transpiring. 1 The industrial revolution was a big step for Great Britain but not all benefitted, especially the poor and working class. One of the biggest negative side effects was poverty which increased the amount of street peddlers in the city streets. As that number grew many people grew upset complaining that they were blocking shops and taking up space, forcing street traders to move out to country borders, giving them less business and forcing them deeper into poverty. 2 With the beginning of the industrial revolution in the late 1700’s came the Crime Wave of the 1780’s where city prisons were filled to capacity and the amount of crime pushed forward policing levels and prosecution rates. This was only the beginning of a whole new era of criminal reform. 3 As the industrial revolution took its course throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the negative effects such as varying food prices and gruesome working and living conditions spurred rising crime rates, especially in property crime, leading to numerous police reforms and acts. Although these changes were not very effective in curbing the high crime they did end up laying a foundation for more successful reforms in the future.

Property crime was the highest committed offence and the one brought to court the most often during the industrial revolution. The biggest underlying factor of this crime was poverty and people's desperation for more money and more goods. Theft of clothing and food were the most common types ...

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...there are so many that only a small group of people are to fulfill in the district that they are responsible for it seems impossible to do all of this along with prevent crime and bring criminals in to the main police houses.

After the hungry 40’s, in the 19th century when the benefits of the industrial revolution began to appear, crime rates went down because food prices were more stable and sometimes decreasing and there was a higher amount of exports of industrial goods leading to more money. (Clive Emsley, Crime Reasoning Notecard, 41.) The police played a very small role in the decrease in crime but the years of carefully thought out policing systems .. lkALKJDSAKLDJ?!?!?!? This signified the end of the industrial revolution although the exact year is up to much debate because England continued to industrialize and innovate in the follow century.