Crime In The 19th Century

During the nineteenth century why did criminals continue to break the law when the punishment was so barbaric? Despite the Industrial Revolution, crime was on the rise. Was crime due to poverty and the lack of education, more prosperity-induced than poverty-induced, or was it based on where you came from? The Penal System in England during the nineteenth century did not seem fair. Regardless of the reason for criminal activity, the punishment didn’t seem to fit the crime either. Undoubtedly, crime rates were high among children in England during the nineteenth century. There was no formal education and parents were not doing their job teaching their children right from wrong. Crime seemed to be the pastime for children because of a
The Elementary Education Act of 1870 was the first of numerous acts passed to create education in England for children between the ages of five and thirteen. When this act came into place, juvenile crime decreased tremendously. Requiring young children to attend school heightened their skills and taught them more about legal activities instead of illegal activities. Simultaneously during this period, there were multiple theories regarding what factors caused crime. Within sociology itself schools divided as to whether economic, or other social factors were the most important in causing crime (McDonald 406). As far as the most important factor in causing crime, one theory shows that when a person is more prone to mistakes they are treated different than a person who has made good choices. Durkheim believed that the causes of crime are present in the very nature of society. All people support the same moral code, but some people, because of their circumstances in society, can not seem to follow the same moral code. Poverty stricken people engage in crime more
Regardless of the crime and the reason for the crime, the penal system did not seem fair. Children, like adults, were punished the same. Children were actually put in the same cell with adults. They were sexually and physically abused by their cell mate. Some were even sentenced to death. The eighteenth century “Bloody Code” was now being questioned during the nineteenth century. The Bloody Code was a torturous way to punish someone for a crime they committed. Before reformers started bringing in new reforms, a person caught picking pockets or stealing food was sentenced to death. Early nineteenth century practices were based on excessively dramatic examples such as a few hundred were hanged each year and a few thousand were publicly flogged. Most were not prosecuted of serious crime, they were just shipped overseas. The private citizen who was the victim of the crime had to actually pay for the prosecution and even organize it, hence why they were not always prosecuted. It appears society itself just made it easy on crime. This type of punishment was abolished in the nineteenth century. Reformers brought in an alternative punishment to the death penalty. In Britain, the primary penal alternative was not torture or execution, but the expulsion or transportation of