What Crime And Punishment Was Like In The 19th Century

The objective of this essay is to examine what crime and punishment was like during the 17th century through to the 19th century. Throughout the 17th and the 19th century, in Europe, states were being taken over by early forms of organized crime, such as highwaymen, bandits, brigands and bushrangers. Europe was not the only country to be overrun with organized crime, international countries had to deal with them too.
How organized crime came to be was during the 15th and 17th centuries, in Europe there were a lot of countries going to war causing the economy to drop drastically. Cities in France, Italy, Spain and German were taken over by “bands of army deserters, discharged soldiers, smugglers and robbers.” (Roth 145) Additionally, the states did not have
Bushrangers were created by the British transportation of convicts to Australia in the late 18th century. Compared to British highwayman, Bushrangers were seen has more hostile and violent as a result of coming from convict colonies. To become a bushranger convicts would escape overcrowded convict settlements to the bush were there was vastness of wide open space. Bushrangers would live off the land and robbed settlers for clothing and food. An instance, James Barry “choose the life of a bush over the penal system.” (Roth 168) barry was soon caught and convicted after burglarizing a settler’s home and would received as punishment 1,000 lashings, then prisoners would imprisoned on starvation rations. Australia devised to decrease the activity, by deploying mounted police. There was also an act passed called the Bushranging Act which stated that anyone convicted of robbing or plundering house would be executed within 24 hours of conviction. “This Act was later repealed 4 years later which then convicts would be sentenced to hard manual labor on public work projects.” (Roth