transportation and imprisonment of convicts
1770-1868 Transportation and Imprisonment of Convicts
Transportation
• The first significant innovation in eighteenth-century penal practice was the major expansion of the use of transportation. Though it was believed that this punishment may lead to the reformation of the offender, the main motivations behind transportation were a belief in it deterrent effect, and a desire to simply remove criminals from society
• Transportation was put to a halt in 1776 by the outbreak of war with America. Though convicts continued to be sentenced to transportation, male convicts were restricted to hard labour in hulks on the Thames, while the women were imprisoned. In 1787, transportation recommenced with Australia as a new destination. This was perceived as a more severe punishment than imprisonment due to the fact that it involved exile to a distant land
• In the early nineteenth century, as part of the revisions of the criminal law, the maximum punishment for several offences which was previously death, was replaced by transportation for life
• Declination of the number of convicts sentenced to transportation began in the 1840s and this form of punishment was theoretically abolished by the Penal Servitude Act of 1857, which substituted penal servitude for all transportation sentences
Imprisonment
• Early modern prisons were typically used for holding defendants awaiting trial and convicts awaiting punishment. Imprisonment was not seen as a form of punishment in itself.
• New attitudes towards imprisonment were developed from the 1770s. It was believed that if the prisons were redesigned and reordered, they could be used to reform offenders, changing them from rebellious criminals to productive citizens in the very process of punishing their crimes
• Factors which led to renewed interest in imprisonment as a punishment for criminals in the 1770s included: o there was growing dissatisfaction with both transportation and the death penalty, both of which failed to
Transportation
• The first significant innovation in eighteenth-century penal practice was the major expansion of the use of transportation. Though it was believed that this punishment may lead to the reformation of the offender, the main motivations behind transportation were a belief in it deterrent effect, and a desire to simply remove criminals from society
• Transportation was put to a halt in 1776 by the outbreak of war with America. Though convicts continued to be sentenced to transportation, male convicts were restricted to hard labour in hulks on the Thames, while the women were imprisoned. In 1787, transportation recommenced with Australia as a new destination. This was perceived as a more severe punishment than imprisonment due to the fact that it involved exile to a distant land
• In the early nineteenth century, as part of the revisions of the criminal law, the maximum punishment for several offences which was previously death, was replaced by transportation for life
• Declination of the number of convicts sentenced to transportation began in the 1840s and this form of punishment was theoretically abolished by the Penal Servitude Act of 1857, which substituted penal servitude for all transportation sentences
Imprisonment
• Early modern prisons were typically used for holding defendants awaiting trial and convicts awaiting punishment. Imprisonment was not seen as a form of punishment in itself.
• New attitudes towards imprisonment were developed from the 1770s. It was believed that if the prisons were redesigned and reordered, they could be used to reform offenders, changing them from rebellious criminals to productive citizens in the very process of punishing their crimes
• Factors which led to renewed interest in imprisonment as a punishment for criminals in the 1770s included: o there was growing dissatisfaction with both transportation and the death penalty, both of which failed to