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Do social inequalities cause crime
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Law and Order in Victorian London
In this essay I will be discussing what law and order was seen as in
Victorian London. I will be discussing the corruption throughout law
and order in the country, how crimes led to the formation of the
Metropolitan police and a new prison system.
The industrial revolution was the reason why crimes, population, money
and valuable goods had increased. If you were poor, there was a lot of
money and valuable goods to be taken for grabs. The invention new
crimes had become to show such as; street gambling, pick pocketing and
murder. The gradual increase of crime was outstanding. It had
increased from 5000 in 1800 till 20000 in 1840. This shows that many
people disobeyed the rules and regulations and that something was
missing in protection of society. With all factories goods coming into
the UK there was more valuable items to steal especially with a large
increase of poverty.
There was huge numbers of unemployment due to machinery being more
reliable and efficient than humans. This then made a new consequence;
it led to more poverty and more people desperate for money. This shows
that this may be one of the reasons why crimes increased. As
unemployment was increasing, immigrants were coming to Britain also
leading to a huge increase in the population and also an increase in
crime. This is because of the lack of jobs. As there was lots of money
surrounding the poor, little law and order and no jobs, people just
looted factories and warehouses for goods. This logically is humane to
do, as if you’re starving and there is no jobs to cover then the only
option left is to steal. Children had to go to school due to the 1870
education act. Parents made children miss school to swipe food, pick
pocket or any other method of breaking the law for beneficial reasons.
At the start of the 1800’s crime, law and order became a major
increasing problem. In 1839 the population of London was 1.5 million
The system of crime and law enforcement had hardly changed in Britain since the medieval times. Justices of the Peace or JPs were appointed by the Crown since 1361. Before the night watchmen and parish constables were introduced a primitive police force was introduced and the JPs were assisted by constables who only worked part time and were very unreliable as the pay was really bad. The early stages of the force consisted of a night watchmen and parish constables, who were prior to the creation of the main police force. Watchmen were groups of men, usually authorised by a state, government, or society, to deter criminal activity and provide law enforcement. Constables were required to apprehend anyone accused of a felony and bring criminals to a justice of the peace. They also had a general responsibility to keep the peace. There was no expectation that they would investigate and prosecute crimes because of limited responsibility and training. Night watchmen patrolled the streets between 9 or 10pm until sunrise and were expected to examine all suspicious characters. In the City of London, the City Marshall and the Beadles (Parish wardens) conducted daytime patrols. Similar to the night watchmen, primary responsibilities were to patrol and deter, drunkenness, beggars, vagrants and prostitutes and to act as a deterrent against more serious offences. Over the course of this period, the arrangements by which men served as constables and watchmen changed significantly, to incorporate how felons were detected and apprehended.
“For many early Victorians, policing was a new and low-status occupation. Few men became policeman for positive reasons" (Taylor 49).
Published on the heels of Billing’s article, Douglas Greenberg’s “Crime, Law Enforcement, and Social Control in Colonial America” (1982) examines the effectiveness and factors of colonial law enforcement. Unlike New England’s legal system, which he describes as the most effective in seventeenth century America, “the Chesapeake colonies weathered a terrifying degree of conflict that was reflected not only in personal assaults and frequent thefts, but in substantial political violence as well.” He argues that the Virginia colony was at an innate disadvantage in terms of social order since the unequal sex ratio and age distribution meant a high level of violent crime. As such, stable family units which could have helped in subduing such undesired
From 1801 to 1851, the population of London grew from under 1 million inhabitants to 2.25 million. This was due in large part to immigration, both from other countries and from the countryside of England. Hundreds of thousands of people were moving to the newly industrialized cities and towns to find work, having been squeezed off the land because of the enclosure of farms. There was also displacement of the working-class within the city of London because of a number of construction projects. There were street improvement schemes in which tenements were razed in order to widen the passages. The transformation of part of the city into a non-residential district devoted to finance and commerce destroyed whole neighborhoods. Finally, in 1820 the construction of the London Docks meant the destruction of 1,300 houses, followed in 1828 by the construction of St. Catherine's Dock resulting in the loss of a further 1,033 residences.
"During the Elizabethan era, crimes of treason and offenses against the state were treated with the same severity that murder is today” (Beyer 1). Some crimes in the Elizabethan era wouldn’t even be considered crimes today. Punishments were extreme. Minor crimes such as begging would result in public beating until they ran to the town’s border. If any simple crimes were repeated they would be sent to jail, or possibly hung. On the other hand, those who committed extreme crimes wouldn’t be considered for jail. Depending on what time the activity was committed, it could be considered a crime. “Punishment for poaching crimes differed according to when the crime was committed - Poaching at night resulted in the punishment by death, whereas poaching during the day time did not.” (“Elizabethan Crime and Punishment” 1) . Elizabethans would cautiously watch their activities, as they knew any simple wrongdoing could be considered for capital punishment.
During the 1950s and 1960s, law and order was thought to be an issue out with the control of political parties and it was the shared opinion that the people who held the specific knowledge about it, not the politicians in question, should be the ones to sort crime, so there was no real link between governance and the control of criminality. There is the opinion that the penal welfare system was able to flourish within the
Victorian homes offered children a large network of various caregivers built in to the family structure. Each married couple had an average of six children, but the average household was considerably larger. Rarely would one find the nuclear family living alone. Only thirty-six per cent of families consisted simply of a set of parents and their children. Extended families were also rare. Only 10 per cent of families had three or more generations under one roof. The average household would more likely be a conglomeration of a nuclear family along with any number of random outsiders. The stragglers could include any combination of lodgers, distant relatives, apprentices and/or servants.
Written in 1947, J.B. Priestley's didactic murder-mystery, An Inspector Calls, accentuates the fraudulent Edwardian era in which the play was set. Britain in 1912 was inordinately different to Britain in 1947, where a country annihilated by war was determined to right the wrongs of a society before them. In 1912 Britain was at the height of Edwardian society, known as the "Golden Age". A quarter of the globe was coloured red, denoting the vast and powerful Empire and all Britons, no matter what class they belonged to were proud to be British - the "best nation in the world".
While researching texts written about the patterns of crime and punishment in the nineteenth century, I found authors who published books, scholarly articles, and other useful information. These articles were rather heterogeneous; from talking about punishment for pregnancy out of wedlock, to crime rates growing from Irish immigrants in England, and the differentiation in crime of the genders. However, while these authors discuss crime and punishment, they discuss them in multiplicities, there is no certain rate or discussion of what crimes were often performed. My general goal in this paper is to bring to light the certain crimes and the punishments for these crimes in the Victorian Era. I aspire to efficiently explain the originality of the crime in the period of the nineteenth century.
“Wife beating” was a prominent occurrence in Victorian times. It is socially acceptable and may be seen as a characteristic of the lower classes, but “wife beating” is prevalent in all classes. In William Montagu’s social investigation Round London: Down East and Up West, he tells of women in the hospital: “Sometimes as many as twelve or fourteen women may be seen seated in the receiving-room, waiting for their bruised and bleeding faces and bodies to be attended to […] In nine cases out of ten the injuries have been inflicted by brutal and perhaps drunken husbands” (Montagu). Many incidents of domestic violence in Victorian times are influenced by alcohol. But “wife beating” is present in all classes, not just the lower classes as Montagu portrays. Caroline Norton, a Victorian author in mid nineteenth century England, commonly writes of her husbands continuous “wife-beating.” Her husband being a member of parliament is obviously not lower class. Yet she writes of his “physical violence” towards her and how the servants restrain him from “inflicting serious damage” (Norton 1). Sir Pitt also beats his wife also even though he is considered upper class.
With what seemed as a failed economy, its people were forced into a new way of living where hunger, illness, poverty, and unemployment were the everyday norm, but it was
The individuals within our society have allowed we the people to assess and measure the level of focus and implementation of our justice system to remedy the modern day crime which conflict with the very existence of our social order. Enlightening us to the devices that will further, establish the order of our society, resides in our ability to observe the Individual’s rights for public order.
do menial tasks to be able to buy some food and then somehow pay off
There are three notable texts that depict societal law and order from three different points of view. These three texts include, Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, The Declaration of Independence, and A Vindication of the Rights of Women. While reading each of these, I noticed many similarities and differences among how these societies look alike and how the differ compared to one another. I think it is very important that we take a close look at the structure, purpose, and overall message of each of the texts to understand the deeper meaning behind what the author is trying to portray.
In Dick Wolf’s television show Law and Order: Special Victims Unit episode entitled “Home Invasions” the writer conveys the message that people cannot take the law into their own hand. In the episode the detectives from the New York police department’s special victim’s unit investigate the homicide of a gay rights activist and her husband as well as the attempted homicide of their young daughter. As the investigation progressed throughout the show it is discovered that the father was sexually assaulting his daughter. As a result of this abuse the daughter confided in her housekeeper and the housekeepers brother. The daughter conspired with the housekeeper and the housekeeper’s brother to arrange the homicide of her parents. I agree with