The history of punishment in England

Capital Punishment in England

The Wheel, Breaking Wheel or Catherine Wheel, Hanging, The Gibbet, Pressing or Crushing, Burning, Execution by Fire, Boiled to Death, Decapitation, The Sword or the Axe, Quartering, Disembowelment, Hung, Drawn and Quartered

Penal Reformers

The Hanging Tree of Tyburn - has been immortalised in the imagination of the public as the place of horror and death.

The Bloody Code and the Black Act, over 200 crimes with capital punishment eg stealing sheep, pick pocketing, writing a threatening letter, being caught with a blackened face

Lesser physical and humiliating punishments

Brank

Pillory

Ducking stool

Stocks, Skimmington Ride, and the Whipping Post

Two Types of Prisons

Gaols, punitive and held those awaiting trial as well as debtors and some felons

House of Correction, reformative, held social outcasts (vagrants, prostitutes and petter criminals sentenced to short periods of imprisonment), sought to reform principally through enforced labour

Italys Hospice of St Michael (established 1704)

Belgiums Maison De Force at Ghent (established in 1771)

French Hopitaux Genereux

Dutch Raphaus

Bridewell Palace circa 1553

Jeremy Bentham, a highly influential utilitarian philosopher - Focus on deterrence and reform

Charles-Louis de Socondat, Baron de La Brede et de Montesquieu, argue for the propotionaity of punishment 1748 - Famous for his theory on the separation of powers

Benjamin Rush, signatory to the American Declaration of Independence - deemed public punishments as counterproductive, opposed the death penalty. Rush estb first state penitentiary the Walnut Prison in 1790

Cesare Beccaria 1764 - Clarity in Law, Due Process, certainty and regularity of punishment, no room for pardons, reductions in sentences or early release from punishment

John Howard - the Sheriff of Bedfordshire - The State of Prisons

Important Prison Reform Societies

London society for the improvement of Prison Discipline and for the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders (founded in 1813 referred to as SIPD) Philadelphia society for alleviating the miseries of Public Prisons (established 1787 and later called the Pennsylvania Prison society

Juvenile Offenders and Reforms

The Factory Acts removed children from some work places, and introduced protections in others; the education act 1870 made elementary schooling compulsory.

The Children's Charter of 1889, criminalised cruelty to children and enabled the state to intervene in family life.

1860's the state was prepared to intervene directly with the lives of children

1908 - a child under seven was not held liable for his actions.

in 1880, there were 6500 children under 16 in adult prisons, of whom 900 were under 12

Penitentiary Act 1778;

Solitary confinement at night

Rigorous supervision

Non communication (silence), no indulgences, no distractions and no entertainment

Strict discipline , compulsory religious instruction

An ordered environment, cleanliness

A basic adequate diet

Hard, monotonous and servile labour that profited the institution

Graduated severity of treatment in response to behaviour