Victorian_Era

The Victorian era was during the reign of Queen Victoria which was during the years 1837-1901 and lasted a little bit beyond that. The Victorian period was a tremendously exciting period when many different ideas and beliefs started to flourish and improve. The law and order of England was one of those ideas and beliefs that took a great turn for improvement during the Victorian Era. During this time people saw the rise of the police force, and a change in the way courts were established and organized for the many crimes that were committed as well as a change from dungeons to a rise of a prison system. Before the rise of a police force, most places in England had only an unpaid parish constable to keep order. That position ended with the Metropolitan police act of 1829, which was established by Robert Peel. This act replaced the parish constables with the first policemen, known as ‘Bobbies’ in England and ‘Peelers’ in Ireland. By September of 1829, the first Metropolitan Police were patrolling the streets of London. There were 17 divisions, which had 4 inspectors and 144 constables each and the force headquarters was Scotland Yard. (McLynn 69) The police force wore a long blue coat and strengthened tall hats, which protected them from blows to the head and was also used as something to stand on to look over walls. Their only weapon was a truncheon, which is also known a baton. They would also carry a rattle to raise an alarm if that was needed. At first the quality of officers was poor. Of the first 2,800 new policemen, only 600 eventually kept their jobs.( McLynn 132) The first policeman ever (who was given the number 1), was sacked after only four hours, for drunkenness. Despite rising crime levels, most counties retained their Parish Constable. The parish constable was retained in these counties manly because people were concerned about the idea of a uniformed force and feared that the police would be used to arrest opponents of the government, stop protests, and destroy their freedom of speech. It wasn’t until 1856 that the County Borough police act was formed. (McLynn 158) This act forced the country to set up organized police forces subject to government control, made a system of inspection to use in factories and workhouses, and it also shifted the prevention of crime to a more in depth detection of crime. This act was finally the start of the modern police force. More things were added to help the police force grow and flourish. For example, in 1869, the National Criminal Record was set up, which made use of the new, rapid telegraph communications between forces and in 1877 Criminal Investigations Department (CID) was formed with 200 detectives; 600 more were added in 1883.( McLynn 186) With the change in the police force also came a change in court and the way people were charged for their crimes.. By the nineteenth century, there were three types of courts for criminal to be brought to justice: Magistrates' Courts which held Quarter Sessions and Petty Sessions, Assize Courts, and the Court of King's or Queen's Bench.( The Population History of London 121-127) Before those three courts most prosecutions were not carried out by the police, but by private individuals, normally the victims of the crime. Anyone who was thought to have committed a crime was taken to the parish constable or magistrate by the person who caught them. Even in places where there was a proper police force, most prosecutions were still started by private citizens. The magistrate’s courts consisted of two separate sections. The first was the Petty Sessions which were introduced in the 18th century as there was too much work for the Quarter Sessions handle which only had to meet four times a year. Petty Sessions dealt with minor cases such as drunkenness, poaching and vagrancy. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, individual justices of the peace frequently tried summary offences, which were those not needing to be heard before a jury, within their own home. Many of the country houses of the gentry contained a justice room for this purpose. (The Population History of London 135-136) Petty sessions changed after the Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1848, which stated that all summary trials had to take place at formally constituted Petty Sessions, before at least two magistrates. (The Population History of London 178) Meetings also became more regular and laws passed that required the proceedings to be recorded. The courts sat on a regular basis; the frequency would depend on the level of crime in the area. As today, the court had the power to remit more serious crime to a higher court for sentencing or trial. The principal court of the magistrates was Quarter Sessions. They were held before a 'bench' of two or more Justices of the Peace with a jury. Just like the petty sessions they could also refer capital offences and other serious or difficult cases up to the next court. The sessions for the magistrate court were held four times a year in a different place in the county which was decided by which season was occurring. The session could run for several days, depending on the number of cases. The Quarter Sessions also administered local government but as the administrate burden increased, their administrative functions were transferred to the newly created County Councils. Before 1842 the line between Assize and Quarter Sessions cases was rather blurred; an Act of that year consigned all capital offences which were those that carried the death penalty and cases with sentences of life imprisonment, for the first offence, to the Assizes. (The Population History of London 27-46 ) In the Assizes court Judges travelled on a 'circuit', covering a number of counties. They would deal with criminal cases assigned to them by the bench of county or borough justices. The courts were held when the Judges arrived in a county town. As the workload increased, by the middle of the 19th century, in some counties the court was sitting three times a year, and each session could last several weeks. The assizes circuits had their own Clerks of Assizes, who kept all the records of the cases and sentences. However, London was a special case. In 1834 the Central Criminal Court, which is known as Old Bailey, was set up for the metropolitan area of Greater London; this was an Assizes Court. The Kings and Queens Bench was originally the king's personal court, with a variety of functions connected with protecting the interests of the crown. This changed and cases could be referred to it where it was believed that a fair hearing in a particular locality was impossible. It was also a court of review for magistrates, who could ask it to rule on points of law. Judges at the Assizes normally consulted their colleagues on points of law but, in 1848, the Court for Crown Cases Reserved was set up for this and during the nineteenth century there was no appeals procedure or court of appeals. This meant a convicted criminal's only hope was the Royal Pardon. After the convictions in one of the three courts the criminals were brought to their places of punishment. The dungeons that are so well known are now gone and by 1860 there were separate prison systems. There was the local prison and the convict prison. The local prison was divided up into two parts which were known as the jail and house of correction. The jail was primarily used for detention and much less often for punishment as well as a place to detain witnesses whose appearances at trial was in doubt or, occasionally, to protect them. Once a trial was over and sentencing was done, the people in jail were moved from the jail to a more severe place. This was the house of correction where they would fulfill the punishment. The punishments would usually consist of a public lashing, or some time spent in the stocks where people could throw rotten food or rocks at the accused. (Victorian Prisons) After their punishment they were sent free which caused problems because the criminals kept getting into trouble. Therefore, in 1865, the jail and house of corrections were joined together to form the first local prisons. (Victorian Prisons) This became a place where punishments were administered for those criminals sentenced for terms of up to two years. Because of this, more severe punishments could be administered because there were people who were actually doing time. The convict prison was a place where severe punishments were administered more often, but there still was leverage for the prisoners. This was a prison that was an asylum for criminal lunatics, and a refuge or a prerelease prison for female convicts. (Victorian Prisons) These prisons, unlike the local prison, was operated more single handedly by a private contractor, so these prisons provided their own kinds of security but were also prone to corruption and abuse of all kinds. Because of the prison being looked over by one person, there was not enough security to promise the safety of a prisoner, so before actual sentencing a prisoner could be harmed. No matter what though, prisoners of all types received punishment, whether it be for a minor offense or a major one. For example they prison system believed that children even had to endure imprisonment, and as early as age seven. (Victorian Prisons) Provided that the child was over the minimum age for criminal responsibility—originally seven--and had mischievous discretion--the ability to tell right from wrong--the child was fully liable as an adult to the penalties provided by the law. (Victorian Prisons) The people during that time believed, that harsh conditions will correct the ill ways of those convicted. Therefore, in the 1840s a system of rules called "The Separate System" was tried. This was based on the belief that convicted criminals had to face up to themselves. Accordingly, they were kept on their own in their cells most of the time. They were only let out, to go to chapel or for exercise, they sat in special seats or wore special masks so that they couldn't even see, let alone and the talk to, another prisoner. Many went mad under this system. By the 1860s opinion had changed and the “Silent System” emerged. It was now believed that many criminals were habitual criminals and nothing would change them. They just had to be scared enough by prison never to offend again. The purpose of the silent system was to break convicts' wills by being kept in total silence and by long, pointless hard labor. The Silent System is associated with the 1865 Prisons Act and the Assistant Director of Prisons, Sir Edmund du Cane, who promised the public that prisoners would get "Hard Labor, Hard Fare and Hard Board". (Victorian Prisons) The hard labor was just as it sounds rigorous labor from wake to sleep nonstop. Hard fare was meant as a deliberate way to make the same boring food the same day every week without any change to the prisoners. The hard board consisted of wooden board beds that they slept on that were eventually replaced with hammocks. The Victorian Era, brought upon a change to the police forces, a new law and order in a court, and a different kind of punishment for the criminals. Since England made these changes, they helped other areas of Europe to change their way of the treatment of criminals and crime. Today these changes have expanded all over the world and the use of law and order is well used in almost every country in some shape or form that can be linked back to the Victorian Era in England. WORKS CITED "1800's Britain." Home. Web. 14 Nov. 2010. . "Courts of Justice." Victorian Crime and Punishment from E2BN. Web. 14 Nov. 2010. . "Courtoom Experience in Victorian England at the Time of Great Expectations." The Victorian Web: An Overview. Web. 14 Nov. 2010. Hitchcock, Tim, and Robert Shoemaker, (2006). ‘The Population History of London’, Old Bailey Proceedings Online. 11/02/201 McGowen, Randall, (1996). “A Powerful Sympathy: Terror, the Prison, and Humanitarian Reform in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain,” The Journal of British Studies. 11/12/2010 McLynn, F. Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth-Century England. London: Routledge. 1989. 10/31/2010 "Victorian Prisons." Tripod - Succeed Online - Excellent Web Hosting, Domains, E-mail and an Easy Website Builder Tool. Web. 14 Nov. 2010