NCJ Number
169293
Date Published
1989
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This paper reviews crime patterns, court action, and policing in the English countryside from 1600 to 1800.
Abstract
The three most common types of crime in the two centuries after 1600 were property offenses, assault, and offenses relating to alcoholic beverage consumption. These accounted for the bulk of recorded crime before assize and quarter sessions. The evidence for this crime pattern comes primarily from the southern counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Surrey, and Sussex. At the turn of the century (1601-1602), 66 percent of felonies in Essex were the stealing of livestock, chattels, or food; a further 14 percent were the more serious offenses of burglary, robbery, and forcible entry. Crime was mostly opportunistic rather than organized, with occasional examples of itinerant gangs. Most of the rural working population were subject to sharp variations in their standard of living, and in times of distress, property crime and prosecutions increased. Over the two centuries, a wider range of punishments became available. At the apex was hanging; in Essex between 1620-80, at least 436 people were hanged at assize in that county. In common law the crucial distinction was between petty and grand larceny, with the latter being punishable by death. The enforcement of the law was subject to discretion at many levels of the decisionmaking process. The system depended on village constables successfully mediating cases at the village level. Processing beyond the village level was used only as a last resort. Case processing took into account two factors: the current level of crime and the defendant's character. The discretion in the system at each stage considered the character of the prisoner and the wider social need to be served by verdict and penalty. A 55-item bibliography