Introduction
Crime. What is crime? In this piece of writing , this question will be awnsered while we look through 5 different time periods. Throughout this writing , you will also find out about punishments from these 5 eras : Roman times , Anglo-Saxon times , Tudor times , Victorian times and The World War 2 times. These date back to around 27BC but crime and punishment have been around way longer in the past. Depending on the crimes someone committed , they would get something minor or something horrific. An example of this could be: in the Anglo-Saxon time when you were guilty of stealing twice or more then your hands would be chopped off. Due to poverty, in most of these times , there was a lot of theft and a lot of ways to punish it.
Roman crime and punishment
In the Roman areas, there was quite a lot of crimes due to the overcrowding in Rome , which meant that there were a lot more dark dangerous places the had criminals in them. The Roman period had a lot of crimes but the most common ones were theft and . Theft was usually the cause of poverty. Another common crime was murder; it did not happen quite often but when it did happen there were serious consequences to the murder (this could sometimes result in death or extreme pain). In other places , like villages , there were special people called Vigiles these people would stop any crime and deal with it . The common crimes were whipping or fines.
Anglo-Saxon crimes and punishments
In the Anglo-Saxon times ,there were many deadly punishments and even in some cases trial by ordeal ( making you walk across hot coals or other painful activities , they would wait for 3 days and if it was healed then you are apparently innocent and let go but if not then they kill you). For less serious crimes there would be a fine and around this time prison wasn’t an option because they did not have prisons. In villages shouting for help would not be common because it was one of the ways that criminals would get caught. If there was no body shouting, then the Anglo-Saxons would have a meathod to catch the criminal and it was called tithing.
Tudor crime and punishments
In the Tudor times , the rules were not set fairly. A straight example would be the scolds bridle , this punishment would be for if girls gossiped , nagged or even tried to voice their own opinion , which was quite unfair, and If that wasn’t bad enough , it would destroy your mouth if you tried to talk because there was a piece of it the went inside of your mouth that had spikes on it and only the man of the house could take it off. Due to homelessness , the most common crimes were theft. People would see those people and they would catch the homeless person and take them to get a punishment. If you were poor then the most common crime would be sold into slavery for begging from people. Another common punishment would be being branded (branded means burnt) with hot iron.
victorian crimes and punishments
In the Victorian times , their crimes and punishments varied a lot. There crimes could go from a small pickpocketing to a horrifying murder. And Their punishment , they could range from being sent to Australia for hard labour to being hung. In this time of Britain , the most common punishment was hard labour and this was a consequence for a common crime. Surprisingly , the most common crime was small but sneaky , it was pickpocketing and this occurred due to transport. Criminals were caught pickpocketing by someone telling the victim of the pickpocketing (the person who is being pickpocketed) that a person is trying to steal. Hard labour (the punishment for committing a common crime) can vary from many different things. These could be the crank or the treadmill and this happened because the victorians thought that if criminals worked hard that would not commit crimes anymore.
World War 2
The world war 2 lasted for about 6 years, which meant that there would be a lot of crimes and punishments. Unlike all of the other times , at this time they had police and the police would stop most of these crimes from occurring. The most common theft during the war was theft. Theft in the war was due to rationing and food shortages in homes. People were often caught by the police and were put into hard labour. Hard labour would be due to being caught stealing. Different punishments could be imprisonment ( being put into prison for a certain amount of time) or having to pay a fine. Paying fine may be hard if someone was stealing just to try to eat for the day but if you didn’t pay the given fine in a certain amount of days then you would probably go to prison.
Very clear, informative writing in this report. Good range of well- chosen vocabulary and sentences used for effect. Check through for spelling errors though.