HISTORY OF PUNISHMENT 1- THE BLOODY CODE PDF

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15/04/2021, 16*05

LECTURE 7: HISTORY OF PUNISHMENT 1- THE BLOODY CODE Saturday, 20 October 2018

13:43

The The history history of of imprisonment imprisonment and and punishment punishment in in the the UK UK (England (England and and Wales): Wales): • In 1750, England was a small parochial society – population of 6.5 million • Majority of the population lived in the countryside and worked in agriculture • Local landowners were often the local magistrates, enforcing the law Punishment and Rules: • Over 200 separate Acts, most of them property offences, that commanded the penalty of death by public hanging • This system of laws and punishments has become know as the ‘Bloody Code’ • In reality, only about 10 per cent of people sentenced to death were actually executed Transportation: Transportation: • Alongside public hangings, the Transportation Act 1718 introduced transportation of offenders. • Merchant shippers made large profits transporting over 30,000 people to the US • American War of Independence ended the practice, but it was reintroduced in 1787 where people were now transported to Australia. - Leave country not get executed. -Public execution- Groups generally - Durkheim: public- shared moral views

Relaxation of the law: • Murder – death penalty abolished from 1969 • Espionage – 1981 • Piracy – 1998 • High treason – 1998 (e.g. death of sovereign, giving aid to sovereign’s enemies, violating sovereign’s wife/eldest unmarried daughter) • So actually quite recent! • Evans and Allen latest execution 1964.

The Age of Reform: • In the 18th century, there were a number of changes that undermined the Bloody Code • Industrialisation, urbanisation and population growth transformed the agricultural and parochial system • Old ‘moral economy’ gave way to a new ‘political economy’ of wealth creation founded on trade and privatisation of property • By 1800, the population stood at 15 million and an anonymous and diverse society was being formed Stan Cohen (1985) argues that during this period, new master patterns of social control developed: • Increasing involvement of a centralised state - laws are being centralised • Increasing classification of deviants by experts -birth of phycology and physiatry. • Increased incarceration of deviants into ‘asylums’ – penitentiaries (may penitence- show remorse-reflect on what they did etc) , prisons (historically were for people who did not pay their taxes), mental hospitals (expansive definition of insanity historically- now much more defined.) • The mind replaced the body as the object of penal repression - .e.g. prayer, reflection

Why Why did did this this happen? happen? The context to the development of these patterns of control included: • Structural changes in society and the political economy • A perceived rise in crime and the threat to order - bigger cities-thinking society was in decline of order. • Fear of the ‘criminal’ or ‘dangerous’ classes- because we stereotypically classed certain people in these types.

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15/04/2021, 16*05

• A belief that immorality was the cause of crime • Ideological commitment that prison could reform offenders - originally prion was about reformation.

The ‘Great Experiment’ - steps towards a convict prison. • The Hulk Act 1776 was the first move towards a convict prison and the principles of reformation • Two years after the Hulk Act, Eden, Blackstone and Howard introduced the reformist Penitentiary Act 1779

The principles of the Penitentiary Act 1779 were summed up by William Blackstone thus: In framing the plan of these penitentiary houses, the principle objects were sobriety, cleanliness and medical assistance by a regular series of labour, by solitary confinement during the intervals of work, and some religious instruction to preserve and amend the health of the unhappy offenders and to ensure them the habits of industry, to guard them from pernicious company, to accustom them to serious reflection and to teach them both the principle and practices of every Christian and moral duty (1779, cited in Ignatieff, 1978, p.94) Pentonville Pentonville Prison, Prison, 1842 1842 • Originally built to hold 520 prisoners • Regime based on Solitude; Hard labour (Marxism) ; Religious indoctrination (Durkheim) ; Surveillance (Foucault)

Gladstone Committee, 1895 • The deterrent and disciplinary practices were eventually challenged in 1895 when the Gladstone committee was commissioned • Gladstone advocated that the primary and concurrent objectives of imprisonment should be deterrence and reformation • 1898 Prisons Act abolished separate confinement and hard labour Some Some remnants remnants of of the the Bloody Bloody Code Code in in the the Western Western world? world? • The US – some states still have capital punishment • “Cruel and unusual punishment” meant to be prohibited… More More recently.. recently.. Oklahoma Oklahoma officials officials

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