Policing and Punishment in London, 1660-1750 - J.M. Beattie

clearing the streets ofbeggars and vagrants but also in reducing crime, since the numbers of prosecutions for crimes against pro ...

provided an opportunity for the resurrection of these ideas, but applied now to the more minor forms of property crime subject t ...

introduced in the first place in the Lords—perhaps to seek the endorsement and support of the judges for an innovation, the cons ...

forms of punishment, even though the innovation it embodied was not success- fully established because there was as yet no engag ...

posts,^54 and the pervasiveness of theft, that the aldermen and common council- lors of the City had played a leading role in th ...

the courts were failing to prevent a serious crime problem. The depositions being taken by City magistrates make it plain that o ...

by that combination of violent and more petty but pervasive offences that in- creasingly typified the crime problem of the large ...

The fate of those defendants who pleaded not guilty and took their trial is set out for our Sample of cases (one in three of the ...

340 The Revolution, Crime, and Punishment in London T able 7 .2. Jury verdicts at the Old Bailey in property offences in the Cit ...

years’ incarceration, a few of these men saved from the gallows by the juries’ ver- dicts were sentenced to a term in the house ...

For women defendants, there were much bigger changes after the Revolution in both capital and non-capital cases, the result of t ...

main target. As part of our investigation into the making of post-Revolution le- gislation it is worth enquiring into the way th ...

gallows, and they were either granted clergy or whipped (Table 7. 4 ). Of the 105 women charged, a fifth were acquitted, more th ...

were acquitted, others convicted of the charge in the indictment, still others of a lesser charge and then either clergied or wh ...

encouraged jurors to find more partial verdicts than they had earlier. But the pattern of verdicts remained broadly the same: th ...

decisions about Old Bailey defendants were made. In effect, the final decisions about the punishment of men and women condemned ...

unintended by-product ofWilliam III’s involvement in European affairs and of Queen Mary’s reluctance to take on the gruesome bus ...

country and, in addition, decisions about whether to pardon men and women condemned in London had to be made regularly since the ...

limiting the king’s ultimate authority. William continued to be consulted on dif- ficult cases when he was out of the country, a ...

complained that ‘the present Method of reporting to their Majesties after every Sessions’ had given rise to ‘great and intollera ...