Crime and Justice in 19th-Century England
How far, asks R.D. Storch, did the reforms in the system of law enforcement, and the detection, trial and punishment of criminals introduced in the nineteenth century make for better order and a real reduction in crime?
By 1900 England was a considerably less crime-ridden and more orderly society than it had been in 1800. Exactly how this improvement came about is still a matter for debate. The entire machinery or detection, law-enforcement and punishment of crime to which we are the uneasy heirs was created in the nineteenth century. Was the nineteenth-century invention of a modern, efficient and articulated system of criminal justice responsible for better order and the reduction of all types of crime by 1900?
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