Catching and trying criminals

In Anglo-Saxon and Norman England there was no police force, so communities policed themselves:

• The tithing — men over 12 were grouped in tens and made responsible for each other's behaviour.
• The hue and cry — if a crime was witnessed, everyone had to chase and catch the criminal.
• Trial by ordeal — where guilt was unclear, God was asked to judge (e.g. ordeal by hot iron or water). It was abolished by the Church in 1215.
• Wergild — Anglo-Saxon fines paid to victims to make up for a crime.

After 1066 the Normans added their own laws — the Forest Laws (William I made huge areas royal hunting forests), the Murdrum fine on a village if a Norman was murdered, and trial by combat.

The Church and medieval punishment

The medieval Church had a big role in law:

• Sanctuary — a criminal who reached certain churches could claim protection.
• Benefit of clergy — churchmen could be tried in more lenient Church courts.
• The Church also ran trial by ordeal (until 1215).

Punishments aimed at deterrence and retribution: fines, corporal punishment (whipping, the stocks and pillory) and capital punishment (execution) for the most serious crimes.

The stocks and pillory shamed offenders in public — a way of humiliating them and warning others not to break the law.

Trial by ordeal

New crimes and fears

Between c1500 and 1700 big social and religious changes created new crimes:

• Vagabondage / vagrancy — unemployed people wandering to find work were feared and treated as criminals.
• Heresy and treason — as England changed religion under the Tudors, holding the "wrong" beliefs became a crime.
• Witchcraft — the Witchcraft Acts made it a serious crime; Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled "Witchfinder General", led witch-hunts in 1645–47.

Fear, religious upheaval and poverty drove these panics. Witch-hunting peaked during the chaos of the English Civil War in the 1640s.

The Bloody Code and transportation

By the 1700s the law relied heavily on fear to deter crime:

• The Bloody Code — by around 1800 there were over 200 crimes punishable by death, even minor theft. Public executions were meant to be a deterrent.
• Transportation — convicts were shipped overseas: first to North America, then to Australia from 1787 (ending around 1868).

What was the Bloody Code?

Name the punishment

Reform: prisons and police

In the 1800s attitudes shifted from pure deterrence towards reform:

• The Bloody Code was abolished and public executions ended in 1868.
• Prison reformers like John Howard and Elizabeth Fry pushed for cleaner, more humane prisons, leading to the separate and silent systems.
• Robert Peel, as Home Secretary, passed the Metropolitan Police Act 1829, creating London's Metropolitan Police (nicknamed "Peelers" or "Bobbies"). He also reduced the number of capital crimes.

Robert Peel is a key individual: he set up the first professional, uniformed police force in 1829 — the beginning of modern policing in Britain.

Who set up the Met Police?

Name the reformer

Crime and punishment today

The modern period brought major changes:

• The death penalty for murder was suspended in 1965 and abolished in 1969.
• New crimes appeared — cyber crime, terrorism and driving offences.
• Conscientious objectors (people who refused to fight in WW1 and WW2) were treated as criminals by some, but attitudes slowly changed.
• Policing became more specialised, using forensics and neighbourhood policing, and punishment increasingly aimed at rehabilitation.

A key modern shift is the move away from harsh deterrence towards trying to rehabilitate offenders so they do not reoffend.

Term ↔ meaning

Tap a person or term on the left, then tap the correct description on the right.

The East End of London

Whitechapel, in London's East End, was one of the poorest, most overcrowded areas of Victorian Britain:

• Overcrowded slums (rookeries), doss houses (cheap lodgings) and workhouses for the destitute.
• Deep poverty, unemployment, drink and crime.
• Immigration — many Irish, and Jewish refugees fleeing persecution (pogroms) in Eastern Europe — which sometimes caused tension.

These conditions — poverty, overcrowding and dark, maze-like streets — made Whitechapel very difficult to police.

Policing Whitechapel

Whitechapel was policed by the Metropolitan Police (H Division), with the neighbouring City of London policed by the separate City of London Police.

• The main officer was the beat constable, who patrolled a set route on foot.
• Problems: poor street lighting, narrow alleyways and courts, extreme poverty, and widespread distrust of the police.

A policing problem

The Whitechapel murders (1888)

In 1888 a series of brutal murders — the Whitechapel murders, blamed on an unknown killer nicknamed "Jack the Ripper" — shocked London. The killer was never caught.

The investigation was hampered by the limited methods of the time:

• No fingerprinting was yet used by the police, and forensic science was in its infancy.
• Detectives relied on house-to-house enquiries, early photography and witness statements.
• The press sensationalised the case, spreading fear and sometimes hindering the police.

The failure to catch the killer exposed the weaknesses of Victorian policing and investigation — limited forensic methods and the difficult conditions of Whitechapel.

Why so hard to solve?

Sources for studying Whitechapel

The Whitechapel enquiry uses a range of contemporary sources — and each has strengths and limits:

• The census — records who lived in an area, their jobs and origins.
• Police and coroners' records — details of investigations and inquests.
• Newspapers — vivid but often sensational and unreliable.
• Charles Booth's poverty maps — colour-coded maps of London showing how poor or well-off each street was.

Charles Booth surveyed London and produced maps grading streets by wealth — a key source showing just how poor much of Whitechapel was.

Name the year

Timeline: 1215 → present

Put the events in order

Tap the events in the correct time order, from earliest to latest.

When was the Met founded?

Change and continuity

This is a thematic study, so the exam rewards spotting change, continuity and the reasons behind them across the whole period:

• Change: from community self-policing (tithing, hue and cry) to a professional police force (1829); from the Bloody Code to rehabilitation.
• Continuity: for centuries the main aims of punishment were deterrence and retribution; crime was often blamed on the poor.
• Factors driving change: the role of government and individuals (e.g. Peel, Fry), attitudes in society, science and technology.

A strong answer explains not just what changed but why — for example, why professional policing appeared in the growing, crowded cities of the 1800s.

Thinking like a historian

The essentials to remember

You've covered the whole Edexcel Crime and punishment in Britain, c1000–present study and the Whitechapel historic environment. Press Finish to see your score.