The punishment nobody could watch

You may already have worked out why punishment used to be public. A community that ran its own justice needed everybody to see what happened, because the seeing WAS the deterrent and the shame was the point. ⚠️⚠️ SO THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ABOUT THIS PERIOD IS THAT THE WATCHING STOPS. ⭐⭐ PUNISHMENT STOPPED BEING SOMETHING DONE TO A BODY IN FRONT OF A CROWD AND BECAME SOMETHING MEASURED IN TIME BEHIND A WALL. Look at the changes that cluster in this period and they are usually learned as four separate facts. The huge list of capital offences is cut back sharply. Transportation overseas comes to an end. Executions move from the open street to inside the prison. And the prison sentence becomes the ordinary punishment for ordinary crime. ⭐ THOSE ARE NOT FOUR CHANGES. THEY ARE ONE CHANGE SEEN FOUR TIMES, AND IT IS ALWAYS THE SAME DIRECTION: OUT OF SIGHT. And that creates a problem the period never quite solves, which is exactly why it is worth examining. ⚠️ IF NOBODY CAN SEE THE PUNISHMENT, WHAT IS IT FOR? A public punishment works by display: the crowd sees, the crowd fears, the crowd remembers. ⭐ A SENTENCE SERVED BEHIND A WALL CANNOT WORK THAT WAY, SO IT HAS TO WORK BY SOMETHING ELSE. Reformers gave different answers and disagreed with each other. Some argued the point was to change the prisoner, through work, instruction and silence. Others argued the point was simply to remove them for a stated time. Others still thought the fear of an unknown, hidden place would deter more effectively than a spectacle people had grown used to. ⚠️ AND NOTICE WHAT BECOMES POSSIBLE ONLY NOW: PUNISHMENT CAN BE MEASURED. You cannot give somebody half a flogging, but you can give them six months instead of two years. ⭐ A PUNISHMENT COUNTED IN TIME CAN BE FITTED TO THE CRIME IN A WAY NOTHING EARLIER COULD. One question to carry through the rest of this module: who was this punishment meant to be seen by, and what happens to it when nobody is watching?

Seen, then unseen

The same question asked before and after, and what the change forced people to argue about.

Tap what the change actually claims

Tap the TWO statements that follow from punishment moving out of public sight.

A sentence served in time can be fitted to the offence in a way an earlier punishment could not
Once the crowd is removed, a punishment has to justify itself by something other than display
The changes show that people in this period had simply become kinder than their ancestors
Reformers agreed about what prison was for, which is why it spread so quickly

Why four changes are one change

The capital code is cut back, transportation ends, executions move inside the prison, and the prison sentence becomes ordinary. A student learns these as four separate developments. What are they missing?

That all four move punishment in the same direction, out of public sight, so they are one change seen four times rather than four things to memorise
The precise dates, which would show they happened simultaneously
That all four show growing sympathy for offenders
That crime was falling, which made harsher punishments unnecessary

Five terms for this change

Five terms, each defined by what it is. Where each one sits in the change is the work of the steps that follow.

Match each change to who could still see it

The long list of offences carrying the death penalty is cut back
Sentences of transportation overseas come to an end
Executions are moved from the street to inside the prison
A stated number of years becomes the ordinary punishment
Prisoners are kept apart from one another for most of the day

Fewer occasions on which the public gathers at all, so the spectacle becomes rarer before it disappears
The offender is no longer removed to somewhere distant, so the state must hold them at home instead
The crowd is removed entirely while the punishment itself continues unchanged
Nothing is visible at all: what is being imposed is a length of time rather than an event
Even the other prisoners cannot see it, which was precisely the intention of those who designed it

Two that follow from the wall

Select the TWO statements that follow from punishment moving out of sight.

The change required the state to build, staff and pay for something the community could not provide
Because nobody could see the punishment, people had to argue about what it was for, and they reached different answers
The changes prove that attitudes had simply become more humane
Punishment stopped being used as a deterrent in this period

Writing about a change, not listing one

You have already met the two moves this paper keeps asking for: turning a development into a FACTOR, and weighing why historians disagree about a period. ⚠️ THIS IS WHAT THIS PARTICULAR PERIOD ADDS TO THEM. ⭐⭐ WHEN YOU MEET ANY CHANGE IN THIS PERIOD, ASK WHO COULD SEE IT BEFORE AND WHO COULD SEE IT AFTERWARDS. That single question turns a list of developments into one argument, and it works on all of them. A shape that answers nearly any stem here: SAY WHAT THE PUNISHMENT USED TO DEPEND ON. For the earlier periods that is almost always an audience. SAY WHAT CHANGED ABOUT THE SOCIETY, and be specific: towns grew and people stopped knowing their neighbours; the state grew able to build and run institutions; and there were arguments about what punishment was for. ⭐ SAY WHAT THE PUNISHMENT NOW HAS TO DO INSTEAD, since the old mechanism is no longer available. THEN GIVE THE CONSEQUENCE, AND NAME WHO DISAGREED. ⚠️ THIS PERIOD IS NOT A STORY OF EVERYONE AGREEING THAT THINGS SHOULD IMPROVE. ⚠️ THREE HABITS THAT COST MARKS ON THIS TOPIC. ⚠️ THE FIRST IS THE PROGRESS STORY. Writing that punishment simply became kinder over time is the commonest weak answer here. ⭐ SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARGUED FOR HIDDEN PUNISHMENT THOUGHT IT WOULD BE MORE FRIGHTENING, NOT LESS. Saying so is worth more than a smooth narrative. ⚠️ THE SECOND IS REACHING FOR A FIGURE OR A DATE YOU ARE NOT SURE OF. A number of capital offences, a year a practice ended, a prison population: if you are not certain, use the order of events and comparative language instead. "By the end of the period" is safe and creditable; a confident wrong year is neither. ⚠️ AND THE THIRD IS TREATING THE PEOPLE PUNISHED AS A CATEGORY RATHER THAN AS PEOPLE. Who ended up in court was shaped by poverty and by where the law chose to look, and noticing that is good history rather than editorialising. The creation of a police force is part of the same story of the state taking over, and it has a treatment of its own on this course.

A building nobody could agree about

By the middle of this period the prison has become the ordinary answer to ordinary crime, and that raises a question nobody had needed to answer before. ⚠️ WHAT IS THE BUILDING ACTUALLY FOR? Earlier punishments did not need an answer, because the purpose was visible in the event itself: people watched, and what they took away was the watching. ⭐ A SENTENCE SERVED OUT OF SIGHT HAS NO SUCH BUILT-IN MEANING. SOMEBODY HAS TO DECIDE WHAT THE TIME IS SUPPOSED TO DO. And three different answers were given, by people who argued with each other in print and in Parliament. THE FIRST ANSWER WAS THAT THE TIME SHOULD CHANGE THE PERSON. Regular hours, work, instruction, religious observance, and above all separation from other prisoners so that nobody learned worse habits inside than they arrived with. ⭐ PRISONS WERE DESIGNED AROUND THIS IDEA, WITH CORRIDORS AND CELLS ARRANGED SO THAT PRISONERS COULD BE KEPT APART AND OBSERVED. ⚠️ IT WAS NOT A SOFT PROGRAMME. Those who advocated it believed prolonged solitude was a severe experience, and some contemporaries said so. THE SECOND ANSWER WAS SIMPLER: THE POINT IS THAT THE PERSON IS NOT AT LARGE. On this view the sentence is a period of removal, nothing more, and asking it to reform anybody is asking too much of a building. THE THIRD ANSWER KEPT THE OLD AIM AND CHANGED THE METHOD. ⭐ A PUNISHMENT PEOPLE CANNOT SEE MIGHT FRIGHTEN THEM MORE THAN ONE THEY HAVE WATCHED MANY TIMES AND GROWN USED TO, BECAUSE WHAT IS IMAGINED IS NOT LIMITED BY WHAT WAS OBSERVED. ⚠️ THAT IS A CASE FOR HIDING PUNISHMENT ON EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE GROUNDS FROM HUMANITARIAN ONES, AND IT WAS GENUINELY MADE. ⚠️⚠️ NOTICE WHAT FOLLOWS FOR YOUR ANSWERS. THE PERIOD DOES NOT SETTLE THIS. PRISONS WERE BUILT AND RUN TO MORE THAN ONE OF THESE PHILOSOPHIES, SOMETIMES IN THE SAME DECADE, AND REGIMES CHANGED AS ONE ARGUMENT OR ANOTHER GAINED GROUND. ⭐ SO IF YOU ARE ASKED WHY THE PRISON REPLACED EARLIER PUNISHMENTS, THE HONEST ANSWER HAS TWO PARTS: BECAUSE THE OLD MECHANISM STOPPED WORKING IN A SOCIETY WHERE PEOPLE NO LONGER KNEW ONE ANOTHER, AND BECAUSE THE STATE HAD BECOME ABLE TO PAY FOR AN ALTERNATIVE. WHAT THAT ALTERNATIVE WAS FOR REMAINED IN DISPUTE, AND SAYING SO IS BETTER HISTORY THAN PICKING ONE ANSWER. And one thing worth holding onto: the people inside these buildings were overwhelmingly poor, and what counted as a crime and where the law looked had a great deal to do with who ended up there.

Order the retreat from public view

Put these six stages into the order that moves punishment from the street to the cell. This is the order of a change, not a list of dates.

Punishment is carried out in the open, and the watching crowd is the mechanism
Towns grow quickly and people no longer know the offenders among them
The long list of offences carrying death is cut back, so the public occasions become rarer
Sentences of removal overseas are relied on, and then come to an end
The state builds, staffs and pays for institutions to hold offenders at home
Even executions move inside the walls, and the crowd is gone entirely

Build the sentence about the audience

This is the sentence that turns a development into an explanation. Assemble it.

The industrial punishment run

Five questions on what happens when the audience disappears. Three lives.

Complete the industrial punishment facts

Punishment by death, imposed by a court, is _____. A sentence of being sent overseas for a fixed period or for life is _____. Preventing crime by making people afraid of the consequences is _____. Changing an offender so that they do not offend again is _____.

capital punishment transportation deterrence rehabilitation the separate system retribution removal a prison sentence

Three answers to strengthen

Three student answers about this period. In each case the facts are right and the explanation is what needs work.

An answer explains the changes by saying that people gradually became more humane and so stopped wanting cruel punishments. Everything it cites is accurate. Why does it score poorly?
A student writes that prison replaced earlier punishments because it was cheaper. What would you tell them?
Asked what prison was for in this period, an answer states confidently that it was for reforming offenders. How would you improve it?

Explain why the crowd disappeared

Explain why punishment in this period moved out of public view, and what problem that created for the people who had to decide what punishment was now for.

Explain what earlier public punishment depended on, and why that mechanism weakened as towns grew
Explain how at least two of the changes in this period move in the same direction, out of sight
Explain what a punishment measured in time could do that earlier punishments could not
Explain why the state had to become larger and better funded for this change to be possible
Explain at least two different answers people gave about what prison was for, and attribute each rather than stating one as fact
Avoid explaining the period as a story of growing kindness, and avoid any date or figure you are not certain of

Crime and Punishment in Industrial Britain

Use it, the way the marks are given

What you'll cover