Crime and Conviction in Victorian England In Victorian England conviction was very common. It was far from unusual to see someone being brutally hung or stripped from their families for crimes such as being in debt, stealing, or even murdering. At times one could be tortured just because of the suspicion of crime. Punishment and imprisonment in Victorian England was cruel and unusual in order to prevent offenders from crime. Illness, poor living conditions, and public humiliation were all strategies used to deter wrongdoing. In Victorian England, anyone greater than or equal to the age of twelve could be sentenced to hard labor for petty offenses. However some of the most notorious crimes that were handled by the government were …show more content…
In order to identify prisoners, letters were burned into their flesh however, if a prisoner could provide thirteen pence, they were not required to endure such pain. This was overall cruel seeing as if the prisoner could pay off being branded, the branding was not completely necessary at all. A punishment that seemed unusual was that of those who committed suicide, although this did not directly affect other people, this was viewed as a crime because the offender was seen as being ungrateful and wasteful of the life which God had given to them. This offense was punishable by having their bodies buried outside of the church yard or at an intersection so that their spirits would not be able to find their way home. Those who were suspected to be women endured extremely cruel suffering before they were even convicted. In order to find out if someone was a witch, they would tie their limbs together and throw them into a river, if they could float back to the top they were deemed a witch and later burned at the stake, if they sank the would not be convicted but it would not matter because by the, they would have drowned