Jjorg Mayr And Jack Sheppard Research Paper

Andrew Draper

Professor Harrington

March 29, 2023

HIST 1580

The Law Enforcement that Breeds Crime

Both hailing from poor, destitute families, Jack “the Lad” Sheppard and Jörg Mayr were put in an unfortunate position with many difficulties ahead of them. Though coming from similar backgrounds, they each were subject to vastly different circumstances. The most significant factor between the two, as is to be expected, is the difference between the city beggar Jack Sheppard and the more “country” beggar Jörg Mayr. One major similarity found in their lives of crime, however, is the concept of punishment and the simultaneously loose-yet-harsh nature of said punishment. In both Early Modern Germany and London alike, punishments vary from relatively

In an analysis of the two career criminals Jörg Mayr and Jack “the Lad” Sheppard, the first comparison one must draw is the environment in which the two operated. In the case of Sheppard, as told by Basdeo, the young criminal was a resident of London and, marked by the departure from a master carpenter he was an apprentice under, was “exposed… to all of the temptations that early Georgian London had to offer” (The Lives & Exploits of the Most Noted Highwaymen, Rogues and Murderers, 65). This concept of a big-city criminal is heavily contrasting the environment of Mayr, in which he would be much more accurately classified as a “rural vagrant” who might spend the majority of his time in rural areas, being driven towards towns only during the colder parts of the year for the sake of “public shelter” and “begging prospects” (The Unwanted Child, pg. 191). The difference in these two environments has a profound impact not only on the obvious differences found between life

In the case of Mayr, it appears that by the end of his life, he had committed (or at least confessed to committing) nearly 100 crimes and was arrested numerous times across many different cities. Similar to Mayr, Sheppard certainly committed far more crimes than he was convicted of in his life, being incarcerated only 5 times in total. Though both of their stories did end in execution, their subsequent executions tell much more about the ineffectiveness of the law enforcement of the time than the effectiveness. In both cases, the young thieves begged for mercy on account of their youth. In the story of Mayr, it is apparent that the magistracy took his pleas into account, but because of the gravity and sheer amount of offense he had committed, “the sheer exasperation on part of the magistracy” left them no choice but to have him executed (The Unwanted Child, pg. 222). This lends itself to the question: how did these young men get to be so bad? The answer to this question lies within an observation of the world the two young men grew up with. In every instance, Sheppard and Mayr were shown that crime was not only a plausible way of making a living, but the repercussions were either easily avoidable by moving to another city, breaking out of prison, or simply evading the incredibly weak law enforcement. As each of the children