Crime and the Victorians

Page 3 of 6

• 1. Statistics
• 2. Sensational crimes
• 3. 'Criminal classes'
• 4. Penal policies
• 5. Detective policing
• 6. Find out more
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'Criminal classes'

Across the nineteenth century broad shifts can be identified in the ways that 'criminals' were perceived. At the beginning of Victoria's reign key commentators like Edwin Chadwick tended to equate the criminal offender with individuals in the lower reaches of the working class who they considered were reluctant to do an honest day's work for an honest day's wage, and who preferred idleness, drink, 'luxury' and an easy life; in their eyes the problem was a moral one. There were also concerns about 'the dangerous classes' who were thought to lurk in the slums waiting for the opportunity for disorder and plunder.

'There were also concerns about 'the dangerous classes' who were thought to lurk in the slums waiting for the opportunity for disorder and plunder.'

By the middle of the century the term 'criminal classes' was more in vogue; it was used to suggest an incorrigible social group - a class - stuck at the bottom of society. Intrepid explorers of the slums and the 'rookeries' of the poor, like Henry Mayhew, often wrote of this 'class' as if its members belonged to some distinctive, exotic tribe of Africa or the Americas.

Towards the end of the century, developments in psychiatry and the popularity of Social Darwinism had led, in turn, to the criminal being identified as an individual suffering from some form of behavioural abnormality that had been either inherited or nurtured by dissolute and feckless parents. All such perceptions informed the way that criminals were treated by the criminal justice system.

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Published: 2001-08-01