Policing and Punishment in London, 1660-1750

by J. M. Beattie

Examines the considerable changes that took place in the criminal justice system in the city of London in the century after the Restoration, well before the inauguration of the so-called "age of reform." The policing institutions of the city were transformed in response to the problems created by the rapid expansion of the metropolis during the early modern period, and as a consequence of the emergence of a polite urban culture. The City authorities were instrumental in the establishment of new forms of punishment--particularly transportation to the American colonies and confinement at hard labor--that for the first time made secondary sanctions available to the English courts for convicted felons and diminished the reliance on the terror created by capital punishment.