Judges and Convicts

Uncovering the origins of the new sentencing structure that emerged in the course of the nineteenth century, this book travels from the demise of the "Bloody Code" in the 1830s, through the mid-century transition from convict transportation to home-based penal servitude, and on to the remarkable and unprecedented mitigation of sentencing severity in the final two decades of the century. By providing such an extended span of analysis, this book reveals the discrete stages of development in senten