• CrimeConUK – London June 2022
No Result
View All Result
Crime Traveller
 
  • Home
  • Research

    R. Kelly: Aided By A Network of Complicity Enabling His Crimes

    How Social Media Turns Online Arguments Between Teens Into Real-World Violence

    Kathleen Folbigg’s Children Likely Died Of Natural Causes, Not Murder. Here’s The Evidence My Team Found

    Do criminals freely decide to commit offences? How the courts decide

    We might not be able to understand free will with science. Here’s why

    Indian Trafficked Brides: The Stories of Three Women

    Trending Tags

    • Neuroscience
    • Mental Health
    • Criminal Brain
    • Juvenile Crime
  • Psychology
    Image: Shutterstock

    Psychopaths – Born Or Made?

    The Question of Why: Did Ted Bundy have Dissociative Identity Disorder?

    Teenage psychopathy

    What Should We Do With Teenage Psychopaths?

    A Criminal Disorder? Advances in Neurocriminology Are Leading The Way

    Mark Safarik

    An Interview With Former FBI Profiler Mark Safarik on Violent Offending and Criminal Behavioral Analysis

    The Criminal Mind: An Interview With Forensic Psychologist and Author Katherine Ramsland

    Trending Tags

    • Narcissism
    • Psychopathy
    • Profiling
    • Mental Health
    • Psychology
  • Family Violence

    Reckless Speculation about Jeffrey MacDonald

    O. J. Simpson Trial: 26 Years Later

    O. J. Simpson: Murder in the First Degree

    Reasonable Doubt: The Hendricks Family Murders

    Melanie McGuire

    A Convicted Killer, Two Criminologists, and One Podcast: Direct Appeal Investigates ‘Suitcase Killer’ Melanie McGuire Case

    Family Annihilation: The Crimes and Psychology of Familicide

    Trending Tags

    • True Crime
      Who killed Marilyn Sheppard cover image

      Who Killed Marilyn Sheppard? Ohio’s Most Enduring Murder Mystery [Part Two]

      Who killed Marilyn Sheppard?

      Who Killed Marilyn Sheppard? Ohio’s Most Enduring Murder Mystery [Part One]

      The JFK Assassination … Case Still Closed

      6 Pros And Cons Of Hiring A Private Criminal Lawyer

      Murder To Movies: ‘I Want To Live’

      Real crime stories of murders that went into movies

      From Murder to Movies

      Trending Tags

      • Unsolved
      • Serial Murder
      • Documentaries
      • Guest Posts
    • Book Reviews
      The Girl I Never Knew - Who Killed Melissa Witt?

      The Girl I Never Knew: Melissa Ann Witt Deserves Justice

      Befriending A Serial Killer: An Interview With Mark Austin

      The Husband Poisoner: Lethal Ladies and Dangerously Tasty Recipes

      Details are Unprintable: Wayne Lonergan and the Sensational Café Society Murder

      Operation Jacknap: A True Story of Kidnapping, Extortion, Ransom and Rescue

      Stephanie Scott

      United in Grief: The Murder of Stephanie Scott

      Trending Tags

      • Interviews
      • Historical Crime Books
    • Crime Spotlight
      Korean Zodiac Killer case

      A Tale of Two Zodiacs

      5 Tell-Tale Signs Of An Abusive Person

      There Were Two Killers in 10 Rillington Place: An Interview With Peter Thorley

      Has The Zodiac Finally Been Discovered? [Part 1]

      David Wilson and Emilia Fox

      If It Bleeds It Leads: A Q&A With Professor David Wilson

      A Psych For Sore Minds - An Interview with Dr Sohom Das

      A Psych For Sore Minds: An Interview with Forensic Psychiatrist Dr Sohom Das

    No Result
    View All Result
    Crime Traveller
    • Home
    • Research

      R. Kelly: Aided By A Network of Complicity Enabling His Crimes

      How Social Media Turns Online Arguments Between Teens Into Real-World Violence

      Kathleen Folbigg’s Children Likely Died Of Natural Causes, Not Murder. Here’s The Evidence My Team Found

      Do criminals freely decide to commit offences? How the courts decide

      We might not be able to understand free will with science. Here’s why

      Indian Trafficked Brides: The Stories of Three Women

      Trending Tags

      • Neuroscience
      • Mental Health
      • Criminal Brain
      • Juvenile Crime
    • Psychology
      Image: Shutterstock

      Psychopaths – Born Or Made?

      The Question of Why: Did Ted Bundy have Dissociative Identity Disorder?

      Teenage psychopathy

      What Should We Do With Teenage Psychopaths?

      A Criminal Disorder? Advances in Neurocriminology Are Leading The Way

      Mark Safarik

      An Interview With Former FBI Profiler Mark Safarik on Violent Offending and Criminal Behavioral Analysis

      The Criminal Mind: An Interview With Forensic Psychologist and Author Katherine Ramsland

      Trending Tags

      • Narcissism
      • Psychopathy
      • Profiling
      • Mental Health
      • Psychology
    • Family Violence

      Reckless Speculation about Jeffrey MacDonald

      O. J. Simpson Trial: 26 Years Later

      O. J. Simpson: Murder in the First Degree

      Reasonable Doubt: The Hendricks Family Murders

      Melanie McGuire

      A Convicted Killer, Two Criminologists, and One Podcast: Direct Appeal Investigates ‘Suitcase Killer’ Melanie McGuire Case

      Family Annihilation: The Crimes and Psychology of Familicide

      Trending Tags

      • True Crime
        Who killed Marilyn Sheppard cover image

        Who Killed Marilyn Sheppard? Ohio’s Most Enduring Murder Mystery [Part Two]

        Who killed Marilyn Sheppard?

        Who Killed Marilyn Sheppard? Ohio’s Most Enduring Murder Mystery [Part One]

        The JFK Assassination … Case Still Closed

        6 Pros And Cons Of Hiring A Private Criminal Lawyer

        Murder To Movies: ‘I Want To Live’

        Real crime stories of murders that went into movies

        From Murder to Movies

        Trending Tags

        • Unsolved
        • Serial Murder
        • Documentaries
        • Guest Posts
      • Book Reviews
        The Girl I Never Knew - Who Killed Melissa Witt?

        The Girl I Never Knew: Melissa Ann Witt Deserves Justice

        Befriending A Serial Killer: An Interview With Mark Austin

        The Husband Poisoner: Lethal Ladies and Dangerously Tasty Recipes

        Details are Unprintable: Wayne Lonergan and the Sensational Café Society Murder

        Operation Jacknap: A True Story of Kidnapping, Extortion, Ransom and Rescue

        Stephanie Scott

        United in Grief: The Murder of Stephanie Scott

        Trending Tags

        • Interviews
        • Historical Crime Books
      • Crime Spotlight
        Korean Zodiac Killer case

        A Tale of Two Zodiacs

        5 Tell-Tale Signs Of An Abusive Person

        There Were Two Killers in 10 Rillington Place: An Interview With Peter Thorley

        Has The Zodiac Finally Been Discovered? [Part 1]

        David Wilson and Emilia Fox

        If It Bleeds It Leads: A Q&A With Professor David Wilson

        A Psych For Sore Minds - An Interview with Dr Sohom Das

        A Psych For Sore Minds: An Interview with Forensic Psychiatrist Dr Sohom Das

      Crime Traveller
      No Result
      View All Result
      • Home
      • Research
      • Psychology
      • Family Violence
      • True Crime
      • Book Reviews
      • Crime Spotlight

      Home » Book Reviews » Criminal Children: Researching Juvenile Offenders 1820-1920

      Criminal Children: Researching Juvenile Offenders 1820-1920

      Informative, educational and insightful reference book for research into juvenile crime across the Victorian era of Britain and into the early 20th century.

      by Fiona Guy
      13 September, 2021
      in Book Reviews
      Reading Time: 7 mins read
      A A
      Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare

      “How were criminal children dealt with in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Over this hundred-year period, ideas about the way children should behave – and how they should be corrected when they misbehaved – changed dramatically, and Emma Watkins and Barry Godfrey, in this accessible and expert guide, provide a fascinating introduction to this neglected subject.”

      BUY FROM PEN & SWORD BOOKS

      Read the news today and headlines of juvenile crime are prominent and abundant. In many countries concern over children and young adults committing increasingly serious crimes and how to intervene in such a cycle is growing. How does society begin to address the issue of criminal children? There are no easy answers and while our understanding within psychology and neuropsychology on the developing mind and brain of juveniles has aided us greatly, the same concerns and questions remain.

      “Society anxiously looked, and still looks, towards the conduct and behaviour of the young as an indication of the future.”

      In 2018, Professor Barry Godfrey and PhD candidate Emma Watkins published “Criminal Children: Researching Juvenile Offenders 1820-1920” through Pen & Sword Books.

      Focusing on 100 years of juvenile offenders across the Victorian period of Britain, it is a fascinating book which takes readers right back to the roots of juvenile delinquency. In the process, this work demonstrates that criminal behavior, disrespect for authority and children deemed ‘out of control’ is most definitely not a new dilemma or a product of 20th century modernism, technology and the online era.

      Criminal Children is a well-researched book which highlights how the concept of juvenile delinquency came about in Victorian Britain, the shift in societal attitudes and responses to children who committed crime and the changing historical times which influenced those decisions.

      There has been ongoing debate in the UK about the appropriate age of criminal responsibility for children. At what age, society asks, can a child be deemed responsible and culpable for criminal acts?

      Currently the law in England and Wales has this age at 10-years-old. In Scotland, the age of criminal responsibility remains at 8-years-old, but a child cannot be prosecuted for a crime unless they are 12 years or older.

      In Victorian Britain, this age was set at 7-years-old. Children aged 7 or older were not only deemed responsible for any criminal behavior but they were treated in every way in the same manner as adults; in the criminal justice system and also in employment. Children of this age worked to earn wages to provide for their families. There was no education system in place, no schools to go to and no formal learning structure available.

      “Children who could not live up to the ‘ideal’ concept of childhood were perceived to be delinquent, troublesome, rude and in some cases, criminal.”

      The industrial revolution in the early 19th century saw factories open and employment opportunities soar. The cities of England and Wales were flooded with individuals from other parts of the world arriving for jobs and moving into local communities. It was a significant period of change which also impacted the children of the era. Parents were now more likely to be in work leaving children free to roam and get up to mischief with little to no supervision outside their own working hours.

      Related Posts

      The Girl I Never Knew - Who Killed Melissa Witt?

      The Girl I Never Knew: Melissa Ann Witt Deserves Justice

      22 May, 2022
      Death of an Actress Cold Case Jury Book

      Cold Case Jury: Gay Gibson Death Of An Actress

      18 October, 2018
      Stephanie Scott

      United in Grief: The Murder of Stephanie Scott

      9 November, 2020

      Britain’s Most Notorious Prisoners

      3 October, 2021

      Slowly a structure of education was introduced where children no longer worked in adult jobs but instead went to school to learn. Many children took well to this opportunity and flourished but others did not like the structure, the authority and the expectations on them and continued to find themselves in trouble with the law. Children suddenly became divided in the eyes of society into ‘good’ verses ‘bad’ with differing opinions on how to deal with each.

      “Almost as soon as the concept of good and bad children was constructed, society began trying to identify and control children they found troublesome and problematic, or who were perceived to be in need of discipline to keep them under control.”

      Transportation was once such response, more familiar to many of us as punishment for adult criminal behavior, children also found themselves assigned to Australia, almost 10’000 miles away, in response to their crimes. Children as young as 9-years-old were banished to another country for manual labor as punishment for their criminal ways.

      It’s hard to imagine a child so young being taken from their family and transported to not just a different town or city for a period of time but to an entire different country thousands of miles away for a period of years, maybe never coming back again.

      During the often long waiting period for a ship to take them across the ocean, children as well as adults were sent to Hulk ships; decommissioned war ships converted to hold prisoners. There were horrid, cramped, disease ridden ships where for many years juveniles were not separated from adults. Children lived on these ships in these conditions along with much older adults who no doubt imparted a great deal of their criminal wisdom and influence upon them.

      A Convict Hulk, Prison-Ship in Portsmouth Harbour. Image Source: Convict Transportation from Britain and Ireland 1615–1870

      After transportation came the concept of juvenile prisons such as Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight in 1838 and reform schools like the well known Borstal came later in 1900. On the back of a structured education system where children were expected to attend school, these juvenile detention centers imposed strict rules and harsh discipline, designed to enforce youngsters to respect authority and mend their ways.

      As the era edged further into the 19th-century attitudes began to shift with a notion that these schools should be a punishment but also provide skills and training to set children on a law-abiding path when they were released.


      Children at a Borstal Reform School. Image source: Leeds Beckett University

      What is unique about Criminal Children and very much part of its success as a book, is the sense of learning across each chapter with informed guidance on how to carry out research and where to find data and information on the criminal children of the Victorian era. It provides a solid foundation for the reader to continue after finishing the book and enter into their own research should they wish.

      The individual case studies included in the final chapter serve to cement this interest, following children from their early beginnings and how their lives were, to their criminal behavior and how the law and society responded. Many are traced after their punishments to see what they did with their lives and the question asked, did they reoffend? Some did not commit another crime that has been recorded as they progressed into their adult lives whereas others returned to a criminal life and found themselves with further punishments and convictions.

      A very satisfying read which feels excellent value. While this book focuses on the criminal lives of children and societies attitudes and responses to child crime, it is a wealth of information and well-presented knowledge on the changing historical times across this 100 year period and how this impacted society. It is book historians and those with an interest in British history and the Victorian period especially will enjoy reading.


      ‘Criminal Children: Researching Juvenile Offenders 1820-1920’ by Emma Watkins and Barry Godfrey is published by Pen & Sword Books and is available at Pen & Sword and at Amazon.

      • Writing Style
      • Readability
      • Enjoyment
      5

      Review Summary

      The changes in society and the criminal justice system across this 100 year period are insightful in how our structure, attitudes, and policies developed into what they are today. In early Victorian Britain children as young as 7-years-old were employed to help bring in money to their families, many of whom were living in poverty. Deemed criminally responsible at that age, punishments for crimes were harsh adding to the woes of the family. Transportation to Australia and reform schools became the mainstay of punishments for criminal children. In a book aiming to be as educational as it is enjoyable to read, Criminal Children provides a timeline of historical change which had significant impacts on how juveniles who committed crime were dealt with. Well-researched and presented in an easy to read manner, this book includes guidance for the reader to carry out their own research alongside a list of resources and starting points. An excellent book with an academic slant that will appeal to people with interests in criminal history and the Victorian era of Britain.

      Unlimited reading on any device, try Kindle Unlimited from Amazon for free
      Prefer Audiobooks? Audible 30-Day Free Trial with free audiobooks

      Tags: Historical Crime Books
      Share34Tweet21Pin12
      Previous Post

      Frank McManus: King of the Irish Hill

      Next Post

      True Crime Documentaries From Morbid Minds Productions

      Related Posts

      The Girl I Never Knew: Melissa Ann Witt Deserves Justice

      22 May, 2022
      The Girl I Never Knew - Who Killed Melissa Witt?

      LaDonna Humphrey never met Melissa. Yet something about her story and murder captivated her into a 7-year obsessional quest to find her killer.

      Read more

      Befriending A Serial Killer: An Interview With Mark Austin

      2 February, 2022

      Mark Austin took his curiosity about notorious serial killer Dennis Nilsen further than most. He became Nilsen's closest friend, confidant, and eventually his next of...

      Read more

      The Husband Poisoner: Lethal Ladies and Dangerously Tasty Recipes

      4 June, 2021

      Poison is not gender-specific. Poison can simply be the preferred means of murder for clever criminals.

      Read more
      Load More
      Next Post

      True Crime Documentaries From Morbid Minds Productions

      The Sequel To In Cold Blood: And Every Word Is True

      Teenage psychopathy

      What Should We Do With Teenage Psychopaths?

      Comments 1

      1. Ocean says:
        3 years ago

        Admiring the hard work you put into your blog and detailed information you present. It’s awesome to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same out of date rehashed information. Great read!

      CrimeCon UK

      What's New?

      Korean Zodiac Killer case
      Crime Spotlight

      A Tale of Two Zodiacs

      13 May, 2022
      Who killed Marilyn Sheppard cover image
      True Crime & Justice

      Who Killed Marilyn Sheppard? Ohio’s Most Enduring Murder Mystery [Part Two]

      22 May, 2022
      Who killed Marilyn Sheppard?
      True Crime & Justice

      Who Killed Marilyn Sheppard? Ohio’s Most Enduring Murder Mystery [Part One]

      22 May, 2022
      Load More

      Stay Connected

      Search

      No Result
      View All Result

      Categories

      You Might Also Like

      True Crime & Justice

      William Heirens: The 1946 Lipstick Killer

      7 July, 2018
      Crime Spotlight

      Looking For Psychopaths In All The Wrong Places: fMRI In Court

      18 June, 2018
      Psychology of Murder

      Joanna Dennehy: The Psychology of A Female Serial Killer

      7 July, 2018
      Psychology of Murder

      When Narcissistic Rage Ends In Murder

      11 September, 2019

      RECENT

      The Girl I Never Knew - Who Killed Melissa Witt?

      The Girl I Never Knew: Melissa Ann Witt Deserves Justice

      22 May, 2022

      A Tale of Two Zodiacs

      13 May, 2022

      Who Killed Marilyn Sheppard? Ohio’s Most Enduring Murder Mystery [Part Two]

      22 May, 2022

      POPULAR

      William Heirens: The 1946 Lipstick Killer

      Looking For Psychopaths In All The Wrong Places: fMRI In Court

      Joanna Dennehy: The Psychology of A Female Serial Killer

      When Narcissistic Rage Ends In Murder

      Site Links

      • About Crime Traveller
      • Contact Page
      • Request A Book Review
      • True Crime & Justice
      • CrimeCon UK: June 2022, London
      No Result
      View All Result
      • Terms
      • Privacy
      • Disclaimers
      • Cookies
      • DMCA
      • Newsletter

      Copyright © 2016 - 2022 Crime Traveller, a website owned and operated by Alythium | All Rights Reserved.

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Home
      • About
      • Contact
      • Crime Research
      • Psychology of Murder
      • Family Violence & Homicide
      • True Crime & Justice
      • Crime Spotlight
      • Book Reviews
      • Request A Book Review
      • Newsletter

      Copyright © 2016 - 2022 Crime Traveller, a website owned and operated by Alythium | All Rights Reserved.

      This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.