Past in Pictures: A Photographic View of Crime and Punishment

Book excerpt: Find out how society's treatment of people who break the law was transformed in Victorian times with the introduction of an organised police force. How has this affected criminal activity? Have the punishments given changed over the years? Starting in 1812, this book takes a look at how prisons, and the treatment of prisoners, have changed over the past 200 years. The Past in Pictures series gives a fascinating look at life in Britain through the photographs of The National Archives. It looks at past eras; at the way rich and poor families lived, the concept of holidays and leisure time for families and how the role of men, women and children from Victorian times, through two world wars, to modern Britain, have changed.