Chapter 5: Crime and Punishment

This chapter will explore poverty, old age, and criminality and its intersection with the pauper-emancipist population. In doing so, we will pick up on Chapter 2 Crime and Poverty and consider the criminalization of poverty across the life-course by looking at this population within their historical context. By exploring the male and then the female pauper-emancipists in the chronological order of their interactions with the criminal justice system, we can critically investigate the surrounding context of their offending, examine the offense in terms of its perceived “seriousness,” and identify structural pressures. As such, we will begin by looking at any known offenses before they received their transportation sentence, we will look at the transportation crime itself, and then we will move on to any crimes committed while under their transportation sentence, followed by any known offenses committed during their time of freedom and/or their time in-and-out of the charitable system.