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An article discussing how education affected the juvenile crime rate in Victorian England.
Citation preview
Stephanie Richardson
History 490; Senior Capstone
Dr. Malcolm Thorp
April 13 2012
2
Historians have argued that the “Industrial Revolution created an environment conducive
to criminal activities,” and that lack of education and overcrowding may have been a cause.1 In
the first half of the nineteenth century, crime rates steadily increased coming to a peak around
the 1840s. But as Victorian prosperity and education increased, Britain’s crime rate progressively
decreased from 1840 onward.2 It is difficult to assign one thing or another to this phenomenon;
but, it seems clear when studying the statistics, feelings, and social movements of the people at
that time, that one result of the crime rate decrease was a product of increased education.
While it is difficult to directly prove that education had a powerful effect upon the
decreasing crime rate in the latter half of the Victorian Era, it is clear that social reformers—
among others—felt that an increase of education was a viable solution to growing crime,
particularly juvenile crime. There was a general feeling that education would decrease crime, and
this feeling resulted in increased education. However, there are multiple problems with the
statistical data, the statistics may be unreliable, and there are several variables that also would
have had an effect upon the crime rate. Despite these variables, the laws put in place and the
statistical data available show an interesting correlation between the crime rate and the
effectiveness of increased education.3 When the data available is studied, it becomes apparent
that education was indeed a solution for crime in the Victorian Era.
1 Yue-Chim Richard Wong, “An Economic Analysis of the Crime Rate in England and Wales, 1857-92.” Economica
62, no. 46 (May 1995): 235. 2 V.A.C. Gatrell and T. B. Hadden, “Criminal Statistics and Their Interpretation,” in Nineteenth-Century Society:
Essays in the Use of Quantitative Methods for the Study of Social Data.” E. A. Wrigley (Oxford: Alden & Mowbray, 1972), 375. 3 Wong, “Economic Analysis,”
3
In the first half of the nineteenth century, newspapers, social reformers, and
parliamentary reports often made a distinct correlation between uneducated persons and
criminals. Though they did not argue that lack of education was a cause of crime, it seems
apparent there was a clear correlation between the two. Because it was only the lower classes
that were not receiving an education, people began to link criminals with the lower classes.
Although some historians have argued that there was a distinct difference between a “dishonest
criminal class, and a poor, but honest working class,” crime was generally considered a class
problem. 4
In nearly every report, a clear separation was drawn between offenders who had
received higher education and those who either could not read and write, or could read or write
imperfectly (meaning at a very elementary level and not well, often they could only do one or the
other and not both). Also, in nearly every case, very few offenders came from high education, or
wealthy upbringing.
An article in the Times in December of 1842 stated, “At the various sessions for this
county and city held in the year, 476 prisoners have been placed on the calendar for trial. Of
these, there were but two of superior education . . . of those who could read and write well, there
were but 20.”5 This article, among several others in the following few years that listed similar
shocking illiteracy rates, was written with a clear purpose to alert the public of the correlation
between the uneducated person and the criminal.6 These numbers are somewhat misleading
however. The article stated that there was but twenty “who could read and write well.” This is
not to say that the remaining 456 prisoners could not read nor write, but that only twenty could
4 Wong, An Economic Analysis, 237.
5 “Crime and Education-from statistics collected” The Times, Saturday, Dec 24, 1842, pg 7; issue 18175; col D.
6 Similar articles and numbers were found in articles in years 1837, 1848, and 1857.
4
do both well. Many of the prisoners could read or write—though imperfectly. However, the
article mentions that there were “no less than 204 who could neither read nor write.” By far, the
majority of criminal offenders came from the working-class, and had been either poorly or not-
at-all educated. In 1835, in a speech to the Lords, Brougham claimed absolute connection
between ignorance and vice:
700 persons were on trials in the winters of 1830 and 1831, charged with rioting and
arson, and of those 700, how many could write and read? Only 150; all the rest were
marksmen. Of the number of boys committed to Newgate, during three years, two-thirds
could neither read nor write.7
Though it may be unfair to say that all criminals were working class and illiterate, or that non-
educated people participated in the “criminal class,” there was certainly a strong correlation
between illiteracy and crime.
Figure 1: Degree of Instruction (average of males and females) by percentage of prisoners, 1840.8
As figure one illustrates, the majority of persons that made up the prisons in 1840 had
little or no education. Crime and lack of education had a distinct correlation, and it was known to
the public that this was the case. Though problems in the Industrial Revolution rose, so did
7 Lord Brougham’s speech to the Lords. 21 May 1835, quoted in West, Education and the Industrial Revolution,
131. 8 Gatrell and Hadden, Criminal statistics, 380.
53.95 %
40.35 %
4.3 % 0 % 1.13 %
Read only, or
read and write
imperfectly
Neither Read
Nor Write
Read and Write
well
Superior
Instruction
Not Known
5
Victorian morality. Most articles or publications that mentioned numbers of criminals that could
not read, often would mention something about the need to educate them. Social reformers and
newspapers commonly discussed the new ideas about educating the masses. The same article
mentioned above in The Times concluded the article with “surely these facts bear witness, far
more efficiently than any labored argument, to the necessity of educating—morally and
religiously educating—the lower orders, as the only practicable remedy for that fearful amount
of crime which now stalks through the land.”9 Other publications like Dickens’s Oliver Twist in
1838 helped make the public become aware of the rampant problem of child criminals, and
vagrant children that needed some moral instruction rather than criminal instruction from corrupt
adults like Fagan.
Though criminal statistics generally do not show moral instruction that prisoners had
received—if any, it seemed “that there was a striking consensus among the middle classes in the
nineteenth century that education was the best means of reducing crime.”10
Not just education in
reading and writing, however, but moral instruction. The need for moral training was especially
emphasized by social reformers as concern over juvenile delinquency grew. In a special report
on reformatories to Parliament in 1857-1858, Jelinger Symons said, “When the heart is depraved,
and the tendencies of the child or the man are unusually vicious, there can be little doubt that
instruction per se, so far from preventing crime, is accessory to it.”11
It was apparent that many
felt that the need for moral instruction with education as a means for discouraging crime was
necessary to have any effect upon the crime rate.
9 Times, Crime and Education.
10 E. G. West, Education and the Industrial Revolution (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 121.
11 Jelinger C. Symons, “Special Report on Reformatories in Gloucestershire, Shropshire, Worcestershire,
Herefordshire and Monmouthshire, and In Wales” Printed in the Minutes of the Parliamentary Committee on Education, (1857-58): 236.
6
It was not only social reformists, however, who saw the need for education. Many saw
the benefit of education and its effects on society and crime before any factory or education acts
were passed. Just before the turn of the eighteenth century, economist Adam Smith had
published among his views on politics and economics, his views on the necessity and benefits of
education. In the Wealth of Nations, he expressed his opinion that “an instructed and intelligent
people . . . are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one. . . . [They] are
more likely to obtain the respect of their lawful superiors, and they are therefore more disposed
to respect those superiors.”12
This statement only touches the surface of how Smith felt about
educating the masses. He later expressed his opinions that the country would not flourish without
teaching the sciences, teaching the poor in order for them to attain jobs, and that the government
should be deeply invested in educating the lower classes.13
His views on the necessity of
education spread to others who expressed similar ideas about education. Many, who were not
known as “social reformers” also advocated their ideas about the importance of achieving a good
education. Though not all of the pro-education reformers expressed ideas about how education
would affect the crime rate, theories on the importance of educating the masses began to rapidly
spread. In 1806, James Mill iterated:
So obvious and unspeakable are the advantages of a good education to the body of the
people, and so miserable, and undesirable are the disadvantages which necessarily attend
a bad one, that we really know no reasons which can be urged in favor of a good
education but what must appear perfectly trite.14
Though both Smith and Mill were making these comments before the main stream Victorian
social reformers began their campaigns, Smith and Mill made it clear that they saw the effects of
12
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations, (London: W. Straham, 1776), book V, Article III. 13
Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book V, Article III. 14
As quoted in West, Education and the Industrial Revolution, 122.
7
poor education, and that with a good education, the society in general would be a much better
one.
By the 1830s, it became apparent that vagrant children needed some kind of education.
Many social reformers felt the need for reformatory or “ragged schools,” as they were called.
These schools were designed to teach and occupy vagrant children’s time, teach them in some
moral, but mostly secular instruction. Ragged schools which were either private or state funded
were set up as a system mostly to teach the children the “three R’s” of reading, writing, and
arithmetic. Teaching was generally, but not always, achieved by older children who would teach
the younger ones. Though these schools were a means of educating the poor, the instruction
levels were very low apparently grossly inefficient. Though they were continually increasing in
number, it is difficult to judge the effectiveness of the schools, and it was not an effective way of
educating masses. In fact, sometimes the education in these private schools were so low that the
teachers themselves could not read or write. In 1851, about 700 private-school teachers could not
sign the census form because they “were unable to write their own names.”15
If the teachers
themselves could not read or write, the education they were giving could not have been very
beneficial as far as educating went.
However, these schools—either private or state funded—often provided free meals, and
removed the children from the influence of their criminal parents—or lack of parents.16
Despite
the poor education received, these school surely provided benefits that would affect children
criminals. Indeed, many felt it was due to bad parenting that children turned criminal, and felt the
15
Quoted in W.B. Stephens Education in Britain 1750-1914 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 83. 16
W. B. Stephens Education in Britain,10.
8
need to educate the children by removing them from the influence of their criminal parents.17
In
1856, Mary Carpenter, a social reformer, published a book about juvenile delinquency and her
ideas about the necessity to educate children. She was of the opinion that children needed to get
away from their parents if their parents were teaching them criminal ways or belonged to the
criminal class. She stated that, “Low tastes and desires cannot be rooted out except by
introduction of more agreeable ones . . . that corrupt affections cannot be expelled except by the
awakening of pure ones.”18
In other words, she felt that unless the children were taught correctly
when they were young, bad behaviors would not go away on their own, and that the crime rate
would continue to increase. If children were taught by their corrupt parents, they would not be
good people unless taught otherwise when they were young. Despite the low level of education
taught in the “ragged” schools, some education was being taught and children who may have
been criminal were taken off the street. As early as 1840 there began to be a decrease in the
crime rate, and these ragged schools may have been part of it.
It was clear, however, that ragged and reformatory schools were simply not enough.
Many felt the need for greater education, particularly moral education. When Mary Carpenter
published her book on Juvenile Delinquents, she had obviously done her research well and
included many accounts and direct court reports on criminals—particularly as juveniles, as well
as several opinions of reverends and teachers. One such example was an account in 1852 of a
woman named Caroline Davis. She had first started criminal behavior at age thirteen, but now an
adult, she was repeatedly brought up on charges of being drunk and disorderly. Generally, the
punishment had been either 5s or ten days imprisonment. One report after her release stated,
“Whilst the prisoner is in the gaol [sic], she behaves a most exemplary manner; but no sooner is
17
Clive Emsley, Crime and Society in England, 1750-1900 (New York: Longman Inc., 1987), 65-66. 18
Carpenter, Juvenile Delinquency, 116.
9
she liberated then she again takes to the bottle, gets drunk, and annoys the public with her filthy
and disgusting language.”19
Carpenter commented on this case, that it was a mockery to justice
to inflict a punishment on someone that would take no effect. Carpenter posed the question:
What means would have been too costly to have rescued this poor creature from such
utter degradation before she was yet so hardened; to have placed her early under a firm,
but kind reformatory discipline which surely might have had its effect in childhood, since
even now she yields to its influence? What would have been the benefit to society of
being saved from hearing her low and debasing language; of beholding the revolting
spectacle of a woman transformed into a brute?20
Though the crimes of Caroline Davis were not the most grievous crimes, Carpenter stated
that her case was by no means an extraordinary case and that had Caroline—like many others
similarly indicted—been taught when she was young, would not have turned into the “hardened
brute.” Similarly, Reverend D. Baxter, Chaplain of the East Prison in Aberdeen wrote that to
send a girl at ten or twelve years of age to prison was essentially useless—or worse. That a
young girl sent to prison would only turn to prostitution and that while in prison, they only find
rejuvenation to return to their degrading habits upon their release. The reverend had several
accounts of girls who had returned up to twenty-nine times for approximately the same crimes.
He expressed his conviction that “if at the commencement of their career they had been placed
for a long period ‘under judicious religious, moral, and industrial training’ and afterwards cared
for, they might have become chaste, useful, and respectable members of society.” The Chaplain
seemed to firmly believe that had the girls been schooled and educated and put into a
reformatory school early in life, such lives of degradation could have been avoided. He
concluded his statement about the girls saying,
What an amount of evil, inflicted on the several communities to which they belong,
would have been prevented . . . it would be much more effective, and attended with less
19
Mary, Carpenter, Juvenile Delinquents: Their condition and treatment, (London: W. & F.G. Cash, 1856) 108. 20
Carpenter, Juvenile Delinquency, 109.
10
expense, to endeavor to prevent persons falling into this fearful gulf of misery, then, after
they have fallen to try to lift them out of it.21
This statement reflects what the Reverend, Mary Carpenter, and many others felt about the
importance of education. They felt that crime would decrease and money spared if education
increased. It was much easier to prevent the crimes in the first place by educating and reforming
children, then to try and stop the crimes once someone was in the habit of committing them. The
Reverend also points out that it would have saved time and money to pay for educating the girls,
rather than pay for their stays in prison.
In the early part of the nineteenth century, however, not all were of the opinion that
education would prevent the crime rate from increasing; especially with the steadily increasing
crime rate until the 1840s. In fact, William Cobbett opposed early education acts on the grounds
that crime was increasing simultaneously as education was spreading. “If so, what reason was
there to tax the people for the increase of education?”22
Because of feelings like Cobbett’s,
education laws were really not very effective until the Elementary Education or “Forester
Education Act,” as it was called, in 1870 was enacted. However, it is difficult to tell just how
effective these laws were. There are several problems with using the statistical data.
Our biggest proof that education affected the crime rate was that as education increased,
the crime rate decreased. But there multiple problems with this approach: the first is that crime
rate statistics are unreliable and the methods of gathering the information were not always
accurate or complete; and the second is that there are a number of variables that have nothing to
do with education that likely could have affected the rate. Also, the education rates may be
21
Carpenter, Juvenile Delinquency, 110. 22
Quoted in West, Education and the Industrial Revolution, 131.
11
incorrect as there seems to be a severe discord between children who were “enrolled” in the
school, and children who were present on census day. While the education rates are much more
reliable than the crime rates, this discord poses the question, “how many children attended school
on a regular basis?” However, even with this discord, it can be easily proved that as different
laws were enacted, the rate of children attending day schools increased dramatically.23
We can
see a distinct lowering of the crime rate in the second half of the Victorian era, but was the
decrease real?
The major problem we have when using the crime rate is their reliability. As crime
increased, the attitudes of the police changed. For example, in 1886 the number of women
convicted for soliciting in London was 3, 233. In just two years, that number fell by nearly fifty
percent. In 1888 the number of women was only 1, 475.24
This drop cannot be explained by
women who stopped performing the crime, but rather, a change in attitude of the police.25
It also
may have changed because feminists were campaigning for more gender equality in promiscuous
crimes; and the crime of soliciting gradually was reduced to a misdemeanor rather than full
crime. Also, changes in law affected the crime rate, particularly as new laws were passed. The
creation of income tax to help finance the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars created new
crimes in tax evasion. Also, the age of consent was raised from age thirteen, to age sixteen in
1875, this law brought “men with proclivities for sex with young, teenage girls within the
category of offenders.”26
Each new law that passed created new criminals. Juvenile Offenders
acts of 1850 and 1855 changed the view on criminals below the age of 15 which may have
23
W. B. Stephens, Education, Literacy, and Society, 1830-70: The Geography of Diversity in Provincial England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), 352. 24
Emsley, Crime and Society, 24. 25
William Douglas Morrison, Crime and Its Causes (London: Swan Sonneschein, 1891), 6. 26
Emsley, Crime and Society, 24.
12
decreased the crime rate, while the Elementary Education Act of 1870, which created state-
funded school boards and schools in areas that were lacking, resulted in 96,601 parents being
brought to court in the first year.27
This new offense would have surely increased the rate. With
these variables in mind, it is difficult to look at the crime rate and make much use out of it, but
we use it because it is all we have. Despite these variables and changes, the crime rate did
steadily go down in the second half of the nineteenth century.
But how much of this decrease was affected by children being put into schools?
Historians and contemporaries argued that “drink was the ultimate cause of crime.”28
Whether a
father or mother choose to get drunk and commit crimes against his wife or on society may have
had no direct result to children being in school or not. Several newspaper articles commented on
the decrease in crime as being a direct result of the decrease of intoxicated adults. Social
attitudes changed, looking down upon drunkenness. Many blamed crime solely upon drink and
did not attribute education as a factor in decreasing the crime rate.29
But the hope was that
religious school would have moral standards, teaching children to avoid drunkenness and that
type of behavior. It is difficult to assess if decrease in intoxication or crime was a result of that
education or not.
Also, Victorian prosperity began to soar in the latter-half of the Victorian Era, “Victorian
prosperity increased the attractiveness of respectable work, and the reformatory and industrial
school broke the informal but very effective apprenticeship system that had bound boys to a
profession of crime very early in life.”30
If a father, who once was destitute, received a
27
Emsley, 24-25. 28
Wong, Economic Analysis, 235. 29
Bayne W. Ranken, “Decrease of Crime,” in The Times, Monday, Nov 7, 1881; pg 11;issue 30345; Col F. and William Hoyle, “the Decrease of Crime” in The Times, Wednesday, Nov 2, 1881; pg 4; issue 30341; col F. 30
Wong, Economic Analysis, 236.
13
“respectable” job, the need for crime decreased in that an attitude change occurred, leaving no
desire to steal if they could buy it. If a father could afford to feed his children, there was no need
for him or his children to steal. It seems that in the latter-half of the century, the crime was much
more “prosperity-deduced” than “poverty-induced,” Meaning that criminals were driven by the
abounding wealth, rather than out of necessity for life.31
In the second half of the nineteenth century, there was also a steady increase in the
capability of the police force. While increased number of police could have meant that more
criminals would be caught and a subsequent increase in the crime rate, a more capable police
force meant that there was a decrease in criminals on the street, as well as discouraging further
crime by increasing the risk of getting caught. The chart below illustrates the ratio of police to
population in England and Wales form 1860 to 1890.
Figure 2: Ratio of Police to Population per 100,000 of persons from 1860 to 1890.32
31
Ibid. 32
Taken from Annual Criminal Statistics of Police Returns, found in Gatrell and Hadden, Criminal Statistics, 355.
1000
1100
1200
1300
1400
1860 1865 1870 1875 1880 1885 1890
No
. of
po
lice
pe
r 1
00
,00
0 p
ers
on
s
14
But increase in police force surly would have increased the crime rate somewhat if more police
were available to arrest more criminals. However, changes in legislation and attitudes about
particular crimes changed, such as prostitution as previously discussed. Another such change was
the Criminal Justice Act of 1855 which provided for a summary trial of a larger range of
indictable larcenies, including thefts valued at less than five shillings if the accused consented to
the trial. This act lead to the drop in number of committals of indictable offences from 22, 347 in
1855 to 15, 928 in 1856.33
While new legislation often created new crimes and increasing the
crime rate, some legislation did the opposite. A more capable and larger police force also may
have had similar effects on the crime rate.
Unreliable crime rate statistics due to changes in police attitudes, and crimes reported as
opposed to crimes actually committed are an important variable when discussing the decreasing
crime rate. Also, a decrease in intoxication and social attitudes, increased prosperity,change in
legislation, and the creation of a larger and more capable police force all would have had a
significant effect upon the crime rate. These many variables must be taken into account before
the effectiveness of increased education in decreasing the crime rate can be evaluated. With
these multiple variables, it is difficult to see if education had any effect on the crime rate,
however, as previously discussed, many people in the nineteenth century felt that an increase in
education would result in a decrease of crime. This feeling led to an increase in education laws
and reforms. Despite the variables, as education increased, crime did decrease. If Adam Smith’s
theory that as the society is educated, they are more likely to respect the authority, and are better
able to get jobs and contribute to society is correct, then the evidence available can show that
education did have an effect.
33
Gatrell and Hadden, Criminal Statistics¸356.
15
While it is difficult to assess if things that correlate had a direct effect upon the other,
looking at the data shows an interesting correlation that cannot be ignored. It is difficult to say if
increase of education was the result of rising prosperity and decrease in crime rate, or if rising
prosperity led to less need for crime and more children who had time to be in school. The
decreasing crime rate seems to directly correlate with increasing education, but did it?
The balance between the state forcing education, and families need for children to work
to sustain life was a delicate balance during the nineteenth century. Factory laws in the early
1800s attempted to instigate a “half-time” system. In this system, children would theoretically
work part time and attend school part time. The Factory act of 1833 made two hours of schooling
per day compulsory for children up to age eleven. However, the act was rarely enforced. As
education laws continued, school boards were given the power to make school attendance
compulsory of children between five and thirteen, but these were not necessarily operated.34
“Ragged schools” started in the 1830s, but across the nation, school attendance or effectiveness
of education is hard to judge.
Arguments between the Church of England and the government kept a universal system
of education out of the country for quite some time. The government was reluctant to assume full
financial responsibility for a state-system of education, while the Church of England was
unwilling to withdraw its education—though it recognized its inability to teach the bulk of the
people.35
This debate led to heated arguments between those who wanted a secular education,
and those who wanted religious control over elementary education. These debates led to a delay
34
Brian Simon, Education and the Labour Movement 1870-1920 (London, Camelot Press, 1965), 138. 35
Stephens, Education in Britian, 79.
16
in creating a widespread effective method of schooling. It was not until 1870 that a compromise
was struck and the Education Act or Forester’s Act of 1870 was passed. This act was designed to
supplement voluntary schools by creating extra schools and locally elected school boards that
could compel attendance. By 1873, 40 percent of the population lived in school-board areas
where attendance was obligatory. By 1880, schooling was universal and compulsory for children
up to age 10.36
It was not until that act of 1870 had been passed and put in place that the country
began to see the benefits of education.37
In the school attendance statistics, it is difficult to know just how many children actually
attended school because there is a discord between children who attended on census day, and
those who were on the rolls.38
However, literacy rates were more easily determined than school
attendance rates to discover the effectiveness of new education laws. Before marriage, brides and
grooms were questioned about their level of literacy. Between 1840 and 1890, there is an
interesting resemblance of patterns between the rates of illiterate brides and grooms and juvenile
crimes committed—or rather, juvenile criminals indicted.
36
Stephens, Education in Britain¸ 79. 37
Simon, Education and the Labour Movement, 11. 38
Stephens, Education, Literacy and Society, 353-353.
17
Figure 3: Percentage of Illiterate Brides and Grooms.39
Figure 4: Percentage of prisoners under the age of seventeen.40
It is interesting to note that the biggest drop in illiterate brides and groom occurred
between 1870 and 1885. The Elementary Education act of 1870 would have been set in place and
taken effect on the brides and grooms of the 1880s and after. It is interesting to see the similar
39
Stephens, Education, Literacy and Society, 323-323 40
Gatrell and Hadden, Criminal Statistics, 384.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890
Pe
rce
nta
ge o
f B
rid
es
and
Gro
om
s
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900
Pe
rce
nta
ge o
f To
tal P
riso
ne
rs
18
patterns in graphs of steady decline in both areas. Greater education resulted in more literate
brides and grooms and decrease in juvenile crime.
Because of the various variables previously discussed in crime rates, it may be difficult to
assess precisely how education affected the overall crime rate; however, the graph of juvenile
offenders sharply decreasing may be a direct result of increased education. “One of the direct
effects of schooling . . . is that it reduces the amount of time available for criminal activities to
those who are enrolled in schools.” Children who are occupied with learning do not have near so
many opportunities to cause mischief and commit crimes. According to population and education
statistics, primary-school enrollment between 1840 and 1890 increased 6% annually; while
children aged 5-14 were increasing at a rate of only 1.5%. This may explain the graph patterns
and decrease in juvenile offenders.41
The age of offenders at this time was only increasing,
showing that offending adults would have been too old to benefit from any education laws.
Newspaper articles often would mention that the crime decrease was due to education.
One such article in 1885 commented, “I have every satisfaction that there is a [crime] decrease,
and partly it may be attributable to the action of benevolent prisoners’ aid societies and industrial
schools.”42
A feeling that education had been successful in decreasing—or at least influencing
the decreasing crime rate—was evident, and historians have agreed. “The declining crime rate
observed in this period is explained primarily by the rising economic prosperity and education
standards of the population.”43
There are a great many variables making it difficult to prove if
education in itself had an effect on the crime rate, but evidence shows that education indeed did
have a positive influence in decreasing the crime rate.
41
Wong, Economic Analysis, 239. 42
Charles H. Hopewood, “The Decrease of Crime,” in the Times, Thursday, Feb 19, 1885; pg. 13; Issue 31374; Col A. 43
Wong, Economic Analysis, 245.
19
There were many factors and explanations for the decreasing crime rate of the Victorian
Era—particularly in the nineteenth century. Growing Victorian prosperity, decrease in the
unemployment rate, change in culture and attitudes about drunkenness and a decrease in
intoxicated adults were a few. There were changes in legislation—like changing soliciting
women from a crime to a misdemeanor, or juvenile offender’s acts changing the age of indictable
criminals. The creation of a more capable police force significantly changed in the latter half of
the nineteenth century, apparently having a direct effect upon the crime rate. And as the wealth
of the Nation grew in its Victorian Empire, the need for crime decreased. These variables make
it difficult or impossible to prove that education in itself had any positive effect in lowering
crime. It is clear, however, that a general feeling in the first half of the nineteenth century that
education was needed in order to improve society and decrease crime, particularly juvenile
crime, led to increased education. Attendance of reformatory schools, day schools, and religious
schools only increased from 1840 onward, especially after the Elementary Education act of 1870.
Social reformers drew direct correlations between illiteracy and vice and the feeling that
education—both moral and secular—would be the solution to the growing problem of increased
crime. Despite the variables, the statistical data proves that education did have a positive
influence and effect upon the crime rate. It is unarguable that the increase in education directly
corresponds with the decrease in crime rates. Despite the variables, education did have an
influence and was a strong factor in decreasing the crime rate of the Victorian Era.
20
Bibliography
Primary Sources
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Carpenter, Mary. Juvenile Delinquents: Their condition and treatment, London: W. & F.G. Cash, 1856.
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