This book is a comparative quantitative analysis of the administration of justice across four English and three Welsh counties between 1760 and 1830. Drawing on a dataset of over 22,000 indictments, the book explores the similarities and differences between how the so-called Bloody Code was administered between, on the one hand, England and Wales, and, on the other, individual English and Welsh counties. The book is structured in two sections that trace the criminal justice process in England and Wales respectively. The first chapter in each section examines the pattern of indictments in the respective counties, and explores the crimes for which men and women were indicted, the verdicts handed down, and the sentences passed. The second chapter then explores patterns of sentences of death, executions and pardons for those capitally convicted of serious crimes against the person and forms of property offences.

Provides the first book-length comparative quantitative analysis of the administration of the Bloody Code across English and Welsh counties Shifts attention away from eigtheenth and nineteenth century London, focusing instead on the periphery of England and into Wales Assesses patterns of death sentencing, executions and pardons for serious crimes against the person and forms of property offences

Autorentext
John Walliss is Senior Lecturer in Criminology in the School of Social Sciences at Liverpool Hope University, UK.

Inhalt
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Part One: England.- Chapter 2: The Criminal justice process in Georgian England.- Chapter 3: 'The lottery of justice': The Bloody Code in England, 1760-1830.- Part Two: Wales.- Chapter 4: Crime and Justice in the Courts of Great Sessions: The Brecon Circuit 1760-1830.- Chapter 5: A land of White Gloves? Life and death in Georgian Wales.- Chapter 6: Conclusion.- Index.