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"The subject of this book pertains to events, often unpleasant, in the domestic lives of the 17th-century Maryland colonists."—publisher's catalog description, 1938 Marylander Edward Erbery called members of the colony's proprietary assembly "rogues and puppies"; he was tied to an apple tree and received thirty-nine lashes. Jacob Lumbrozo, a Maryland Jew who suggested Christ's miracles were done by "magic," was imprisoned indefinitely, escaping execution only by the governor's pardon. Rebecca Fowler was accused of using witchcraft to cause her Calvert County neighbors to feel "very much the worse;" she was hanged on October 9, 1685. Mrs. Thomas Ward whipped a runaway maidservant with a peachtree rod, then rubbed salt into the girl's wounds; the girl died, and Mrs. Ward was fined three hundred pounds of tobacco. Now available in a new paperback edition, Raphael Semmes's classic Crime and Punishment in Colonial Maryland contains a wealth of colorful—though often disturbing—details about the law and lawbreakers in 17th-century Maryland. Semmes explains, for instance, that theft was rare among early Marylanders—if only because the colonists had little worth stealing. But what the colonists valued, they endeavored to protect: A 1662 law punished a person twice-convicted of hog-stealing by branding an "H" on his shoulder. (Widely perceived as being too lenient, the law was amended four years later: first offense, "H" on the forehead.) Men caught in adultery were often fined; women were often whipped. And knowing how to swim was so rare among 17th-century women that suggesting one could do so was tantamount to accusing her of witchcraft: a minister's son who claimed as much was sued by the woman for defamation of character. Crime and Punishment in Colonial Maryland offers fascinating and detailed case histories on such crimes as theft, libel, assault and homicide, as well as on adultery, profanity, drunkenness, and witchcraft. It also explores long-forgotten aspects of old English law, such as theftbote (an early form of "victim compensation"), deodand (an animal or article which, having caused the death of a human being, was forfeited to the Crown for "pious uses"), and the blood test for murderers.
Argues that a policy of mass incarceration is ineffective and that prison expenditures could have greater impact on criminal violence if spent on prevention and rehabilitation programs.
Most people know that England shipped thousands of convicts to Australia, but few are aware that colonial America was the original destination for Britain's unwanted criminals. In the 18th century, thousands of British convicts were separated from their families, chained together in the hold of a ship, and carried off to America, sometimes for the theft of a mere handkerchief.What happened to these convicts once they arrived in America? Did they prosper in an environment of unlimited opportunity, or were they ostracized by the other colonists? Anthony Vaver tells the stories of the petty thieves and professional criminals who were punished by being sent across the ocean to work on plantations. In bringing to life this forgotten chapter in American history, he challenges the way we think about immigration to early America.The book also includes a helpful appendix with tips on researching individual convicts transported to America.
This open access book is the culmination of many years of research on what happened to the bodies of executed criminals in the past. Focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it looks at the consequences of the 1752 Murder Act. These criminal bodies had a crucial role in the history of medicine, and the history of crime, and great symbolic resonance in literature and popular culture. Starting with a consideration of the criminal corpse in the medieval and early modern periods, chapters go on to review the histories of criminal justice, of medical history and of gibbeting under the Murder Act, and ends with some discussion of the afterlives of the corpse, in literature, folklore and in contemporary medical ethics. Using sophisticated insights from cultural history, archaeology, literature, philosophy and ethics as well as medical and crime history, this book is a uniquely interdisciplinary take on a fascinating historical phenomenon.
“Mikita Brottman is one of today’s finest practitioners of nonfiction.” —The New York Times Book Review Critically acclaimed author and psychoanalyst Mikita Brottman offers literary true crime writing at its best, taking us into the life of a murderer after his conviction—when most stories end but the defendant's life goes on. On February 21, 1992, 22-year-old Brian Bechtold walked into a police station in Port St. Joe, Florida and confessed that he’d shot and killed his parents in their family home in Silver Spring, Maryland. He said he’d been possessed by the devil. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and ruled “not criminally responsible” for the murders on grounds of insanity. But after the trial, where do the "criminally insane" go? Brottman reveals Brian's inner life leading up to the murder, as well as his complicated afterlife in a maximum security psychiatric hospital, where he is neither imprisoned nor free. During his 27 years at the hospital, Brian has tried to escape and been shot by police, and has witnessed three patient-on-patient murders. He’s experienced the drugging of patients beyond recognition, a sadistic system of rewards and punishments, and the short-lived reign of a crazed psychiatrist-turned-stalker. In the tradition of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Couple Found Slain is an insider’s account of life in the underworld of forensic psych wards in America and the forgotten lives of those held there, often indefinitely.
Several encyclopedias overview the contemporary system of criminal justice in America, but full understanding of current social problems and contemporary strategies to deal with them can come only with clear appreciation of the historical underpinnings of those problems. Thus, this five-volume work surveys the history and philosophy of crime, punishment, and criminal justice institutions in America from colonial times to the present. It covers the whole of the criminal justice system, from crimes, law enforcement and policing, to courts, corrections and human services. Among other things, this encyclopedia: explicates philosophical foundations underpinning our system of justice; charts changing patterns in criminal activity and subsequent effects on legal responses; identifies major periods in the development of our system of criminal justice; and explores in the first four volumes - supplemented by a fifth volume containing annotated primary documents - evolving debates and conflicts on how best to address issues of crime and punishment. Its signed entries in the first four volumes--supplemented by a fifth volume containing annotated primary documents--provide the historical context for students to better understand contemporary criminological debates and the contemporary shape of the U.S. system of law and justice.
Troubled Experiment exposes the difference between glowing reputation and grim reality of crime in early Pennsylvania. The plight of lawmakers and magistrates, and the sufferings of victims, women, children, and minorities take their places in this tragedy. The authors conclude that through this lens, we see the troubled future of America.
Includes contributions from Herbert L. Packer, Jerome Hall, Erving Goffman, Francis A. Allen, H.L.A. Hart, Norval Morris, Gordon Hawkins, and many others. (Legal Reference)
Buried Lives offers the first critical examination of the experience of imprisonment in early America. These interdisciplinary essays investigate several carceral institutions to show how confinement shaped identity, politics, and the social imaginary both in the colonies and in the new nation. The historians and literary scholars included in this volume offer a complement and corrective to conventional understandings of incarceration that privilege the intentions of those in power over the experiences of prisoners. Considering such varied settings as jails, penitentiaries, almshouses, workhouses, floating prison ships, and plantations, the contributors reconstruct the struggles of people imprisoned in locations from Antigua to Boston. The essays draw upon a rich array of archival sources from the seventeenth century to the eve of the Civil War, including warden logs, petitions, execution sermons, physicians' clinical notes, private letters, newspaper articles, runaway slave advertisements, and legal documents. Through the voices, bodies, and texts of the incarcerated, Buried Lives reveals the largely ignored experiences of inmates who contested their subjection to regimes of power.