Let's get tough on crime
From the perspective of people of our time, most of the poor sods reduced to pinching the occasional sheep, or handkerchief, or beating up some drunk to get his small change, or conning some widow with twenty-three children out of her one shilling's worth of life savings, or, yes, even stealing a loaf of bread, were really not particularly "nice". Their overall morality was far from impressive, being largely what we might call "psychopathic" or "sociopathic", and most of them were inveterate thieves. Stealing without conscience. Which gave them something in common with the rich and powerful of the country.
Except the poor had an excuse, whereas the wealthy could have shared without noticing. These rich buggers, not just "rich" or "wealthy", but stupendously, overwhelmingly, incredibly, and yes, appallingly magooglekwerkel (yes, we made that up because we can't think of another word to describe how rich these people were in comparison to the poor; oh, hang on, we just thought of one, we'll put it outside these brackets), "American", must have made their way through their cities and their lives without focussing on the poverty-stricken people surrounding them (actually, there are, of course, much worse countries in our world for this problem than the US; Russia, India, and China come to mind immediately).
So they decided to do what our time still keeps trying to do - they became tough on crime. They introduced more and more crimes, for smaller and smaller infractions, with more and more severe penalties. The nobs ran the courts, so they made sure the poor were treated as harshly as the laws they made allowed. And then a bit.
But then the wealthy found what the United States in our time has found, and what Australia will find if it continues down this path, "tough on crime" connected with appalling poverty leads to social disaffection, social collapse, and massive increases in crime. Not exactly what they wanted, but once on the path, they didn't know how to stop. Even worse, many, if not most, of them didn't see the problem and didn't want to stop.
Now, in the mid-1700s the wealthy of Britain didn't have much in the way of prisons, punishment had been pretty harsh and mostly involved torture, or, if the criminals were lucky, death. Such prisons as they had were fairly small, and were mostly used as holding places for the soon-to-be tortured and/or hanged, and for the small number held for short terms of imprisonment for various exceptionally minor offences.
The nobs kept up the hanging, of course, but just didn't have the technology to hang all the people who their new tough-on-crime laws required to be hanged. And even then there were do-gooders who objected to too much hanging, and even the hanging of those evilly-born little sods, children.
So, the prisons inevitably filled up to almost overflowing pretty quickly. Then they started to ship the convicts as slaves to the Caribbean and the American colonies. And, of course, they still hanged as many as they could.
But then the United States of America was created as the colonists kicked out the British colonialists, and told Britain's rulers what they could do with their convicts, which did not involve them being sent to be worked to death on the cotton plantations.
The wealthy then bought a whole heap of rotting old ship hulks, because they were much cheaper than building prisons, and bunged the prison overflow into them. And hanged more and more. But it was getting out of hand. The hulks were now overflowing, and they had no idea what to do with all these terribly socially disruptive elements. They were seriously worried, because they realised the poor had no commitment to the nation of Britain or its society, and not only were the poor revolting, but they might revolt and start killing the rich. For goodness sakes, they might even try to introduce that appalling thing called "democracy" that those nasty, ungrateful American wretches had opted for.
And to add to their woes, over-educated scum were writing books about the poor having rights, and more and more people were expressing concern about the number of hangings, and the young age of some of the hanging victims.
Except the poor had an excuse, whereas the wealthy could have shared without noticing. These rich buggers, not just "rich" or "wealthy", but stupendously, overwhelmingly, incredibly, and yes, appallingly magooglekwerkel (yes, we made that up because we can't think of another word to describe how rich these people were in comparison to the poor; oh, hang on, we just thought of one, we'll put it outside these brackets), "American", must have made their way through their cities and their lives without focussing on the poverty-stricken people surrounding them (actually, there are, of course, much worse countries in our world for this problem than the US; Russia, India, and China come to mind immediately).
So they decided to do what our time still keeps trying to do - they became tough on crime. They introduced more and more crimes, for smaller and smaller infractions, with more and more severe penalties. The nobs ran the courts, so they made sure the poor were treated as harshly as the laws they made allowed. And then a bit.
But then the wealthy found what the United States in our time has found, and what Australia will find if it continues down this path, "tough on crime" connected with appalling poverty leads to social disaffection, social collapse, and massive increases in crime. Not exactly what they wanted, but once on the path, they didn't know how to stop. Even worse, many, if not most, of them didn't see the problem and didn't want to stop.
Now, in the mid-1700s the wealthy of Britain didn't have much in the way of prisons, punishment had been pretty harsh and mostly involved torture, or, if the criminals were lucky, death. Such prisons as they had were fairly small, and were mostly used as holding places for the soon-to-be tortured and/or hanged, and for the small number held for short terms of imprisonment for various exceptionally minor offences.
The nobs kept up the hanging, of course, but just didn't have the technology to hang all the people who their new tough-on-crime laws required to be hanged. And even then there were do-gooders who objected to too much hanging, and even the hanging of those evilly-born little sods, children.
So, the prisons inevitably filled up to almost overflowing pretty quickly. Then they started to ship the convicts as slaves to the Caribbean and the American colonies. And, of course, they still hanged as many as they could.
But then the United States of America was created as the colonists kicked out the British colonialists, and told Britain's rulers what they could do with their convicts, which did not involve them being sent to be worked to death on the cotton plantations.
The wealthy then bought a whole heap of rotting old ship hulks, because they were much cheaper than building prisons, and bunged the prison overflow into them. And hanged more and more. But it was getting out of hand. The hulks were now overflowing, and they had no idea what to do with all these terribly socially disruptive elements. They were seriously worried, because they realised the poor had no commitment to the nation of Britain or its society, and not only were the poor revolting, but they might revolt and start killing the rich. For goodness sakes, they might even try to introduce that appalling thing called "democracy" that those nasty, ungrateful American wretches had opted for.
And to add to their woes, over-educated scum were writing books about the poor having rights, and more and more people were expressing concern about the number of hangings, and the young age of some of the hanging victims.