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Book Review
| Deirdre Palk, Gender, Crime and Judicial Discretion, 1780–1830, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2006. Pp. 202. $80.00 (ISBN 0-8619-3282-X).
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| This is a book about gender and criminality which delivers on its promises to address questions about the effect of gender on prosecution, sentencing, and punishment in a period when concern about crime was uppermost in contemporary minds. It challenges previous work on the nature of female criminality and the criminal justice system by looking in more depth at the qualitative information contained within printed trial reports and appeals to reveal how prosecutors, juries, and judges made their decisions on individual offenders. |
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Gender, Crime and Judicial Discretion is structured around the study of three separate criminal acts (shoplifting, picking pockets, and the distribution of forged currency) and their prosecution at the Old Bailey. By looking at the written trial reports in much more detail than has previously been attempted they reveal interesting details about these offenses. Palk points out that relatively few men or women charged with shoplifting or pickpocketing faced trials for their lives. They also had to be very unfortunate to actually hang for these offenses. Thus the picture of criminal justice that Palk describes is actually quite far removed from the "fatal tree" that has defined many previous histories. For shoplifters and pickpockets at least, the "leniency abounded" (121). |
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Some of the most interesting work in the book is on the strategies employed by the Bank of England in prosecuting those who attempted to undermine the currency. Here the pragmatism of the Bank was evident in its pursuit of cases it was confident of winning while leaving lesser criminals alone until they could be punished at a later stage. Palk's study of how the Bank offered plea bargains to those willing to suffer exile overseas in return for their lives is a chilling example of how the ruling elites dominated plebeian lives. The subsequent financial support of those women who accepted the Bank's "bargain" demonstrates again the nature of deference, paternalism, and discretion which suffused the Hanoverian justice system. |
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Later chapters look at what happened to those found guilty and sentenced by the court. In doing so Palk makes another useful contribution to the field. By looking at appeals and petitions for pardons she reminds us that the process of criminal justice in England did not end at the Old Bailey and offers interesting observations on the reasons for discretionary judgments. In this she furthers the argument that a range of factors affected an individual's "journey" through the corridors of justice. This opens up an interesting discussion into how the needs of the British state to rid itself of unwanted deviants were bound up with its desire to populate Australia. She reminds us that transportation was hardly a soft option for those found guilty of property offences and was especially hard for women. Nevertheless exile overseas offered some hope for the future. Women did hang in this period and Palk looks at individual cases to explore the reasons why. It is clear that it was those few women who refused to play along with the paternalistic doctrine; those who were bawdy, refused to accept their fate, or misbehaved in gaol ended their lives on the gallows. |
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Palk's work will be of immense interest to those of us working within the field of crime history, but she deserves a much wider audience for her work. This is a social history of London's poorest classes and we hear the voices of the poor in the appeals for clemency and financial support to the home office and Bank of England. There are broader links to gender history, to the nature of patriarchy and paternalism, and debates around "separate spheres" and the laboring poor. Palk makes it clear that while in some ways the paternalistic nature of the law worked to protect women, female criminals had to behave in certain ways in order to deserve this male protection. Thus, paternalism as expressed in the courts was "little more than a particular mode or subset of patriarchal relations" (37). |
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If there is a criticism to make of Palk's book it is that while she acknowledges that many people would have experienced the law at a lower level, she has chosen to concentrate her research at the upper echelons of the system. This is understandable as the summary courts require a separate study of their own. However, we should be aware that the Old Bailey was only a part of a much wider set of institutions offenders would have encountered on their journey to death, exile, or liberation. |
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Palk has used well-known sources in a new and interesting way and brought lesser-known and under-researched archives to light. This study enhances our understanding of the importance of gender in the working of the criminal justice system and looks set to become a core text for all students of crime, law, and gender histories for many years to come. |
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| Drew Gray
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| University of Northampton |
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