Are we more 'enlightened' now?

I got the dates wrong there - I meant that someone could have committed a crime in the 20s, be alive and have living grandchildren. It's a long shot, but it's possible, and if the photos had been posted ten years ago it's quite likely. My MIL was born in 1925 and her children are in their 60s now, with grandchildren and GGC too. She would want me to point out for avoidance of doubt that she never had the police to her door, though .

How does it protect the living?

I don't mind the records being there. They should be, so that historians and sociologists can research trends and so on.

I am talking about photos like this. I've chosen one with numbers, rather than do what I'm complaining of others doing, but a lot have the name and date too. John Smith, petty larceny, 1893' that sort of thing, with distinguishing features and comments under the photo on the rap sheet - 'height 5'3, DOB 1884, scar on left cheek, theft of a handkerchief, 6 months hard labour'.

It is conceivable that some of the more recent ones have relatives who remember them - a photo from the 1920s could easily be of someone who has living grandchildren, for instance. Is it right that the penalty for petty theft should include having one's grandchildren see photos like that posted on social media 100 years after the event?

Fair enough to keep them on record - to do otherwise would be censorship - but my point is that the rather prurient sharing of them on social media, with 'Look at her - she was probably starving, poor child' comments to show the compassion of the poster is unpleasant. I realise that this may be a minority view, though.

Most records are opened after 100 years to protect the living. Found an elderly distant relative in a lunatic asylum 110 years ago along with hundreds of others. There was no information as to why any of them were there, but I want to see that record as it is part of his story. None of those people are personally known to anyone alive today and unless you are looking for an individual the other names are meaningless to you.

Should they keep records that long,though? UK records are very full and you can find a lot , much to my delight as a researcher. But I think it probably isn't right as regards young people. Another thing is the 'lunatic asylum' records. I would have thought ,even then, they would be kept private- but they're often not. Ah well, I guess they aren't alive now so maybe it doesn't matter.

But seeing them marked as child criminals only highlights the failure of society to deal with the problem back then. It doesn't shame those children, who we realise were not actual criminals but victims of their time. Heartbreaking as it might be I think we need to see the full details to understand.

I wouldn't care either. If you mean my point about the child 'criminals' it's not about that - it's the thought that they are marked down for eternity as what they did then, which wasn't supposed to be the penalty. They served their time and should (IMO) be left alone. Who knows what they became when they grew up? It's just unfair.

I know they're dead, and that I'm being irrational, but it's how I feel .

It would not bother me to discover that I had an ancestor who was criminal or worse. That was them. I am me. I find all this coyness over the past and how it upsets modern sensibilities makes me feel quite queasy.

The past is the past, there is nothing you can do to affect it, anymore than any apology to those long dead is of any use to them. All it does is help people today feel better about themselves for no good reason.

Dickens I share your concerns.

kircubbin2000

One Of Mine Was transported to Tasmania and later ended up mayor of N York.

That story is worthy of WDYTYA .

One Of Mine Was transported to Tasmania and later ended up mayor of N York.

That's true Chestnut, and the records will always stand - but their names could be blurred before posting them on Facebook. These were local people and the records are from a police station - they were the mugshots of their day. Some of them will have local descendants, and in any case their sentence was 6 months hard labour or whatever - not to have their humiliation broadcast to the world for all eternity.

I think people are as enlightened as they choose to be.
The information is available, but some will still choose to see things from their own viewpoint.

Doodledog

That is a far more sensitive approach. The local history lot seem to have one book between them (and no knowledge of copyright laws ) and shamelessly post the youngest and most wretched-looking over and over. They are holding up placards with their name, details and the offence - it's horrible.

Yes, it's horrible but it happened. I think all the details should be open to view because it's important to see how things were. No-one is going to be hurt or shamed by these pictures or the information about them. We are not going to tut tut and see them as criminals. We are going to feel their pain and empathise with them, knowing that they were either desperate or forced into it. The truth is everything, and seeing the past laid out in all its horrible truth is essential.

Juliet27

Some of those petty criminals may well have been sent to your country of course nanna8 and probably ended up doing very well for themselves.

I've met descendants of some of them and it seems to be quite a matter of pride now that their ancestor was sent out on the First or Second Fleet for a minor offence.

Oe of my GGGGrandfather was sentenced to six months in prison for receiving part of a sheep. The poor man was just trying to feed his family.
I'm surprised he wasn't transported.

Other family members toiled all their lives but ended up in the workhouse.

I agree with both M0nica and Dickens.

We have found similar reports in our family trees nanna8. Plus wife abusers and con men. We once found a young lad who had been sent to an Industrial School and were amazed that the family had any money to send a child to a special school. We later found out it was a borstal ? Both he and his sister appear to have led a life of thieving and pickpocketing.

nanna8

I am not sure crime would be diminished by sharing wealth more evenly. There are many rich criminals amongst the so called ‘ruling classes’. I would go so far as to say probably more than others except they are more likely to get away with it.

You are right nanna8. I've been dreaming of a nirvana that it's unlikely us humans will ever achieve.

MOnica

It is nice to have a pius belief in universal peace, mother love and apple pie, but we could just as easily be living in a world like that forecast in Orwell's 1984 or any other dystopian novel.

You made some good points.

I am beginning to think that we are in fact slowly and almost imperceptibly sliding towards some kind of dystopia. By "we", I mean us - Britain, and England in particular. Both here, and certainly in America, we are no longer pursuing the ideals of progress, toleration and fraternity, nor the advocation of knowledge and reason, as we did in The Enlightenment in the 17th / 18th centuries.

Both Left and Right are pursuing the extremes of their ideologies. Look at the 'physical' freedoms that are being eroded, and the intellectual freedom in which free speech and rational debate is paramount, which is now being curtailed by those who want to impose their views on society. And those of us in the middle who are vainly shouting "stop, stop, let's think about this" are being trodden on by the two extremes who are battling it out in order to dominate. And then we have economic instability - and history has shown us how dangerous that is.

This, if course, is just a very personal view, which might be completely off the mark. I would like it to be. I just can't stop this quiet little demon that mostly lies dormant and then, when I'm reading about world and domestic events, suddenly jumps up and rings that alarm bell in my head.

That is a far more sensitive approach. The local history lot seem to have one book between them (and no knowledge of copyright laws ) and shamelessly post the youngest and most wretched-looking over and over. They are holding up placards with their name, details and the offence - it's horrible.

Doodledog, that;s a good point.
i remember at watford library years ago, they had a display in a case of the local workhouse punishment book.
they had placed a card over the column with the names of the transgressors, so you could read all the other details, but not identify the individuals.

I don't think most of us are more enlightened. Just like to think we are. We just have different prejudices.

We need to remember that in the past living conditions were much harsher for everybody than they are today. Everyone was proprortionately poorer and political attitudes were very different. Many people at every level of society could plunge from affluence to extreme poverty in a few weeks,

It is ridiculous to try to compare condtions now with conditions in the past and assume that people then, from childhood onwards thought and acted as we did. That was then and this is now,

Just think about the way the future will judge us. And the thngs it will judge us on are not the things that we think are important, but things we cannot even suggest what they will be because it would never occur to us that they matter.

It is nice to have a pius belief in universal peace, mother love and apple pie, but we could just as easily be living in a world like that forecast in Orwell's 1984 or any other dystopian novel.

Yes- the sad eyes. I have often thought the same. Also the pinched cheeks. Not so common these days but still around.

I've seen photos of children like the ones you describe (people on local history sites are fond of posting them), and an always struck by how old they look for their years, their sad eyes and the severity of the sentences. I'm also very uneasy about their being named and shamed, even 100 years later - let them rest in peace.

I take the point that whereas the theft of a pair of boots seems trivial today, it might have meant that the owner had to go barefoot back in the day. On the other hand, if the only way to keep your feet warm was to steal boots, the temptation must have been great - it's not really possible to put today's values on the past when it comes to things like this.

I think we need a rethink when it comes to sentencing, as many of the differentials were made when times were different, and it does seem to the untrained eye that many of them are harsher when crimes are committed against the rich than when they are against the poor.

I think there should be an overhaul of sentences for fraud, tax avoidance, money laundering and other financial crimes that affect people through our pensions, insurance charges and so on, as well as more imaginative ways to help young offenders get back on track, and to deter them from getting into crime in the first place. The system needs to be rebalanced, to make it fairer all round.

I am not sure crime would be diminished by sharing wealth more evenly. There are many rich criminals amongst the so called ‘ruling classes’. I would go so far as to say probably more than others except they are more likely to get away with it.

I agree with you eazybee.
Leniency gone too far,and don`t they know it.