Causes of Crime

Question 1

What is Blasphemy?

Answer 1

Speaking about God in a sacrilegious or disrespectful way.

Question 2

When was Blasphemy first criminalised?

Answer 2

In the medieval era

Question 3

What is a cause of crime applicable to all eras?

Answer 3

Poverty

Question 4

When was the Great Famine?

Answer 4

1315-1317

Question 5

What happened during the Great Famine?

Answer 5

Harvests failed and food became scarce, people had to steal food to stay alive.

Question 6

When was the Black Death?

Answer 6

1340’s

Question 7

What happened during the Black Death?

Answer 7

Land was left unfarmed therefore people had to steal food in order to stay alive.

Additionally, when people died and buildings became abandoned, this gave criminals places to hide.

Question 8

When was the Peasants Revolt?

Answer 8

1381

Question 9

What caused the Peasant’s Revolt?

Answer 9

After the 1370’s poll tax was introduced, people couldn’t afford these taxes.
This led to the revolt

Question 10

What 4 problems led to an increase in crime during the medieval era?

Answer 10

Famine
Disease
Warfare
Increased taxation

Question 11

How did warfare increase rates of crime in the medieval era?

Answer 11

Battles often increased poverty in an area by destroying buildings in towns and farmland in the countryside. Also, sometimes battling armies stole the food they needed from the local area they were based in.

This happened in military campaigns from the Norman Conquest in the 11th century through to the Wars of the Roses in the 15th century.

Question 12

What is highway robbery/

Answer 12

Using force or threat of force to steal money or valuables from travellers on the roads

Question 13

When was there an increase in highway robbery?

Answer 13

Medieval era

Question 14

Why was there an increase of highway robbery in the medieval era?

Answer 14

As the economy grew during the medieval era, merchants began to transport more and more of their goods along roads and tracks between villages and towns.

Question 15

What type of crime became very common in the medieval era, and why?

Answer 15

Violent crimes

This was due to people having increased access to potential weapons, especially farming tools (e.g hammers, spades & sickles)

Question 16

What crime consisted of 20% of crimes during the first half of the 14th century?

Answer 16

Murder or manslaughter

Question 16

What percent of crimes was murder or manslaughter in the first half of the 14th century?

Answer 16

20%

Question 16

Why was there an increase of poverty in the early modern era?

Answer 16

Population growth
Collapse of the cloth industry
Changes in farming practises
Inflation
Warfare
Increases tax

Question 17

What are vagrants?

Answer 17

Homeless, unemployed people who wandered the streets

Question 18

How many vagrants were there in the Elizabethan era?

Answer 18

10,000

Question 19

What did people believe caused vagrancy?

Answer 19

Idleness

Question 20

What did the Elizabethan Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601 do?

Answer 20

Made each parish responsible for looking after its poor and punished vagabonds.

Question 21

What is heresy?

Answer 21

To disagree with, or refuse to follow the religious views of the monarch or the state.

Question 22

In which era was heresy common?

Answer 22

Early modern // 16th Century

Question 23

What is the Protestant Reformation?

Answer 23

The changes to Christianity, led by Martin Luther, that challenged the authority of the Catholic Church in the 16th century.

Question 24

How were people who didn’t accept Henry VIII authority punished?

Answer 24

Often via execution
(TREASON)

Question 25

What is Treason?

Answer 25

Not accepting the monarch’s authority

Question 26

How were people convicted of Heresy in the 16th century punished?

Answer 26

Burned

Question 27

What does it mean to ‘recant’?

Answer 27

To say that you no longer hold a certain belief, opinion or view. This is often done in a formal or public manner.

Question 28

What did Mary Tudor do to people to refused to recant to her new Catholic practises?

Answer 28

Burned them at the stake

Question 29

Who is Thomas Wyatt and what did he do?

Answer 29

In 1554, Thomas Wyatt and 90 other Protestant rebels were executed for treason after their failed plot to overthrow Mary and replace her with her sister Elizabeth, a Protestant.

Question 30

How did the population change between 1750 and 1900, in England and Wales?

Answer 30

7 million to over 40 million.
(Industrial Era)

Question 31

By 1900, what percent of the population lived in urban areas?

Answer 31

80%

Question 32

Causes of industrial era crime in urban areas

Answer 32

-Bad infrastructure meant it was easy for criminals to evade capture
-Policing was ineffective
-Poverty, overcrowding, disease
-Workers had no rights

Question 33

What are rookeries and when were they common?

Answer 33

A slum area in a town or a city where rates of poverty and crime were high.

Industrial era

Question 34

Industrial Revolution

Answer 34

The process that transformed manufacturing from handmade to machine-made, mass-produced goods using water, steam and coal power transported by canal, rail and steamship. Britain was the first country to have an Industrial Revolution.

Question 35

Causes of rural crime in the Industrial Era

Answer 35

-High poverty rates as new machines put people out of work
-Farm labourers had low wages and long hours.
-Food prices were high

Question 36

When was the Luddites revolt?

Answer 36

1811

Question 37

What happened during the Luddites revolt?

Answer 37

Gangs of weavers smashed up 1,000 new machines in Nottingham and Derbyshire.

The Luddites’ protest failed. The Government sent in soldiers, who fought a gun battle with the Luddites in 1812.

Question 38

Why did rates of highway robbery increase in the 18th Century?

Answer 38

-More roads

-Roads were often in isolated areas

-Ex-soldiers struggled to find work after the Napoleonic wars, they turned to highway robbery for income

-Taverns on the roads meant that criminals had places to hide or sell their loot

-Horses were cheap and guns were easy to get a hold of

Question 39

What is smuggling?

Answer 39

Smuggling is the illegal trade in goods to avoid paying customs duties and taxes.

Question 40

What 2 taxes did merchants and traders have to pay when importing goods in the industrial era?

Answer 40

excise duty
customs duty

Question 41

Why were Excise and customs duties high in the 18th century? What affect did this have on crime?

Answer 41

This was because the government was trying to raise money to pay for a war with France.

This meant that more people smuggled goods to avoid paying taxes

Question 42

When was the ‘golden age’ of smuggling?

Answer 42

18th Century

Question 43

Why did rates of smuggling increase in the 18th century?

Answer 43

-Taxes and duties were increasing

-People who smuggled goods into the country could make a large profit on the black market

-There are thousands of miles of coastline in Britain, and most of it was unguarded and poorly policed.

-Smuggled goods were popular as they were usually cheaper than legally imported goods.

Question 44

6 most common transport crimes in the Modern era

Answer 44

• Using a mobile phone whilst driving
• No licence
• Speeding
• No insurance
• Reckless driving
• No valid MOT

Question 45

How many cars were there on British roads by the end of the 20th century?

Answer 45

25 million cars

Question 46

Why are cars often used to commit crimes in the modern era?

Answer 46

They allow criminals to get to the scene of a crime more quickly

Cars have also been used as weapons in crimes, such as ram-raiding, where vehicles are driven into premises in order to steal items from inside.

People often leave personal property inside them, which can be easily targeted by thieves.

Question 47

5 new types of crime brought about by the invention of computers.

Answer 47

Hacking
Illegally downloading music or films
Phishing scams
Identity theft
Computer viruses

Question 48

3 new methods of crime brought about by the invention of the computer

Answer 48

Sexual Crimes
Fraud
Cyber-bullying

Question 49

Why did the invention of the Internet increase crime rates?

Answer 49

This allows criminals to commit crimes anywhere due to quick access to the internet from any location.