Gender, Crime and Discretion in Yorkshire, 1735-1775

This book explores the gendered exercise of discretion at the various stages of the judicial process in the quarter session and assize courts of Yorkshire between 1735 and 1775. It examines the predicament of both sexes in relational terms at each stage of the judicial process, from pre-trial to sentencing, and with respect to the offences of homicide, non-fatal violence, theft and riot. It is argued that contrasting experiences of the judicial process during the eighteenth century was largely due to an increase in the number of statutory offences created between 1680 and 1820 under the ‘Bloody Code’, combined with the effects of the Transportation Act, 1718, which made transportation to America the statutory punishment for a wide range of common law felonies. A recurring theme of this book is of greater leniency extended to women under threat of a capital sentence, alongside the more severe punishment of women when that threat was removed. The core arguments of this work relate to the gendered nature of judicial responses to crime during the period surveyed.