Eduqas GCSE History Changes in Crime and Punishment c.500 to present: a complete thematic overview

What this option demands

Changes in Crime and Punishment c.500 to present is a popular Eduqas thematic study (Component 2), and the longest paper in the qualification. It traces crime, law enforcement and punishment across more than a thousand years. Because it is a thematic study, the exam rewards an understanding of change and continuity and the factors that drove or held back change. It also includes a historic environment, a specific set site. This overview ties the period and skills pages together.

Medieval crime and punishment, c.500 to 1500

Order rested on the community, not the state. Every man belonged to a tithing; the hue and cry obliged everyone to chase a criminal; unpaid constables and the sheriff's posse caught fugitives. Guilt was decided by trial by jury or, until 1215, trial by ordeal. The Church ran its own courts and offered benefit of the clergy and sanctuary, while the King defined treason and the hated Forest Laws. Punishment ranged from the wergild and fines to mutilation and hanging.

Early modern crime and punishment, c.1500 to 1700

Religious and economic change created "new" crimes: vagabondage (the feared wandering poor), witchcraft (prosecuted intensely from about 1560 to 1660, peaking under Matthew Hopkins in the Civil War), smuggling and heresy. Enforcement still relied on amateurs. Punishment grew harsher and more public (more hangings, public burnings, the pillory and the start of transportation), driven by fear of disorder and religion.

Industrial crime and punishment, c.1700 to 1900

This is the great turning point. The Bloody Code (over 200 capital crimes by 1800) was abolished in the 1820s to 1830s because juries would not convict and attitudes changed. Robert Peel founded the professional Metropolitan Police in 1829, ending amateur policing. Punishment moved from the scaffold to the prison: public execution and transportation both ended in 1868, while imprisonment, reshaped by John Howard and Elizabeth Fry and modelled on Pentonville (1842), became central.

Modern crime and punishment, c.1900 to present

New crimes appeared (cybercrime, motoring, terrorism), though theft remains commonest. Science and technology transformed policing: fingerprinting (from 1901), DNA profiling (from the 1980s), CCTV and computers. The death penalty was abolished in 1965 after miscarriages of justice and changing attitudes. Prison remains the main serious punishment, but its aim has shifted towards rehabilitation, with alternatives to custody such as community service, probation and tagging.

Factors, comparison and the historic environment

The thematic study rewards explaining change through factors (attitudes and religion, government, individuals, science and technology, and social and economic change), balanced against continuity. It also includes a comparison question (make explicit, linked comparisons between periods) and a historic environment, a set site studied in detail and examined inside the thematic paper.

Check your knowledge

A mix of recall questions covering the whole option. Attempt them, then check the solutions.

1. What was a tithing, and what was it for? (2 marks)
2. In what year did the Church withdraw support for trial by ordeal? (1 mark)
3. Name one "new" crime of the early modern period and why it arose. (2 marks)
4. What was the Bloody Code, and roughly how many capital crimes did it include? (2 marks)
5. Who founded the Metropolitan Police, and in what year? (2 marks)
6. In what year did public execution and transportation both end? (1 mark)
7. Name the five factors Eduqas uses to explain change. (5 marks)
8. When was the death penalty abolished for murder in Britain? (1 mark)