Punishing Women, 1880-1905

Police, prison and court data show that during the late 19th and early 20th
Centuries Stafford magistrates overwhelmingly imposed small fines or short prison sentences
on the women coming before them. The offending trajectories of the repeat female
offenders in Stafford show that for most of them such punishments either had little or no
deterrent effect. However those women who were perceived to live beyond the safe haven
of a family were more likely not only to be sentenced to custody but also to find their
custodial sentences becoming successive which, in turn, exacerbated their offending