In the 1800s, kids could work full time jobs and they could be thrown in jail or labor camps just like adults. While today only the very worst child criminals are tried in adult court, and even then very rarely, in the 1870s in Newcastle-upon-Tyne kids were routinely sentenced to jail time or hard labor for stealing clothes or food. The Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums have a collection of the Newcastle City Gaol’s mugshots from 1871-1873, and there are a lot of little kids who were doing time! Thankfully these archaic practices had been outlawed by the time I took up petty shoplifting, but then again, maybe a little hard labor would have done me some good…
Lani Parker
February 9, 2014 at 9:42 am
Wow, they just don’t make mugshots like they used to. I am still shocked that kids were treated this harshly just over 100 years. Sure, kids can be assholes like any other grouping of people, but sometimes a person has to do what they have to do.