‘Garotting’, or the strangulation of a victim in the course of a robbery, haunted the British public in the 1850s. Emelyne Godfrey describes the measures taken to prevent it and the range of gruesome self-defence devices that were often of greater danger to the wearer than to the assailant.
Richard Cavendish remembers the capture and slaying of the definitive American gangster on July 22nd 1934.
In his twenties, Philippe Maurice was sentenced to death by guillotine for murdering a policeman. Saved by a change of government, he transformed himself through prison study into one of France’s leading medieval historians. William Smith reports.
Liz Homans looks back over the long campaign to remove the death penalty from the statute book in Britain.
How dangerous was life in the Middle Ages? Sean McGlynn gets to grips with the level of violent crime, and the sometimes cruel justice meted out to offenders.
Richard Evans tells the little-known story of how 19th-century Germany attempted to solve its prison problems by secretly sending felons to the United States as immigrants.
One of the great conspiracy theories of the Second World War is that the Americans struck a deal with Mafia mobsters to conquer Sicily. Tim Newark exposes the truth behind this notorious story of Mafia collaboration.
The courthouse, built on the site of Newgate Prison, was formally opened on February 27th, 1907.
As preparations are made for Saddam Hussein’s trial in Iraq, Clive Foss examines the precedents for bringing tyrants to justice and finds the process fraught with political complexity.
The last woman hanged in Britain was executed on 13 July 1955.
