Rachel E Bennett – författare

When we imagine life behind the high walls of the fortress-like prisons that were built and modified as the modern prison system was created in the mid-nineteenth century, we conjure up scenes where strict regulation prevailed to control people in body and in mind. An image that poses something of a paradox is that of mothers and their babies living in this carceral environment. This book looks behind the cell doors of these institutions to illuminate the experiences of this group of prisoners. The management of their health alongside the management of penal discipline posed complex conundrums to the prison system. Although rarely fully considered at policy level, this balancing act was negotiated by those who lived and worked in prisons on a daily basis.An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC) licence.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.This book provides the most in-depth study of capital punishment in Scotland between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth century to date. Based upon an extensive gathering and analysis of previously untapped resources, it takes the reader on a journey from the courtrooms of Scotland to the theatre of the gallows. It introduces them to several of the malefactors who faced the hangman’s noose and explores the traditional hallmarks of the spectacle of the scaffold. It demonstrates that the period between 1740 and 1834 was one of discussion, debate and fundamental change in the use of the death sentence and how it was staged in practice. In addition, the study provides an innovative investigation of the post-mortem punishment of the criminal corpse. It offers the reader an insight into the scene at the foot of the gibbets from which criminal bodies were displayed and around the dissection tables of Scotland’s main universities where criminal bodies were used as cadavers for anatomical demonstration. In doing so it reveals an intermediate stage in the long-term disappearance of public bodily punishment.