Report Of The Working Of The Penal Servitudes Acts. 3 Vols Great Britain; Royal Commission On The Penal Antiquarian & Scholarly

3 volumes in 2 books. London, 1879. A New Class of Offender: The White Collar Criminal [Great Britain]. [Royal Commission on the Penal Servitude Acts]. Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Working of the Penal Servitudes Acts. Presented to Both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty. London: Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, Printers to the Queen's most excellent Majesty. For Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1879. Three volumes in two books with continuous pagination. Octavo (9-1/4" x 6"). Contemporary pebbled cloth, gilt library name to front boards and insignia to rear boards, gilt title and library name to spines. Light rubbing to boards, moderate rubbing to extremities, joints starting at ends, corners bumped and lightly worn, shelf labels to front pastedowns. Light toning to interiors, library stamps to title page and a few other leaves in each book. $450. * Only edition. This commission examined the Penal Servitude Act of 1864, the first revision of the laws governing police and judicial authority in penal matters, sentencing and incarceration since 1857. It was headed by the Liberal politician John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley [1826-1902]. The report's recommendations aimed mostly to improve the welfare of prisoners and prevent recidivism. Its most innovative recommendations concerned the treatment of a type of offender who had become more common during the nineteenth-century, the so-called "gentleman convict," or white-collar criminal. Recommendations including housing them separately and sparing them from hard labor. Possibly concerned about the appearance of class bias, the "gentleman convict" recommendations were not adopted, as was the case with most of the report's recommendations. Not in Sweet & Maxwell. See Bethel, "An Exception too Far: `Gentleman' Convicts and the 1878-9 Penal Servitude Acts Commission," Prison Service Journal (July 2017) 40-45.