Crime and Punishment: Prostitution, Alcohol and Gangs

Prostitution

Women had fewer secure job opportunities than men, and wages were often too low to cover rent and food.

Some women sold sex occasionally to afford a doss-house bed or avoid the workhouse.

Victorian language called prostitutes "unfortunates", but many people still blamed them morally rather than seeing poverty as the cause.

Alcohol

Alcohol was a cheap escape from miserable housing and insecure work.

The workbook gives 45 gin houses in one mile of Whitechapel Road, so drunken disorder was a constant beat problem.

Police checked that landlords closed on time and did not serve people who were already drunk.

Gang intimidation

Gangs such as the Bessarabian Tigers and Odessians demanded protection money from small shops and stalls.

If people refused, their property could be smashed and they risked violence.

H Division struggled because frightened witnesses would not give evidence, and the police were too stretched to stop every fight or racket.