Did Convict Transportation Replace the Death Penalty in 18th Century England?

What is it about?

Penal reforms do not always behave as we expect them do. The practice of convict transportation (sending convicts to the New World from Great Britain in the 18th Century) is a great example of this. Ostensibly, transportation was supposed to provide an alternative to executing serious offenders. Instead, only a small portion of capital offenders were transported instead of receiving death sentences. The group most affected was petty offenders who previously would have been fined, whipped, or branded and released---now, they had to survive a dangerous voyage to the New World and spend seven years as an indentured servant.

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Why is it important?

While using a historical example, this paper exemplifies a common theme in contemporary penal reforms called "mesh thinning." Essentially, penal reforms intended to divert a population from a more serious punishment (here, death) end up being used on a different population that previously would have faced shorter or less intense punishments. Rather than reigning in problematic excesses in the penal system, these reforms end up making the penal system more severe.