commit them’ How far do you agree? (12 marks)
You may use the following:
- Fraud
- Race crimes
An initial way I can agree with this statement that: types of crimes haven’t changed, just the
methods to commit them since the 19 th century, is the idea of smuggling. Smuggling has been a
major social-economical issue since the 18 th & 19th century mainly taking place in coastal cities and
towns. Smugglers brought in tea, cloth, wine etc without paying any of the income tax required. As
time went by improvements to transportation have drastically increased making smuggling easier.
Smuggling can now be done by air, boat and land efficiently in large quantities which was wildly
unavailable before. Smuggling of illegal substances such as drugs mainly has heavily increased since
the beginning of the 19th century but the fundamental aspect of the crime of smuggling has not
changed.
Another aspect of agreement to this statement is hate crime. Jews and eastern Europeans in
general, in the 19th century, in places like Whitechapel were heavily excluded and subject to hate
crime and harassment by Christians. Employers often picked Christians over Jews for jobs and fights
between Christians and Jews often broke out in the streets and pub due to racial slurs and activity. In
the modern day hate crime has mostly shifted over to online bullying as people there can harass
anonymously giving them a sense of protection. Hate crime nowadays has a major affect on young
people online as it makes people feel insecure and depressed at times when they are targeted. Due
to all this we can see as time passed the nature of the crime has not changed, just the way it is
committed has.
Finally an example of a crime that has not changed, but emerged instead is cybercrime and hacking.
Technology has allowed things like online shopping etc to become a reality on the internet allowing
crimes such as identity fraud, phishing and many scams to rise. The rise of the digital age began in
1969 with the first use of computer happening and as this technology was not possible in the 19th
century we can disagree with the statement as this crime has been created recently and the method
used to commit it wasn't just changed.