The Criminal Class Revisited: Recidivism and Punishment in Ontario, 1871-1920

Much of the renewed interest in the history of crime and punishment over the past two decades has centered on various aspects of the nineteenth-century notion of a criminal class. Although recidivism was widely regarded as the defining feature of the criminal class, little of this research has focused on systematic investigations of either differences between recidivists and the rest of the prison population or the nature and extent of recidivism-related differences in sentence outcomes. This article examines these two issues using data on offenders committed to Middlesex County Jail, Ontario, from 1871 to 1920. The results show that while recidivists differed from first-time committals to prison in terms of a number of sociodemographic and case-related characteristics, they bore little resemblance to contemporary stereotypes about the criminal class. In addition, the findings reveal both similarities and noteworthy differences with respect to the factors associated with harsher sentencing outcomes for recidivists and nonrecidivists.