Crime and Punishment: A Journey Through Time
Be part of a jury and meet six offenders from different time periods. Can you work out the crime and the ensuing punishment? Investigate artefacts to learn about crime and punishment through the ages.
This is a full day session. Half day sessions can be requested, although a full day is recommened in order to give pupils the full experience of crime and punishment from Roman times to WW2. The workshop will begin with pupils being part of a jury. Six pupils will be selected to wear costume. They will each represent an offender from a different time period: Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, Tudor, Victorian and WW2. Pupils must decide what the crime might have been and what punishment would have been given. A quiz will run alongside this activity.
Pupils will handle artefacts. Through looking at and discussing artefacts, pupils will gain more of an understanding of crime and punishment through the ages.
The workshop will end with a ‘ Weregild’ and ‘Trial by ordeal’ activity.
The workshop will focus on
- Discovering that what was regarded as a crime differed through the ages.
- What punishments were used through the ages.
- How punishments in the past have influenced modern systems of law and order.
- How looking at how artefacts can teach us about crime and punishment through different time periods.
- Encouraging pupils to question whether punishments used in the past were acceptable, and if modern punishments should be used.
