Global InformationLondon garrotting panics information
The London garrotting panics were two moral panics that occurred in London in 1856 and 1862–63 over a perceived increase in violent street robbery. Garrotting was a term used for robberies in which the victim was strangled to incapacitate them but came to be used as a catch-all term for what is described today as a mugging.
Despite a general fall in crime following the 1829 establishment of the Metropolitan Police, the press reported in 1856 that garrotting was on the rise. They laid the blame at the recent cessation of transportation to Australia as a punishment for offenders and the subsequent adoption of the ticket of leave system of release on licence. The reported rise in street robbery is considered to have largely been an invention of the press; fears subsided when press coverage petered out at the end of the year. The panic led to the Penal Servitude Act 1857, which increased the minimal prison sentence for offences previously punished by transportation.
The July 1862 garrotting of Member of Parliament James Pilkington, widely covered in the press, led to a renewed panic. Again the penal system was criticised for its supposed softness and the police for their inefficiency. The panic saw some Londoners wearing anti-garrotting clothing such as studded leather collars and cravats with razor blades sewn in, a move which was parodied by Punch. The panic led to new legislation on prison conditions, which were made substantially more harsh. Prison sentences lengthened and flogging returned for violent street robberies. These measures affected criminals throughout the late Victorian era and reversed previous measures to move the prison system from punishment towards rehabilitation. The panic petered out by the start of 1863 with reduced press coverage as other stories took over the headlines.