Victim culture began in 1880

Hardly a week goes by without the news that some criminal has pocketed an enormous sum from suing someone in an action which arises from the criminal’s wrongdoing. The government has sought to clamp down on this practice by inserting into the Criminal Justice Bill a clause that will prevent criminals from suing their victims for injuries they have incurred in the course of their crimes.

This is a belated move in the right direction. But how did judges ever come to entertain such actions? How did all the traditional canons of the criminal law come to be inverted in favour of the wrongdoer?

The pathological stage of a current of ideas started not in the 1960s, but as long ago as the 1880s. In many ways the 1880s was a pivotal decade that contained the seeds of the modern age. The Victorian certainties were beginning to pass away. Concerns about Britain’s faltering economic position relative to her competitors spilled over into concerns about British society. Britain’s first significant socialist movements were formed. The social order came in for serious criticism from those who were moved by the plight of disadvantaged groups.

Criminals, because they tended to come from disadvantaged backgrounds, were seen as people who should be treated leniently. Far from being viewed as a threat to the social order, as in earlier generations, they were seen as mentally and morally weak people who deserved the state’s protection.

The first official manifestation of this thinking was provided by the report of the Departmental Committee on Prisons (1895), chaired by Herbert Gladstone, the son of the prime minister, who would himself later become home secretary in Asquith’s government. Emphasising the importance of social conditions in the making of criminals, the Gladstone report gave priority to reformation over retribution as the aim of imprisonment.