Crime and Punishment

During the war there were multiple kinds of crimes that increased because of certain events. During the beginning of the war one of the crimes that increased was the involvement in teenage blackout gangs. This included violence and simple robbery (pick pockets). As the war continued and the London Blitz (air raid on London) happened, looting became a very popular crime as well. It was so popular that many well off men left their jobs because looting was more remunerative. Another crime increase due to the Blitz was fraud. The government started to pay compensation for people that were bombed out of their home and many people took advantage of these and claimed that they had been bombed out even if they hadn’t. Since there were so many people that were in similar situations the government had neither the time nor the people to investigate whether people or not people were lying. But they soon realized that they were paying more money then they should and hired extra staff to put some control to this matter. Another fraud began when the government decided to evacuate children out of the big cities. The billetors (people that took the children in) were given money for the children and many asked for the money without having taken in children or after the children left their home. The final crime big crime that went up dramatically due to the Blitz was murder. Some people took advantage of the bombing to kill people and bury them near a bomb cite to claim that they were killed during the bombing. One other important crime that went up during the war was the use of the black market. Many people traded goods in violation of the official regulations for survival or profit and it was a lot easier because the government was focused on other things. The final crime that went up was the breaking into the Home Guard. Raids on Home Guard increased tremendously because people (mostly teenagers) wanted guns and ammunition for themselves and to sell. In many of these cases the government increased their staff (which would cost money) to control many of these crimes and I believe that it was the one of the only ways they could have dealt with this. Another method would have to increase the punishment, so that people could fear it more and not commit the crime. However, overall I think the government did the best they could under the circumstances. I think their focus during the war was elsewhere and giving too much attention to these matters could have caused dramatic differences in the war results.