Published in 1862, this book is a comprehensive guide to crime and punishment in nineteenth-century London. Henry Mayhew (1812-87), a journalist and social reformer, argues for prison reform by demonstrating that all of London's penal institutions were ineffective in reforming criminals and did not adequately provide for the inmates.

Henry Mayhew (1812-87), social reformer and journalist, is well known for his classic work of research on the London poor (also reissued in this series) and as one of the co-founders of Punch magazine in 1841. While working as the metropolitan correspondent for the London Morning Chronicle, Mayhew initiated several investigations into London's poor and the state of the city's prisons. Sourcing his information from guards and from prisoners themselves, Mayhew's monumental study of London criminal life (co-written with John Binny and published in 1862) includes analyses of crime areas, crime classifications and the state of the different prisons connected to them, observations on juvenile delinquents, and methods of discipline and control of prisoners. The book also provides detailed police and criminal statistics. His survey ultimately concluded that all of London's prisons were lacking in basic human necessities and were greatly in need of reform.