During the 17th and 18th centuries, crime and punishment in England were everything but predictable.There were no real police force and the crime rate was at an all-time high, therefore punishment of crime was the toughest it has been in English history. One could be tried and sentenced to death for shooting a rabbit, cutting down fruit trees, or being found on the King’s highway with a sooty face. In some cases, prisoners refused to speak in court, and in this instance, they would be stretched out on the ground and pressed with crushing lead weights until they spoke. Punishment was extreme and the need for low-cost punishment lead to over 200 offences susceptible to the death sentence by the late 1700s. Relentlessly, children and adults could be charged equally for crimes. This was not a good time to tried under the law.