The "Bloody Code" was a series of laws in England, Wales and Ireland in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries which mandated the death penalty for a wide range of crimes.
[1][2][3][4] It was not referred to by this name in its own time; the name was given later owing to the sharply increased number of people given the death penalty, even for crimes considered minor by later standards.
"[8] Grand larceny was one of the crimes that drew the death penalty; it was defined as the theft of goods worth more than 12 pence, about one-twentieth of the weekly wage for a skilled worker at the time.
[11] With the American Colonies already in active rebellion, parliament claimed its continuance was "found to be attended with various inconveniences, particularly by depriving this kingdom of many subjects whose labour might be useful to the community, and who, by proper care and correction, might be reclaimed from their evil course."
Jurist William Blackstone said of the Bloody Code: It is a melancholy truth, that among the variety of actions which men are daily liable to commit, no less than a hundred and sixty have been declared by Act of Parliament to be felonious without benefit of clergy; or, in other words, to be worthy of instant death.Leon Radzinowicz listed 49 pages of "Capital Statutes of the Eighteenth Century" divided into 21 categories:[13] In 1823, the Judgement of Death Act 1823 made the death penalty discretionary for all crimes except treason and murder.