Nina Kathleen Roberts, PhD candidate, supervised by David Andrew Roberts and Jenny Wise (funded by an Australian RTPS Scholarship).

This multidisciplinary study, sitting across Australian History and Criminology, examines the use of capital punishment and the commutation of death sentence (through the Royal prerogative of mercy) in post-Probation Tasmania. Set within the last period that Port Arthur operated as a penal settlement (1853-1877), the study is built on a cohort of 121 men and youths who were capitally convicted for crimes such as murder and rape but had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment or less. To understand why some males were reprieved and others were not a second group of 23 Port Arthur men who were executed are also being examined.

The study will cover topics such as the economic and social issues which bred crime in colonial Tasmania, changing penal policies and laws, public debates over the death penalty, colonial policing and contemporary advancements in criminal investigation techniques and forensic pathology. The research will also reflect on trial process from capture to incarceration or execution, inquests and autopsies, and the management and experiences of long-term incarcerates at Port Arthur.

Who were these men? How did they arrive at the point of being condemned to death? How were their fates decided and by whom? What was the purpose of capital punishment and how can this cohort be used to examine attitudes towards convicts and the death sentence? And, for those men sent to Port Arthur, how did their management differ from those sentenced for misdemeanors?