Poverty makes for the most desperate of criminals. Their crimes are born of necessity—to feed, to cloth, to nurture—which can make them careless in their actions. Financiers, on the other hand, can sit and carefully discuss their plans to rob and steal with lawyers and bankers over four hour lunches in luxurious surroundings—picking their teeth, savoring wine. They are usually never careless—they have lawyers see to that—and are hardly ever caught. The poor, meanwhile, are far easier to catch. The women criminals of North Shields in Edwardian England were usually nabbed for “Larceny”—a catchall common law crime that involved “the unlawful taking of the personal property of another person or business.” This covered deeds as diverse as taking clothes from a washing line, stealing food from a table, or pinching personal belongings—jewels, money, etc. Most of the women who were brought into the police station in North Shields were charged with larceny—though some who were habitual were charged as “Thief.” In certain instances, larceny could also cover keeping a bawdy house, being drunk and disorderly or having no fixed abode. Most of the mugshots featured below are of women who have...